1 YEAR NATURAL!!!

Ok, So I really thought I would be more excited about my 1 year anniversary. I thought I would put my hair in some awesome style or treat my hair to some good lovin or something :S .........but i'm not really that hyped. I am happy but not as excited as I thought I would be because I have realised that the more my hair grows, is the more I would want it to grow.

In other words, when it was my 1 month anniversary, I couldn't wait for it to be 1 year to see the length ; now that I am 1 year natural ,I can't wait for when I have 3 years of natural hair.

Nonethelesss, I LOVE my hair and i'm soo happpy.......* does the happy dance* ( I actually did a happy dance for my 1 year anniversary so that counts for something)

I have a new hair care regimen, I haven't dyed my hair (decided not to), my hair can actually go in a sort of pony tail now :) and ...........what else? i've learnt that shrinkage is something else :(

Hair Care Regimen:

So my products have boiled down to a few ....again!! but I swear, this is my last product change.

For Moisture, I made myself a spritz, I use vegetable glycerin mixed with water and rosemary oil.

I put that in a bottle and spray it on my hair anytime it gets dry/brittle or just whenever i'm styling. This thing makes my hair super soft and very manageable.

I also use Miss Carols Daughter leave in conditioner for more like a sort of hair perfume than any thing else because it smells sooooooooo good. I don't really think that it has an effect on my hair in terms of making it softer (which is what it is suppose to do) so i'm not ever buying that again neither am I ever going to buy Miss Carol's daughter hair butter. It is a good product, does what it says it does which is moisturize your hair and make it softer but I use Shea butter which does the same job and is cheaper. Thus, this is my official good bye to miss carol's daughter's hair line which are really good products but are kind of expensive. I've found cheaper, local ones that are much more accessible and that I don't have to order every few months online.

I use raw shea butter , olive oil and rosemary oil which is excellent for the scalp and for conditioning, I use either VO5 or suave coconut conditioner.

For Deep conditioning I use either my Avocado Mix ( detailed in another post) or just Organics Hair Mayonaise ( I deep condition weekly) .

For "Shampooping" Lol, I use any shampoo. I'm not sure whether that is a bad thing, but i'm kind of confused with the whole shampoo thing, people say that sodium larel sulphate, which is found in almost all shampoos, is bad for natural hair and that you should use baking soda instead of shampoo's because its a "natural way" of cleansing your hair. However, baking soda isn't as natural as people think, its actually made in a factory!! and........well...... baking soda is like a base with a ph of like....10 which is the same as regular shampoos so I just use any shampoo that I can find, bottom line , you can't run from the sulphates. Well you can but actual all NATURAL shampooo is way too expensive for my pocket .

So after shampooing ( which I do once every month), I usually condition my hair with the conditioners that I mentioned earlier and then I pour apple cider vinegar ( diluted in water in a 2:1 ratio) and proceed to styling. No, I don't rinse the apple cider vinegar out, I just leave it in my hair. Apple Cider has a Ph of like 3 and when you dilute it with water, that brings the ph up to like 5 which is how the actual ph of your scalp is suppose to be. Confused? Ok lets get this straight:

Hair/ scalp has a natural ph of 5.

When shampoos ,containing sulphates are used, these have a ph of 8 to 10 because they are alkalines. These can help to strip your hair of its natural oils so I use the apple cider vinegar to regulate the ph of my hair after shampooing. It probably doesn't matter that much because the ph of your hair is only 1 factor among MANY that may affect growth or the health of your hair but I started becoming concerned about ph when I found out that relaxers have a ph of like 12 to 14!!! which is so close to the ph of shampoos! ( I know, I now have a phobia for relaxers I don't want to get anywhere near close to it) so I feel much safer using apple cider vinegar knowing that I've regulated the ph.

AND NOW, FOR MY * drum rolll* LENGTH CHECK AND OTHER PICS :)