Hair Diary: 2 Week Post-BC Update

Second day hair

For the first time in an extremely long time, I absolutely adore my hair! Every time I catch a glimpse of it in the mirror, I can’t help but smile! Although I originally told myself that I would wait until my 12-month post relaxer mark to BC, I have absolutely no regrets about choosing to BC earlier. For anyone that is still going through the transitioning process, HANG IN THERE! At times I know that it can be really frustrating, but it is totally worth it!

For the past two weeks, I have just been experimenting with products to get a feel of what my hair likes, and how my hair reacts when something works really well for it.  I’ve learned that not all conditioners are created equal –at least not when it comes to my hair lol—and my hair will give a distinct reaction when it isn’t a fan of something that I am using. I have already fallen in love with one new product, and have fallen back in love with a product that I had previously written off. I am also in search of really really good protein rich and protein free deep conditioners. Needless to say, there will definitely be TONS of product reviews to come in the future!

I’ve also been working on getting a set regimen. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel or anything, but some adjustments do need to be made to best fit the needs of my hair at this time. I don’t want to use 20,000 different products every single time I put water on my hair, so I’m attempting to formulate something that is extremely simple, yet very effective. Since I haven’t really had the opportunity to play in my hair too much because of school, I have only been wearing wash-n-go’s. That really isn’t a problem for me since I’m basically just moisturizing it every few days and letting it be in the meantime.  

I BC'd!!!

Remember when I said that I was going in to see my stylist for a trim in this post? Well, when I sat in the chair I accidentally ended up saying "take off all the relaxed ends" instead of "take off a few inches." When I realized my flub, I didn't even bother trying to correct myself. I thought that maybe my unconscious was telling me that it was time, so I just went with the flow...and I could not be happier!

Seems Like Your Ready...to BC...

Over the past few weeks, I have been working hard on a paper for a moot court competition at school.  During this time, I had to put a lot of things on the back burner, including washing my hair. Yes, I went two weeks without washing my hair instead of the usual once a week washday. The result was a huge curly fro which I absolutely loved!

The day after I turned in my paper, I finally had the free time to wash my hair. I followed my usual washday steps, but that day something was just different. For one, I realized how thick my hair was getting. And for another, I realized that maybe I’m more ready to BC than I originally thought.

After I DC’d and began to style, for some unexplained reason I decided to clip the relaxed ends off of random pieces of hair around my head. There aren’t gaping areas where I did this, but just a few strands here and a few strands there. In my snip happy frenzy, I had the urge to completely cut off all of my relaxed ends. And to be honest, if I didn’t have a prior engagement later in the day, I probably would have BC’d right there in my bathroom. I was actually rationalizing with myself that I couldn’t do it at that moment like I wanted to.

To say the least, I was kind of surprised by my reaction. The pieces that I did cut were relatively short (at 9 months post I only have on average 4.5 inches of new growth). As a person who has never had hair shorter than neck length, going into this journey I thought that this would be a huge shock to me. It was part of the reason why I chose to transition for at least a year. But now that I know I would be ok with shorter hair for a bit, I’m starting to reconsider my original May BC date. I would still like it to be warm consistently so I can wear my twa in wash and go’s without fear that the cold will make my hair hard and brittle (I live on east coast so winters can be harsh).

For now, I’ve upped my BC date to mid-March during my school’s spring break. That should give me plenty of time to play in my hair some more and see if I continue to feel like I want to BC sooner rather than later. Regardless of the date that I actually do it, I'm excited to see the natural me.

Snip, Snip!

{Source}

Yesterday afternoon, as I watched youtube videos, I got a little anxious to start playing with my hair. Since I am trying not to manipulate my hair too often in order to limit the stress on the line of demarcation, I usually only play in my hair on wash days. Wash days for me are on Sundays. Yesterady was Friday. Major dilemma.

Instead of fully playing in my hair, I decided to just play with a small piece. I took a very small section of hair directly above my left ear and saturated it with water. As expected, my new growth curled and my relaxed ends went bone straight. Due to the weight of the relaxed ends, my curls were extremely elongated, to the point that it looked more like a deep wave instead of a curl. I was curious to see what it would look like without the relaxed ends, so I picked up my hair scissors and did a little snip, snip. I wet it with a bit more water and added some Kinky Curly Knot Today. My true curl pattern finally made itself known!

This made me eager to cut off the rest of the relaxed ends, but I promised myself to not do it at least until May 2011. That's only 4 short months from now, so I'm going to wait it out. There may just be some other similar snipping in the future!