Question: How did your family respond to your hair before/after HHJ???

I want to take the time out to thank my co-worker for asking me this question. My co-worker is natural, but we talk about hair and products all the time. I try not to talk to much about natural hair with natural people, because honestly, I believe that we (as hair types) would not understand each other and why we do certain things. Like I do not understand why she hasn't used shampoo in years. She doesn't understand why I would go so long with a relaxer (stretch); I might as well finish going natural. LOL. It is never any hard feelings, because I love to talk about hair. She does too, but she didn't want to seem hair obsessed. Girl, Please!!! I have been hair obsessed since I started this while ride I call my HHJ. I was explaining to her that I am involved on hair boards and blogs, and that I have my own blog that I rant about my findings and misfindings about hair, products, techniques, reviews, etc. Well, she asked a question that really struck a nerve with me. Well, let me clarify. She asked a question that was an extremely touchy subject for me at one part of my life. But, I put my big girl britches on, and I got over it. So, here I am, giving you a look into that conversation, and to paint this horrible picture that I called me struggle, lol.

Her question was, SO YOU ARE ON A HHJ NOW, BUT HOW WAS IT LIKE BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER YOU INITIAL START?

This is going to be a wordy blog, so if you have something to do, come back when you have alittle time. Lol! I am going to tell you my story first before I tell you my response to her.

Let me go back as far as elementary school. My mother did not know how to come hair, so I was forced at a very young age how to put my hair into ponytails. My mother was a big fan of bangs, So I had to have bangs in every hairstyle. My mother only hair curlers and rollers, so there were no such thing as flat bangs in my house. So, I was forced the rock the big poofy bangs to school. I had all of this poofy hair and these big bangs; it was like being a walking target. I was picked on for my hair everyday. I would come home crying and my mother would say that infamous line, "They are jealous of you hair." RIGHT! I couldn't believe that someone would make you feel that bad about yourself because they were jealous. I mean, come on! Where do they do that at? Lol. In middle school, my mother let my straighten my hair with hot combs. So, I was this natural-hair girl with this big, massive cape of hair behind her. At this point, I was about WL. I was teased about coming to school looking so homeless with my hair like that. Really, homeless? I don't know where it came from but it made me upset. Now that I think about it, why didn't my mother just ever put my hair into a big ball. I bet that would have been cute. But back to the point, let me take you away from school and into my homelife. My father's mother is white. She married a black man and they have three mixed children: two girls and a boy. The boy is my father. Only one sister had a daughter, and boy was my older cousin kept up. She always had very nice clothes on. She always had her hair so pretty. The family doted on her. But here I was, that side of the family did not dote on me like they did her. And that was fine. I wasn't into all of that cute this and pretty that. Soon, my dad's family became very hurtful. They were almost as bad as the people I had to deal with at school. They would talk bad about me and my hair, to my face. It was worse than anything I ever experienced in school. One day during these times, my older cousin and I went to stay with sister with no daughter. She told me that She wanted to take US to the hair salon and the THREE of us would get our hair done. Well, they got their hair done, and I was the purse watcher. It felt so bad to sit there, thinking that I was going to share in the spa experience, only to be let down. Then later, my aunt would tell me that she did not think that I would have appreciated it because I let myself look so disheveled all of the time. o_O Things like this  follow you for life, you feel me?
Fast foward into high school days, I got a part time job working with my uncle in his little store. So, he would pay me alittle money on the side. I would save that money and finally was getting my hair done by a professional. It was a wonderful feeling. At this point, this was not my first time going to a salon, but it was the first time that I was calling all of the shots. I was going to the salon once a month, and I was feeling pretty good about myself when I was coming out. My hair was looking good. I was paying for it to be done. By me doing all of this, I was cutting down MOST of the bullying that was going on. You know they will always be some naysayers and salt throwers, lol.  But nevertheless, I was feeling good. In high school, I was getting compared to my cousin mighty hard then. I was getting sick of it. Both of us had very long hair, my hair was actually longer than hers. BUT I was still getting compared to here, like I had no name, like I had no personality of my own. So One day, I went to the salon for one of those monthly trips and asked her to cut my WL hair to NL! She did not want to do it. She actually cried cutting my hair. But when my hair was falling onto the floor, I felt like I was finally emerging as my own person. There would be no more comparison, right? Sure, I would be known as the fool who cut all of her hair off, but at least the name they would give me would be one of my own, and not "That's so-and-so's cousin. She tries so much to be like her."
I graduated high school with relaxed, APL hair. During my senior year, the bullying was not so bad. By this time, I was learning how to do a few bun tricks that really saved me for weeks on end without washing and styling and applying heat. I even cut down my visits to the salon about four a year that year. So graduation was in 2006. Skip ahead to December 2008, I decided after watching alot of videos on HHJs, it was time for me to whip my hair back into shape. So on December 8th, I was officially obsessed with my hair. As far as who knows about my obsession, only my mom knows to the full extent. Everyone just does not know. When I first started, I went and bought a lot of products to try. My mom was so against it. She told me that my hair was going to fall out because I was putting too much in my hair and that I wasn't getting a relaxer regularly. But I had faith in the videos. Also, I am in the business of proving people wrong. So I had to prove my mom wrong. The first year of my HHJ, my hair did not flourish. I was disappointed, until someone told me that my hair looked very thick. So, I picked myself back up and worked alittle harder. 2010 came and my hair was starting to show alot of progress. At this time, my mom was taking notes and wanted me to help her with her from that point on. I took that as the white flag of surrender. I had proved my mom wrong. It was exciting, but that wasn't my mission. Deep down, my mission was to grow beautiful, healthy, long hair. In the back of my mind, I also wanted to show my grandmother and my aunts on my father's side that my hair can be awesome, too. Well, come 2011, my hair is thick and falling down my back. Here came the infamous "weave-checks." I got weave-checked by those three so many times, that I have lost count. At first, I was really offended. "After all of this hard work, you still cannot believe that this is my hair?!" But now, it doesn't bother me. If anything, it just makes me feel even better. Because my hair is continuing to flourish and they cannot believe that it is all mine. I purposely wear buns and ponytails around them just to keep them guessing about what is my length and all. Here it is, 2012. They hype about my hair has subsided. I am hardly getting weave-checked anymore, lol. I believe the got the picture: its my hair. But sadly, the things they have done and said to me have been permanently scarred to my heart. I feel bad because I would have thought family would have uplifted you more than anyone else. I was very wrong.

