Hair Update.

Hello my lovelies! I hope you’re all staying warm during these dark and colder days. I’m loving these colder days, but I will say that this year I’m feeling the cold quite a bit more because I cut all my hair off in March as many of you know! My last hair update was around April, which I can’t believe was 8 months ago; so I figured I would give you another update because my hair has changed a lot recently!

So, let’s jump in to how my hair has looked over the course of the last few months!

First up, we’ve got March, where I finally took the plunge and shaved my hair off, which is still one of the best decisions I’ve ever made not only for my hair health but also for my mental health. I never believed everyone when they said that shaving their hair off was super liberating and freeing, but it really was and it completely shifted my views on my own beauty.

March 2020!

Next up we’ve got April, where I made the decision to trim my hair every two weeks and then at the end of April I made the decision to grow out my hair and see what my curls look like when they’re completely healthy!

April 2020!

After deciding to start growing my hair out, we’ve got May, and my hair is a little bit longer; but it’s not a length where it can be styled yet!

May 2020Q

Next up we’ve got June! June is when my hair got to a length that it could actually be styled, and I ended up going pink for about 2 weeks!

June 2020!

In July I was able to actually get my hair trimmed and then I went back to being a brunette so my hair could grow out as my natural colour without my roots being super bold! Here I had a brief moment where my hair was long enough to be styled, and due to my hair type I could make it fairly straight when I brush it out and dry it without a diffuser, so that’s what I started doing.

July 2020!

Next up is August, and here is when my curls and waved started to come back in full force! I stopped drying my hair to avoid any heat damage, but on the off chance I did dry my hair with a diffuser I used heat protectant spray.

August 2020!

In September I had about 2 weeks of straightening my hair to try and make myself look a little more presentable when going out and about because my hair was getting to a length where the sides were sticking out a bit too much, and then I decided to just go for it and let my crazy hair be what it wants to be.

September 2020!

Next up is October, where my hair health is back in full force and my curls are finally at a point where they’re crazy bouncy and feel super soft. This month I also decided to dye my hair with a semi-permanent dye, which ended up staying permanent (a happy accident!).

October 2020!

And finally, here I am now! I’ve found a method/routine that works well for me, and my curls are now insane! My hair is finally shiny, soft and super bouncy, which I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get before I shaved my head! Some mornings my hair looks absolutely insane, a bit like I’ve been dragged through a hedge, but most mornings that can be hidden with a headband or refreshed with my spray bottle.

November 2020!

So.. that’s where I’m at with my hair now! I’m not going to lie, I now don’t feel like myself when my hair isn’t its natural texture, even if it does look a little crazy from time to time!

My current routine involves washing my hair with shea moisture manuka honey shampoo, following up with shea moistures manuka honey conditioner, then shea moistures strengthen and restore styling lotion and finally a little bit of twisted sistas gel! Then I go in and add a spritz of heat protection spray and diffuse until my hair is 90% dry. Then I scrunch it out and fluff!

I straightened my hair yesterday to check its length and I’m nearly at a short bob/mullet length now, so I can’t wait to check my hair length again in a few more months to see how long it is!

I used to hate having to look after my hair, but now I love looking after my hair and usually dedicate one day in the week to do a hair mask and just chill.

How do you like to take care of your hair? Have you had any big hair transformations over the last year? Show me on insta!

And with that, that’s all from me for today! Have a great weekend my loves!

Love,

in

Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid To Change Up Your Hair.

Happy Saturday my lovelies! How’s 2020 treating you so far? With us now in the new year, it can feel like the perfect time of the year to experiment with our appearance, whether that be by playing with makeup more (or less, you do you!), wearing new clothes that are out of your comfort zones or, you could switch up your hair.

Just before Christmas I did just that, I decided to get a big hair cut. Here’s how it happened, like how all of these sorts of decisions start for me, it began on Pinterest. I fell head first into the gorgeous hair pins rabbit hole and couldn’t stop pinning these incredible hair inspo photos for hours on end. It was a few hours before I noticed a pattern with the pins I kept adding to my boards; for one everyone had amazing natural waves and curls, and number two, they were all a lot shorter than my hair was at the time.

Lucky for me, I am all for changing up my hair, they only hair length I haven’t gone is the buzz cut, and for the longest time I’ve wanted to shave my head. Who knows, maybe 2020 will be the year for the buzz cut! Like many of you I imagine that like me you probably get the urge to chop all of your hair off when it’s long and vice versa.

Well my hair was below my collar bone, and had been for quite a while as I’ve been undergoing a hair health transformation which has led to me finding new ways to care for my hair and my natural waves and curls. If you want to see what my hair journey has been like then please check out my previous post on it here!

