I took the plunge! I kept looking at the blogs on the NaturallyCurly Website for Kim Coles’ Grow Out Challenge and finally decided to join. The challenge “dares you to forgo bad habits during this 6 month quest for BIG, healthy natural hair.” I kept reading the blogs and thinking that my hair was in such bad condition that I couldn’t possibly join. Then I thought about it and realized that that’s exactly what the challenge is about! So I’ll be learning and taking better care of my hair for the next 6 months and forever. My goal is to grow out the rest of my perm with minimal breakage. My hair has already suffered enough.

I wouldn’t say that I wasn’t taking care of my hair, but there’s just so much to learn about natural hair. When you don’t know, you just can’t do any better.

All that to say that I’ll be blogging here and there! So far I’ve been doing separate posts. I’m not sure that it’ll continue that way. I’m taking it one day at a time.

Now to the juicy stuff…

So everyone over there had been talking about this twist and curl, so I finally decided to try it this evening. Not such a great idea to try it in the evening because I’m not sure my hair will dry by the morning. I washed my hair and deep conditioned it with Organic Root Stimulator Olive Oil Conditioner with some added olive oil. I used to do this on my relaxed hair and it worked out so well. I’m not sure I really liked the results on my natural hair. It did look shinier, but it was very tangled. It didn’t give me that soft finish that my Shea Moisture Organic African Black Soap Balancing Conditioner does.

After I rinsed out the conditioner, I two strand twisted it and rolled it on these foam rods. Hopefully I get great results in the morning. If not… TRAGEDY!!!!

This is my 15 months of natural hair. I feel like it should be more, but such is life. You can clearly see the line of demarcation and how thin the permed ends are. Good thing I stopped perming. When I see pics like this, I get tempted to just cut off the permed part.

This pic is my twist and curl.  Tomorrow I’ll post pics of the outcome. I’m hoping for the best. Edit: Memo to myself…  don’t overlap the hair when setting it on the rod. It won’t dry! 

I’m realizing more and more that I DO NOT know my natural hair texture. This is tragic! I have ideas in my head of what I think it is, or maybe what I would like to find out that it is. I’ve saved pics of what I want my hair to look like once it’s fully natural, but I don’t even know if that’s what my hair is like.  Not only has my hair been relaxed for so many years that I forgot what my hair was like pre-relaxer, but I think my hair texture has changed. I’ve always had waves, but I don’t think they were this deep. When I look back at old pics, my hair doesn’t look nearly as wavy as it is now. I thought it was because my mom used to blow dry my hair, but I asked her about it and she said she didn’t always blow dry it… especially not when I was young. It was more of a towel dry, then air dry the rest of the way. I’m pretty excited to see what it looks like in its fully natural state.

Washing my hair is becoming increasingly easier. I’m learning different things to do and things that I shouldn’t do as well. The worst part about washing my hair had become detangling it after. I kept reading that combing out your hair while in the shower with conditioner in your hair is the best and easiest way to detangle it. I tried it tonight and it worked out so well, I was shocked.

I bought the Kinky Curly – Come Clean today. It said “Sulfate free,” so I didn’t expect it to lather. To my surprise, it did. I can’t say I loved it though. It made my hair feel squeaky clean and that’s never been what I liked. It concerned me that maybe it stripped my hair of its natural oils. After I used that, I used my Shea Moisture – Organic African Black Soap Balancing Conditioner. I absolutely LOVE this conditioner. It immediately makes my hair feel soft and moisturized, no matter what shampoo or no-poo I used prior to putting it in. That’s my standard conditioner. I haven’t found one that topped it yet.