I answered my co-worker's question like this: GIRL, WHEN I STARTED THIS HEALTHY HAIR JOURNEY, I WAS EXCITED BECAUSE I WANTED MY HAIR BACK LONG AND PRETTY. HEALTH WASN'T ON MY MIND, BUT I HAD TO LEARN THAT TO ACHIEVE LONG HAIR, YOU HAVE TO ACHIEVE HEALTHY HAIR FIRST. YOU CANNOT  GET FLOWERS TO BLOOM IF THE STEMS ARE NOT IN TIP TOP SHAPE, RIGHT? RIGHT BEFORE MY HHJ, I WAS READY TO BE ONE OF THOSE WEAVE QUEENS. I WAS READY TO CONSTANTLY HAVE BRAIDS AND WEAVE IN MY HAIR BECAUSE I DESPISED MY HAIR SO MUCH. INSTEAD, YOUTUBE VIDEOS AND HAIR CARE BLOGS HAVE SAVED MY HAIR AND HAVE SAVED MY CONFIDENCE. THERE IS NOTHING MORE CONFIDENT THAN THE FEELING OF YOU DID IT, AND YOU DID IT YOURSELF. WHEN I FIRST GOT ON MY JOURNEY, I WAS SCARED BECAUSE I THOUGHT ANY WRONG MOVE WOULD TAKE MY HAIR OUT. THANKFULLY, I HAVE NOT HAD ANY KIND OF SETBACKS. ALSO, THE BEST THING ABOUT GETTING INTO YOUR OWN JOURNEY IS THAT YOU ARE EDUCATING YOURSELF. SO, WHEN YOU ARE OUT AND ABOUT AND YOU ARE SHOPPING OR SOMEONE IS TRYING TO SELL YOU SOME TYPE OF HAIR PRODUCT, YOU ALREADY KNOW ALITTLE SOMETHING RIGHT? AFTER BEING BLESSED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE YOU ALREADY KNOW, YOU WILL NEVER WANT TO DO WRONG BY YOUR HAIR AGAIN. SINCE BEING ON MY HHJ, I HAVE NOT WANTED TO GO BACK AND DO HARM BY MY HAIR. I CANNOT SEE MYSELF DOING BAD BY MY HAIR AGAIN.