I debated getting my hair cut for a few weeks, and then I figured I would just go for it. I had decided I was going to go a little shorter and get a curly wavy fringe to go with the look. Because you know, what’s something all girls debate for weeks when it comes to hair… to fringe or not to fringe?

Knowing that my hair will grow back, I decided to book in for a hair appointment that same day and off I went to my local salon to get the big chop.

So, what did my hair look like before? Well here’s how long it was before the cut:

You can’t always tell the length of hair when it’s curly, and here it may not look that long to you, but when it was straight it was below my collar bone near my bust. Also, something you can’t see here is that the ends of my hair are still slightly damaged from how much I used to straighten it, so I was happy to get the last of my damaged hair chopped off.

So, what’s my hair looking like now you ask? Well… take a look!

My hair is certainly a lot shorter here that it was! But it as a whole lot healthier and it takes me half of the time it did before to do my hair which is great. I did have a curly wavy fringe for a little while which was super cute, but I am trying to keep my hair off my face as much as I can at the minute so my acne doesn’t flair up too bad on my forehead, so I’ll show you that another day.

My plan now is to grow my hair again, because it’s finally in a healthy place and I don’t plan on burning it to death again, so it’ll grow faster now that I actually know how to look after my curls. And if I decided to do another big chop in the future, so be it!

I’ve always been of the mindset that hair is hair and that it will grow back, so why not experiment and get it cut or coloured and try something new. I love all hair types, textures and lengths, they’re all beautiful in their own ways, and changing things up every now and again is so much fun for me!

Plus, I find sitting in the salon chair super relaxing and I could easily let a stylist cut all my hair off or dye it any colour if they wanted! Lots of people told me not to cut my hair because it was finally getting long, but here’s the thing.. it’s MY HAIR. ON MY HEAD. So.. thanks for the input but I’mma do me thanks.

Moral of the story:

Experiment with your hair! Have fun with it and don’t be afraid to try something new on a whim, because who knows, it might become your favourite look yet, and when it comes to trying something new, it’s your opinion that matters most, no one elses!

And with all of that said, what’s your hair like? Do you like to experiment with different styles and cuts? Let me know in the comments!

Have a great rest of the weekend my lovelies!

Love,

I Embraced My Natural Curls.

This week I’m telling you about a change I decided to start about 4 1/2 weeks ago. And it’s to do with my hair. Now, I’ve done a post about my hair journey before, and you can read that here! But recently I found something called ‘The Curly Girl Method’, and it’s said to be the best way to embrace your natural kinks, curls and waves, and apparently makes your hair healthy and teaches you how to properly manage your hair.

Before I get into what the curly girl method is and what’s involved, I’ll tell you a little about my relationship with my hair. For years and years and years I knew I had curly hair, and I know now that my natural hair is beautiful, but for the longest time I felt like having slightly messy curly hair with a bit of frizz wasn’t very attractive (except when someone else had it… typical!) and that straight and sleek is the only way my hair should be.

I guess it was something that I unfortunately learnt from lack of representation of people with natural hair! I mean, it wasn’t until Disney’s Brave that there was a princess with natural curly (and a bit unruly.. but fab) hair! And how long did that take? YEARS.

So what did I do for years? Well, yes you guessed it! I straightened the living daylights out of it. EVERY SINGLE DAY. And when I say every day, I mean for at least an hour, every day; whether I was going out or not! And then I realised my hair looked nice when I straightened and then curled it.. so that’s what I did. Sounds silly straightening your naturally curly hair to then curl it again doesn’t it?

Yeah, I thought it was ridiculous too. And then I luckily came across the Curly Girl method and I’m so so glad I did!

So.. What is the Curly Girl method exactly?

Well the basis of it is as follows:

• Products are free from sulfates
• Products are free from silicones
• Products are free from damaging alcohols
• No heat to be used on your hair
• Use a micro-fibre towel or t-shirt to dry your hair
• Dry hair on the lowest settings with a diffuser if not airdrying hair

That’s the general jist of it I think! I’m sure I do some things that aren’t entirely Curly Girl friendly but I’m still working on my routine with this new hair care adjustment.

My hair care routine used to be:

Washing my hair every other day with whatever shampoo and conditioner was on offer – and they always had sulfates, silicones and bad alcohols in (partly because I didn’t realise how bad they were!) and then dry it on the hottest heat on my hair dryer, then brush and straighten the hell out of it. To be honest it’s a miracle I still have hair on my head!!

My routine now goes like this: (And I now only wash my hair 1-2 times per week!)

