The Natural Hair Guide

Quarantine and Natural Hair

So I don't know about you, but since lockdown began my hair has definitely taken a back seat. I usually like to wash it once a week because otherwise it becomes an unmanageable, tangled mess. Recently I'm lucky if it's once a week. 

Honestly, life has been quite hectic and I said I'd be posting regularly (famous last words lol) before but I don't even know what happened. Anyways, let's talk quarantine and natural hair.

When lockdown first started I saw TONS of Youtubers talking about how now is the time to grow out our natural hair (even though I've seen many women opting to big chop during this time too). I decided, heck, why not try and grow my hair out before the summer? For those of you who have been around for a while you may remember my previous chapter about "Operation Waist Length) and my 6 month hair challenge. Well...it's been so long since then that I don't really remember how that all played out but let me update you on my hair since then. This can be considered a fresh chapter where I write about a bigger variety of things in this book. I also want to start adding more pictures of my hair because I'm always describing it like y'all can see it.

So I'm going to refer back to quite a few chapters in this post. Mainly: Operation Waist Length, some of my product reviews and Things I am doing to grow my hair.

All I really have to say for OWL is that yeah, my hair is not at waist length yet! I'm not mad because I kind of took a bit of a hiatus, as I mentioned in my last update, so I'm not really surprised. Plus I have kind of been out of the "awkward stage" I was in for a while which is why I think I started bothering less with my hair.

So my last length check just over 2 years ago I think) was:

Front: 12", Middle: 12", Back: 12".

At that point in time, I was going through a box braid phase so I rarely wore my hair in buns or just out. I've also now coloured my hair many times since then and tested out many more new products (I think I'm going to probably do a lot more product reviews as I have so many I could do). So honestly I should've probably measured my hair again because this is from 2 weeks ago and I haven't touched my hair since but I can't wash my hair until I get my shampoo (another perk of lockdown).

Oh, forgot to add that I now measure my left and right side separately as they are sometimes quite different.

Left - Front: 16", Middle: 14.5", Back: 13".      Right - Front: 15.5", Middle: 15", Back: 13".

So as you can see the back of my hair is quite a bit shorter than the rest but I'm working on it. But overall my hair is roughly borderline MBL.

Next! The things I were going to do to grow my hair and whether or not they are still a part of my routine today.

Trimming my hair when needed - I could probably do with a trim right now TBH but whenever I see split ends or knots, I accept defeat and just cut them straight out now without wrestling with my hair.

Doing scalp massages - I don't know if I ever did even include this in my regimen but I definitely don't do it anymore. Nothing ultimately wrong with it, I'm just quite lazy. I also prefer to be massaged rather than massaging myself.

Using the LOC method - I still use a variation of this but depending on my hair's state on the day, it's sometimes the LCO method instead.

Monthly protein treatment - Recently this has turned into a weekly protein treatment due to my hair needing reviving after colouring it the last time. It's important to know your hair so you don't experience protein overload but I will still probably continue to use protein fairly frequently for now as my hair feels so much better with it.

Baggy method - haven't done that in a hot minute. Who knows, maybe I'll have to revisit that one again and do a 2020 version. 

Protective styling - erm... yeah I only ever wear my hair in buns so I definitely still do that. I'm going to challenge myself to try out some more new hairstyles soon because I'm pretty bored of my same 2 variations.

Minimal combing/manipulation - I don't finger detangle anymore because I just have too many knots when I do so it's me and my wide tooth comb for life! I will occasionally use a brush but only really if I'm braiding or twisting my hair.

Using JBCO on edges - definitely stopped doing that a while ago. I did realise though that my edges weren't really thinning I've just always had a bit of a dodgy hairline so not much I can do about that (I don't think anyway).

Monthly length checks - well recently it's mostly just been whenever I happen to take my hair out and wash it but the longest I wait is a month so I still do that. It does help me to alter anything that I'm trying out when it's clearly not really working.

Spraying hair with water daily - *backs up slowly* I already mentioned I'm pretty lazy. I'm forgetful too. So if I do remember then yes, I do spray my hair but honestly I forget like 80% of the time because I'm a professional procrastinator. 

Finally, the product review updates. BTW, I apologise for the really choppy post I have no clue why I even wrote it looking like this but oh well. 

The Shea Moisture Smoothie actually made a return to my regimen for a while but I think it has now been permanently binned unless I just happen to have some on hand. It's really not the worst thing in the world, but there is most certainly a lot better. I won't go into this too much now but my all-time favourite deep conditioner since like 6 months ago is the SM manuka honey and mafura oil hair masque. 

Eco styler Gel: Olive Oil. Oh how I've changed so much! If you've read the post I mentioned how I never buy gel but I love this one and blah blah blah. There's now never a time where I don't have gel in my cupboard. However, this particular eco styler turned out to be one of my least favourites once I tried the rest of them despite so many people preferring this one. I've tried 8/9 of them and I'll probably do a separate super short post breaking them down just in case anyone wants to branch out and try one. So, no I don't use this anymore.

OGX Argan Oil Shampoo and Conditioner. I found a better conditioner but I still use a shampoo from the same company. I've really tried out so many products recently so I'll probably have to do a "my 5 favourite..." video for most of them. 

Whew. That's it. I promise I didn't even intend for this to be so long but I obviously had quite a lot to say. I'm not making any promises so don't hold me accountable I'll try my hardest to post every day until the 5th June to make up for my absence.

Let me know what you've been doing with your hair in quarantine. Current hair products. Length goals. Anything. 

I mentioned this before but I have a blog now (I will be WAY more active on that too) but I post different aspects of my hair journey on there that I probably won't post on here and vice versa. I'm still working on a bunch of other stuff on the side but honestly I think that's for another book. If you get the chance to check it out the link is: www.kinkstherapy.com

Until next time (I won't disappear for 8 months again I promise!).