So, that was the question. That was also the extremely long answer. I am so grateful that she asked me this so that I could take a stroll down memory lane, lol. It was very hard to talk about some of this because what my family did to me was heartbreaking. It doesn't seem like much, but I am a very family oriented person. I felt like my family was turning their backs on me. I felt like my family could not accept me. I felt like I had to be someone that I am not just so that I could get some kind of reaction or acceptance from my family. In the end, my family is still here. They have upsetted me in the past, and I have forgiven them. But that does not mean that you are supposed to forget. I use that time and experience as foundation for me to continue on. Sometimes, family is not there for you. That to me is rock bottom. So, you have nothing to do but pick yourself up and start climbing.

Thanks to everyone who read this extremely long blog post.
Until next time, XOXO!

My Hair Used to Make Me Its Prisoner

THIS POST HAS BEEN IN MY DRAFTS FOR WHILE. I DECIDED TO POST IT TODAY. IF YOU HAVE BEEN KEEPING UP WITH BLOG, SOME OF THE THINGS YOU WILL READ WILL SOUND VERY FAMILIAR AND VERY REPETITIVE, BUT PLEASE BEAR WITH ME, LOL.


"What are you talking about, Lex?" Well,  I am glad that you asked. Let me go back in the year of 2006. I grew my hair out from this dramatic cut. My hair was about APL. I was not on a HHJ. I did not have a lot of passion into my hair care. I did not wear a bonnet to bed regularly. I relaxed every 5 weeks. Yea, it was an easy going life for my hair. BUT, I was not having any problems with my hair. I wasn't using  heat, though. I graduated high school in 2006 and started my freshman year August of the same year. Here I wanted to experiment with coloring my hair, so I started by all of these sprays and dyes. I wanted lighter hair. Even though these color were not permanent, I experience devastating issues. I had extreme breakage and dandruff. I once again cut my hair back to EL to rid my hair of bad ends.
2007 comes and went with my hair's health about the same. But I still was not putting in much effort to help.
In 2008, I graduated from my community college and went to a university. So my very first class here, I would meet what would later be my boyfriend. When I met him, I have full SL hair. I was in a seat in this music class, and Michael (my bf) sits down besides me. He introduced himself, and told me that he was going to cheat off of me in this class. He hit a soft spot with me; I love a man that can make me laugh. So, I was hooked from that day on...but back to the story...I didn't know him and he didn't know me but he was constantly putting his hands in my hair and running his hands in my hair! I did not know this boy, but he was all up in my hair. Even crazier, I did not stop him nor did I complain about it. Why? Because I was not this obsessed person about my hair. It was ok for people to touch my hair. December of this same year was when I decided that I needed to get on a HHJ.

2009 of my HHJ, me and then good friend Michael was talking at my apartment, and then he reached for my hair to rub it. I jumped on him like a spidermonkey. "DO NOT TOUCH MY HAIR!" He looked like I was having an exorcism. I felt weird, too. What is happening to me? Why am I acting so crazy about my hair? I apologized, but we laughed because it was so funny. But deep down, I was serious. I did not want anyone touching my hair anymore. What's the deal? I started to realize then that my HHJ was starting to take over. You would not believe the things I have missed out on. I did not got to clubs, parties and concerts. Why? Because I did not want to smoke out my hair or sweat my hair. I did not go swimming or participated in water activities on campus. I could not trust the water. You already know I did not participate in the college sponsored food fights -____- Really?

