How About a Teasing Post?!

So, I cut my hair. I am six inches shorter. I did not know that I had it in me.
The short version is that I looked at my hair in the mirror and realized something: I had over four inches of dead, walking dead ends. My ends looked bad. Another thing is that my hair is naturally shaded with browns and reds. These hues caused my hair to look even more unhealthy. So I grabbed my shears and cut a whopping 6 inches off. I'm at my shoulders again. My goal: take care of my new healthy ends, wear more cute curly styles, rely on roller sets, grow out this cut and get closer to my goal of being fully texlaxed by the end of 2016.

Pictures? Here's a one, and you will get others tomorrow!!! :-)

Life Update + Hair Talk

In the beginning of 2014, I got into a relationship and was over the moon! This was a pic of our first date. I was so happy. My hair was pretty healthy here, APL.

This pic above this texr was in the summer of 2014. I didnt know it but my relationship was on its last leg and last month. I really loved how my hair looked. I was APL, but was suffering from a thin nape due to a rough sew in. I quit my job in May and decided to intern for my degree in June. July, my relationship was over. The stress caused me to lose my hair in clumps. Also in July, I finished my internship and applied amd got hired at the same place. So I started work in July. My hair was so damaged that I needed a serious cut.

In December, I graduated with my masters with full SL hair.

Here I am, grazing APL with bangs.

My degree is counseling.  I am a drug counselor. I counsel teenage boys who are addicted to drugs. I love my job. I am also super single. No man and no length really gained within the last year. I am super serious about my hair. This is my addiction. I would live to be BSL by christmas. I am using little heat, low manipulation styles and hopefullY SOME PROTECTIVE STYLES. I hardly keep them in. I have moved closer to my job. I am also near some salons. So hopefully I can get some versatility in the head region. 

My struggle is that I want to look, adult and professional in regards to my hair. I do not plan relinquishing my duties as primary hair caretaker. But im getting tired. Lol. 

In my transition to my new home, im lacking all of products in order to leave my mom with products. So I am using this opportunity to switch my regimen to a natural product regumen. As stated in the last post, im transitioning to texlaxed. 

Continue to follow my journey. 

Mwah!!!

OMG, I am back.....AGAIN!

Hello, people!!!
I have been gone for sooooooo long. But I wanted to come to you with a short blog! I am back and I going to be here in full effect. I wanted to explain a few things.

I had a really bad breakup in 2013.
I was working hard in grad school up until December 2014.
I got into a relationship in 2014, which ended up in a bad breakup.
I graduated from grad school.
I got a new job.
I MOVED!!!!!

I have done all of this and I have remained the same length, if not shorter.
However, I am here to work on not only gaining length, but to make another announcement. I will no longer relax my hair. I am currently transitioning to TEXLAXED hair. So I will be covering that journey here. I am currently overall APL, scattered texlaxed. I am not even TWA texlaxed. My next touchup will probably be in May. But I will cover everything in later blogs. My goal is to get you two posts a week. I am hoping that I will never go this long away from blog again.

In this blog, I will also show my new loves: minimal makeup application and 3D nail art. Please stay tuned with me as I transition back into a blogger.

I have missed y'all.
Stay tuned!

HAIR CUT

That's right. 

I woke up on the 21st and was itching for a haircut. After getting my sew in, I suffered significant breakage. I mean, my hair was choppy and uneven. It looked very unhealthy. I didn't want to even it because sections were so close to BSL. But I didn't care anymore. I wanted my ends blunt and that's what I did. I took time and washed, DCed my hair and added my leave in conditioners. Then I sectioned my hair into some sections and got to work. I cut it to a respectfully blunt full SL and I love the way it looks. 

My Felicia-inspired before pic lol 

Four inches lighter. 

I did this myself, only help was with a mirror. I think I did pretty darn good. 

Here is me with my hair shirt. My head is horribly crooked in this picture, but I am on line 5. I am hoping to be at line 7 for my next relaxer coming up on the very last week of July. With the help of some vitamins and castor and TLC on the ends, it's reachable. 

I love my results. My entire head looks even and at the same length. I believe that I can really thrive from this point. My hair looks healthy and the fullness of my ends are mesmerizing to me. Lol. I do not want to back up to SL, but with my hair looking like this, I have no regrets. 