1 . Wash with Curly Girl approved products – I’m currently washing once a week with a clarifying shampoo (to get rid of any build up from styling products) and then with the Noughty Wave Hello Curl Defining Shampoo on my second wash day.

2 . I then do what they call co-washing, which is basically washing your hair with conditioner, the one I’m currently using is the As I Am Coconut Co-Wash Cleansing Conditioner and I use this in the same way I use shampoo, and then after rinsing it out with cool water I apply more to the ends and lengths of my hair.

3 . I then scrunch out excess water.

4 . And then after all of that, I then apply my Cantu Shea Butter Curl Activator Cream to my hair and scrunch it in.

5 . Then wrap my hair in a ‘plop’ with a simple t shirt and leave my hair in that for about 5-10 minutes before I take my hair down.

6 . I then sort of organise my hair I guess? Haha my hair doesn’t necessarily part the same way everyday so I create my parting and then scrunch my curls with my t-shirt to remove more water.

7 . Then comes the mousse! I squirt a dollop of mousse into my hands, rub them together a little and scrunch that into my hair and curls.

8 . If my hair needs more volume at the roots (which it normally does since I have thin hair anyway..) I’ll add in some root clips around my hair part and hairline for about 30 minutes to an hour.

9 . When time’s short, I’ll then diffuse my hair upside down on the lowest settings; and if I’ve got time, I let my hair air dry!

10 . Once my hair’s dry, it then has what the curly haired community call a crunch or cast, which I then crunch out. If I want more volume at my roots I’ll fluff my hair out a bit and use my hair pick to lift my hair up and shake out, and voila! My hair is good to go!

And I know it sounds like way too much work, but in all honesty, applying all of these things actually takes less time than it did when I was straightening my hair! It’s only the air drying that takes a little longer.

And with my results I’m getting, that’s all the motivation I need to keep going! Oh, and the fact that when I’ve done all of this, my curls usually last about 3-4 days, which means waking up, shaking my hair out from my ‘pineapple’ (that’s how I sleep with my curls – scrunchie, silk or satin pillow case and pineapple hair) and about 5 minutes later, I’m usually good to go!

And if my curls are having a bad hair day, I just refresh them using a spray bottle with water and a small amount of conditioner in it and scrunch in some mousse! Simple as that!

I am still going through what they call the transition phase with my hair, in the sense that it’s going to be a while until my hair is really healthy again along with my curls remembering what to do after being washed!

Here’s before I started the curly girl method, when I straightened and then curled the life out of my hair:

Here’s my hair on my first wash day doing the curly girl method:

I know this just looks like a big mess, but I knew that going in to this, I would have to be prepared for my hair looking pretty bad for the first few washes, especially because I am still working out the best methods for washing, styling and drying my hair! Before it’d be a blitz with anything and then a load of heat damage.

Here’s my what my hair looked like for next few weeks:

And here’s my hair as of last week (fluffed out, day 3 hair and trying out new products):

There’s loads of different products out there for curly hair, and it just takes some time working out which ones work for you and your curl type, hair thickness and porosity! If you’re wondering about any of the more complicated stuff like hair porosity, hair protein etc, I highly suggest checking out Jannelle O’Shaughnessy Engels, Curly Susie and Alissa Evelyn‘s YouTubes! They are all curly girls themselves and have great channels devoted to curly hair!

So, what have I learn’t from going completely curly girl friendly?

For a start, I only wish I’d embraced my curls sooner! And I never would’ve thought it’d be this easy to completely stop using straighteners on my hair! I don’t miss them at all! Part of me still can’t quite believe I’ve managed to go all natural, and my hair has never felt so good!

If you’re wondering whether or not to try out the curly girl method of hair-care, I would totally recommend it! I will say, it will take a few months/years to get your hair to a good place where your curls don’t need as much help with products etc, depending on the current condition of your hair, but my hair has only just begun it’s curly journey and I can’t wait to continue my curly journey!

I heard a quote (can’t remember where from) which sums it up pretty perfectly:

“Frizz is just a curl waiting to happen.”

I’ll do a follow up post in a few months so you can see how much my hair has changed! Oh and if you’re wanting to start this hair transformation and aren’t sure what products are curly girl friendly, here’s an article I found helpful!

How do you like to have your hair? Have you gone natural before? Did you like it?

I know I do! haha. I might do a styling post in a few weeks, because I know that on day 3 and 4 hair (before it’s being washed) it can look a little crazy, and sometimes I just want my hair up and out of my face! Is that something you’d like? Let me know in the comments!!

Have a great week lovelies!

Love,