In 2010, Michael and I decided to make it official and became exclusive. The last two and a half years have been totally ridiculous. I did not let anyone touch my hair hardly. I haven't been to a stylist since 2010. Before then was 2008. Trust me, it was only one visit each of those years. I refused to let anyone other than me relax my hair. Some of my close friends called me sadity with my hair. Really? I didn't think I was being weird about it, but I did grow my hair back from the countless things and people who have hindered my hair from growing. There have been nights where I would not get any sleep because I was forcing myself to toss and turn to make sure my bonnet and scarf was not coming off at night. I was getting ridiculous.

Even with heat passes, I felt guilty about flat ironning my hair. Even though I had went so long without heat, I still feel like I was harming my hair. To subside my guilty feelings, I researched the best heat protectants that I could find and money could by. I only flat iron and blow dry my hair on the lowest of low settings. Still, I would feel like I was sticking a lighter to my hair. Why? Because I felt like that I was basically doing the same thing with any type of heat, small in amount or not. The same goes for wrapping. I felt like I was tearing my hair out of my head wrapping. So, now I feel like wrapping (wet or dry) is the enemy. But now, I have decided that I am going to do better.

So, what do I mean about BETTER? Well, I haven't been able to enjoy my hair because I have been so tied up with health, health, health where I refuse to enjoy it. Granted, I feel like protecting my hair means hide your hair and not enjoy it at all unless you want to be thin and/or bald tomorrow. Silly, right? But this has been my reality. I have decided that I am going to enjoy my hair FINALLY. I i may have not reached major length goals, but my hair is the healthiest that it has ever been. It is very thick and it has a lot of body. It is time for me to show it off and love it without putting too much effort into hiding it. So, what am I going to do different, now? Well, I am going to do more roller sets and flexi rod sets. My facial frame looks so good with a head full of curls. Why not feel pretty and feminine? Why should I deny myself a moment to feel good inside and out? So more curls it is. I am planning on doing countless amount of curls from January to March. I am also going to do a couple more sets before the year is out. Another thing that I am going to do is updos rather than buns. My hair tends to look very thin in buns; from here, my buns look very shoddy. My buns make me feel unattractive because the styles never look attractive. So, I am doing research on how to do my own updos. In the past month, I have attempted about three updos. They looked so full and pretty and feminine. I really enjoyed wearing them because they offer so much versatility in my styles.  So, now I would rather wear an updo than a regular bun. I am going to wear a few weaves so that I can give my hair a break. I am only interested in wear half sew ins. I rather would wear a weave so that the back of my hair could get a break from hair ties, hair wrapping and giving my nape a break. I am trying to learn how to properly wrap my hair without losing much hair. Twist outs are not working for me anymore (unless I just want a textured bun). I am going to start doing braid outs again. I haven't did braid outs in months.

My goal for here on out is to wear my hair in the most healthiest and cutest styles. So, be on the look out for a full blog post of pictures of everything that I am going to start doing.

I have never committed a crime, so I refuse to let my hair hold me as its prisoner anymore.

XOXO

Hair Love!!! Buying more tools...

As in tools, I mean more flexi rods. I love flexi rods! Aren't they just grand?! Well, maybe I am more excited than the next person, but flexi rods have been a godsend. I have been experimenting with all types of styles which includes flexi rods. My goal was to have the larger flexi rods at the beginning of this month, but the way my finances were set up....