Since my cut, I have been babying my ends already. No tight ponytails, no splitting my nape down the middle. About 80 percent of my hair is even and I am loving it. Some of my flexi rod sets did not turn out as cute as normal with the shorter cut, but it's updo week for me and you can't tell me that i am missing a few inches with the styles I have been rocking. 

Fridays updo

Sundays updo

Mondays updo. 

I will be rocking updos all of this week until Sunday!!!! It's my birthday on Sunday and I believe that I am going to cheat this one day and rock a roller set. I would love to see what some roller set curls would look like on this new blunt, hair-almost-even-and-the-same-length cut. If I DNT like it, I'll put it in an updo. It's supposed to rain all day on Sunday anyway. Lol. 

Until the next post,

Alexis 

Operation: Graduation Hair

Even though my pursuit of my masters degree is over, I will not actually march and receive my degree until December. So, until that day, why not show up to graduation with a head full of hair. So, I believe that I will be doing a few small challenges along the way plus my own challenge that will consist of SEVEN months of pure hair health related therapy.

So I decided to whip my hair into shape for my graduation. On December 13th, I am hoping for BSL hair or something close to it. The following is what I will be planning on doing:

-Protective Style at least 3 days
-Castor oil with every wash
-Oil scalp and ends with castor oil at least four days a week
-Leave in conditioners with every wash
-No blow dryers
-No trims

This should be givens during a HHJ, but this is hard for me. I made sure not to add anything that is more than what my hair is handling at the moment, because my hair is really thriving this year and it doesn't make any sense to fix anything that is not broken.

So, I will be taking it very slow and making sure to baby my hair every step of the way.

Until next time, and see you on December 13th (of course I will post before then),
Alexis

April Goals Review + May Goals

So, I'm late on posting my goals. But here is my issue: TMI but my birth control pills has me MISERABLE!!! I have only been on them 2 weeks and I have chronic headaches, stomach issues, breast pain and nausea. I look online at the reviews, and women have stated that their symptoms have mimicked pregnancy symptoms. o_O I immediately took myself off of them. Since then, my symptoms have slowly began to subside......thankfully.

I know, TMI, but on to the focus of the post.
April goals
-castor oil on ends and scalp every night - FAILED
Yea, I did awesome the first part of the month. I fell off after relaxing my hair on the 17th.
-JBCO in all April DCs - PASSED
Thankfully, I met this goal with ever wash in April. I'm so proud of myself. Lol.
Well, here we go with May!!! Goals will include:

-Hot oil treatments with every wash including castor oil

-castor oil on scalp every day

Until the next post,
Alexis

Emergency Relaxer Update (WARNING: Long Post)

Hello, ladies.
By the time you actually read this post, I will actually be a week post relaxer. You read correctly: I relaxed my hair on April 17th at 6 weeks post! I know 6 weeks is very soon to be relaxing hair on a HHJ, but I was losing my mind. I thought I was listening to my hair. SIGHS....here is the story:

I have been taking Hairfinity since the middle of January. My NG has been very thick, but not growing as fast as I thought it would on the vitamins. In the midst of all that, I ended up getting stressed out with my courses, work and family life. I was tossing and turning at night. My bonnet would come off every single night. I would see long hairs on my pillow every morning. I took two grad school classes in January, I was stressing HARD. My hair was coming out in the handfuls. I tried putting my hair in buns for days at a time so that I wouldn't have to deal with my hair. That didn't help. On wash days, I would lose mucho hair and I wasn't being rough at all. To put icing on the cake, I had to take my grad school comp the last day of February. The stakes got high for me for a while. AND my brother got into an accident.

In the end, my brother made a great recovery. I passed my two hard classes from January. I even made two 100s on my two finals. I started off practically failing one of these classes, and I ended up with an A and a B. I PASSED MY COMP! So, I am graduating this year from grad school. My work load at work started to ease up some. So, with this break come sudden destruction, lol. I decided to concentrate on my hair again fully.

The truth of the matter is, I have been getting really bored with my hair. I have been focusing on protection and limited manipulation that I have yet to enjoy my hair. I haven't been this length for so long, and all that is on my mind is hiding my hair. That mind frame has gotten old and I am casting it aside. I wanted to start anew with my hair. So this is what I have decided to do (and did).

I took time and eliminated the intense shedding and breakage I have had. I suffered tremendous breakage with that sew in I received in February. After I got that under control, I decided to relax my hair.

RELAXER PREP and APPLICATION:
-I prepped my hair with conditioner, a leave in, coconut oil and mixed oils. This was placed onto my length to prevent run off. My hair is fine naturally. I do not need any run off to cause any more breakage that I do not need.
-I based my scalp with castor oil. I also mixed up my relaxer and applied mixed oils in to slow down the process because of the amount of NG I had.
-I relaxed my hair with my Normal ORS relaxer with mixed oils. The entire application and smoothing process took 25 minutes.
-I rinsed the relaxer out and used my Elasta QP Stop Action Neutralizing Shampoo 6 times.
-After rinsing the shampoo out, I color rinsed my hair Radiant Black by Dark and Lovely.
-After leaving the color rinse on for 25 minutes, I rinsed it and applied my DC.
-My DC consisted of moisturizing conditioners and castor oil. I left it on for about 30 minutes and rinsed.
-After tshirt drying my hair, I applied my two leave ins: Crème of Nature Argan Oil Leave In and Elasta QP Spray Leave in. I spray the CON on my entire hair, from root to tip. I spray the Elasta on my edges and my ends. I put on a plastic cap and sat under a warm dryer for 10 minutes.
-After I got done, I just wrapped my hair and went to bed.
-The next day, I lost my bonnet in my sleep. So my wrap was a fail. But I walked around with my hair out and allowed it to air dry. Instead, I used my heat protectant and flat ironed my hair.

RELAXER AFTER THOUGHTS:
-I really liked the way I prepped my hair. I believe that it was a great prep. It succeeded with what I wanted it to do. I did not experience any breakage or weakening of my hair.
-My hair feels quite strong. I am really excited about that, especially being very soon after my relaxer.
-I have experienced some growth that I will share in a picture below. With growth means that I have retained!!! Yay!

So, Why Did I Relax So Soon Into This Stretch:
I wanted to give my hair a fresh start. I suffered some lost with my bonnet kept falling off. I suffered breakage with my sew in. I am bored with styles. I didn't have any idea what to do to my hair at a specific week post. So, I decided to break down a schedule of what style to do at certain weeks post:

Weekly Style Plan:
-Week 1 thru 2 - - - Saran Wrap Roller Set
-Week 3 thru 4 - - - Flexi Rod Set
-Week 5 thru 6 - - - Pincurl Updo
-Week 7 thru 8 - - - Braid out
-Week 9 thru 10 - - - Two Strand Twist with Satin Covered Sponge Rollers
-Week 11 thru 12 - - - Braids/weave/wigs/style (anything that I feel like doing this week)
-Week 13 thru 14 - - - Faux Ponytail (weave ponytail bun)
-Week 15 thru 16 - - - Natural Bun (using only my real hair for the bun)

I believe that I am going to incorporate this style regimen into my next stretch. I will be doing these styles for two full weeks. I have done a lot of research for this Style Plan. I believe that these are the best styles to incorporate with the amount of weeks I will be post relaxer. I believe that this style schedule will keep me from being bored with my hair, most importantly. I want to finally enjoy my hair. 

Even though I will be manipulating my hair at least once a week, I have not introduced any heat passages in this stretch. I am trying to go through one entire stretch without using heat. I have never done so, and I would love to say that I have gone through at least one stretch with no heat. With every wash, I will introduce castor oil into all of my DCs this stretch. I will use leave ins with every wash with heat.

I will follow this schedule for my next stretch. I will review this schedule after my next relaxer. We will see if this schedule has helped my hair. This will determine if this is helpful or should cut this out and move onto a new method of helping my hair.

Not only am I trying to help my hair, but I am trying to enjoy my hair at the same time. I have APL hair, and I am tired of hiding it. I want to enjoy my hair. I have a new significant other in my life, lol. I want to feel pretty and look pretty and my hair makes me feel pretty. Thankfully, this new person is not a stickler against weave. He said he wouldn't mind if I wear my weave or braids or wigs. YES! That is nothing like I went through with my last boyfriend. Out with the old and in with the new. LOL! Anyways, enjoy the pictures from this relaxer update.

In addition, look out for the following reviews:
I will have a review about my sew in.
I will have a review about my leave ins with heat.
I will be updating you on my mother's hair.
April Favorites Post!