In other words, due to Hurricane Issac, I could not go to work and was forced to seek shelter during those days. So, I did not get paid for those days, and my check looked like "hell date" as my boyfriend Michael would so nicely put it. Here, I am. I am picking up the pieces and trying to resume ordering helpful tools to give me that push in my HHJ. So, I have order 11/16'' size flexi rods. They are grey and I cannot wait until they get in! Actually, I can. You see, the way my finances are set up, I only bought one pack, lol. Oh well, another pack will be ordered before the end of this week. I have a list of other things to buy to incorporate in my HHJ. For one, I am interested in buying a new dryer. This is my second dryer. The first one smoked on me and I refused to put my house at risk, lol. My second dryer has not been taken care of. I was unable to take it to my fire-alarm sensitive apartment because it was unable to handle the heat that was put off by the dryer. My mother did not take care of it while it was at home, lol. Second, I am interesting in buying another flatiron. I would love a better one. I have bought sprushes and I cannot wait until I do my finally review on them. I am looking into a great coating for my length while relaxing, so that will be on my list. I have bought four bottles JBCO, and I have not look back. I will do my review on them. I am interesting in finding a better bonnet that covers all of my hair from my nape to my temples. So, I am still looking for a great alternative than the one I already have. Most of the things that I have forementioned, I probably will not get until the beginning of the year, lol. BUT I am on the hunt for them now, and I will not rest until I get what my hair deserves, lol.

Until next post...XOXO

To Hide My Hair or To Not Hide My Hair

My Hairlicious Ego is a blog written by me, Alexis. Alexis (which is me) is a 24 year old college graduate who is entering grad school this month. HOWEVER, in my household, I am under such strict rules that I could pull my hair out. These rules I speak of are anything from what time to come in, asking permission to go places, chores to do at home and WEAVE. Yes, weave. I cannot get weave in my household. I am so mad that my decisions about my hair can only go so far. My parents do not believe that women should wear weave. They believe that it is unnatural; they believe that it is ghetto and too fake looking. However, weave can offer good and bad results. Weave gives your real hair a break. If I was to put a sew-in in my hair, my hair could be given a break from combing, brushing and hair ties. Weaves could act as buffers and they could soak the moisture from you real hair, leaving your real hair dry and possibly neglected. Also, there is the point about who are you letting in your head. Can you really trust just anyone to do weaves in your hair. My answer is no. Possible candidates for styling your hair should be thoroughly research. I don't care how you do, but do it. LOL. There is a girl in my neighborhood who just got out of hair academy. She is young with an arm baby, so I wanted to patronize her. But I was still going to do my research. So, she is legitmately license. Ok. So, I started asking other people about her skills. Her best friend works with me at the little job that I am at. Well, I asked her about her friend's skills. The best friend told me that she would rather the girl just do her weaves and not her real hair because she do not believe this girl is "caring" enough about real hair. Now, I do not know what she meant by the statement, but it could have been nothing good. I am putting this stylist on the back burner for right now. I am not ready to lose any progress or get my hair torn out or whatever she meant by that comment. However, I just learned that my cousin is doing sew-ins. My cousin is one of those girls who are not licensed, but she has had several happy cousin. I believe that I am going to let her do them. Yes, I am going to take the risk. My cousin and I are extremely close, so I believe that I can talk to cousin about how I would appreciate TLC when working with my hair. I do not believe that it too much to ask for.

To hide my hair or to not hide my hair. I wrote a blog post earlier about how I am ready to reach APL and no longer predict goals. I would have loved to hide my hair for the rest of the year, but my parents would not care for the weave. I am leaving the weave a secret. I am planning to get a secret sew-in on November 1st and leave it in until December 1st. I am trying to get to APL by my December relaxer. I believe that hiding my hair will be the best thing for me. I really feel confident in hiding my hair for a month. Another thing, this will be my very first sew-in. So, what do you think: should I hide my hair or should I listen to my parents and do it the old fashion, hard way? I would love feedback!!!

XOXO

Venting: Not Meeting Hair Goals When You Want To

It is Sunday and I am sick. I am actually better than I was Thursday. Today, I got me two shots in the back side and three prescriptions, so I am slowly getting better. I was sitting here reading a couple of blogs and decided that I wanted to vent. This has been on my heart for a while. Its going down on this post.
This is going to be a short post, so don't go away too fast.

Ok, I have been waiting for lengths are lengths, but I am not getting anywhere. Sometimes, I want to tear my hair out because it is not growing how I want it to grow. It has been four years almost, why have I not been able to claim APL yet? Why haven't I made it to BSL yet? Is MBL and WL even an option for me? I have seen where my hair has become extremely healthy and I am very grateful for that. At first, all I was about was length, length, length. I wasn't even thinking about any health. Later in my HHJ, I realized that without healthy hair that there cannot be any longer hair. So, I swallowed my pride and gave my hair TLC. Paying extra attention my hair has paid off. At first, my hair took awhile to adjust to the kind of love I was giving it. My hair was actually repelling what I was doing. If I was doing a protein treatment, DC, relaxer, stretch, moisturizing, sealing, flat-ironning, simply looking at it...my hair would not take nor budge. It took ONE YEAR before my hair recognized that I was trying to right by it. So my hair started thanking me, by complying to the different things I was trying to do. My hair is still extremely stubborn, but I have to listen closely to what it want because it will take absolutely nothing for it to revert back to an non-healthy place. It sounds crazy, but it is just the truth. So, I may have not reached goals, but I am excited that my hair is healthy. Lately, I have not been in the mood to style my hair worth anything. With that being said, I will go out into public and people would say, "I heard your hair was looking good, but it seems like I got some wrong info." LOL. I get so tickled. I rather pin my hair down than be a slave to keeping my hair up at this point. I have not been enjoying my hair. So I am at that stage where I am "resting" from trying to hide my hair from others. So, maybe it will look a little crazy (by crazy, my hair is actually in a pinned bun), but I love my hair and that means a lot coming from me. I used to hate my hair and hide countlessly. But I am going to enjoy it, despite the fact that I have not made it to major landmarks. I will not stress myself about this anymore. By my December relaxer, I am hoping to be a naturally fallen APL (meaning that my hair is naturally APL without stretching my length). This will be my finally landmark goal. Come January 2013, I will continue to take care of my hair as properly. BUT, I will not longer predict length goals. It is added stress that I rather do without right now. I am about to enjoy my hair, what are you about to do with yours???

XOXO

OMG!!!!!!!!!!! GRAD SCHOOL NEWS!

Yes, this is a grad school post. I am writing this post because I am so grateful for what has taken place in my life. Some of you may already know the story: how I applied to the nearest grad school near my house, only to be denied. Yes, it was heartbreaking. I even cried. I was beyond disappointed.

I applied to another grad school immediately after I was denied from my first school, and I was accepted. WHOO HOO! But that is old news. The sad part about this was that I was late about applying and that I could not start school until January 2013. I was grateful, BUT I knew I was going to be bored out of my mind. So, I started trying to find things that would make the time go by faster, lol.

Well, today, I was calling the school I was accepted to, just to make sure that I was going to start registering for the spring classes on time. The woman on the other end told me that the official spring schedule was not out yet, BUT if I wanted to I COULD REGISTER FOR CLASSES THIS SEMESTER. I am like, "Are you sure?" She told me to register and get an early start on things. So, GUESS WHAT? I am officially registered to start grad school THIS YEAR, THIS MONTH. I have twenty days until I begin grad school classes. I am so grateful. I am so thankful. I am so blessed. Words cannot express my happiness. I was once very sad and felt very lost because things did not go the way I had planned for it to happen. But the Lord had other plans and I am grateful for the plan He has for me. So follow my career journey by following my career blog:
http://immadomeandloveit.blogspot.com/

THANKS FOR READING!

DIY flexi rod updo

Last night I decided to try an updo. I slicked my sides and back down. I also pinned the sides down and left my front out. I wet the hair that was left out and applied a few flexi rods in. This morn, I took my rods out and fluffed out my hair. I love it. Its new. Its different. I believe that I am going to continue to perfect this so that I can have this style in my style Rolodex, lol.