Starting Over - My New Hair Goals for the Rest of 2014, as Well as My Ceramide Challenge Results!... :-)

Hey There Guys!

First of all let me acknowledge the elephant in the room, I've been incognito for far too long! But alas that's the nature of my full time job. Things can get very hectic and stressful.

I'm back however with a new outlook on so many things. In life you often get negativity thrown your way and stress that seems to come from thin air, but the trick is to figure out how to put "you" on your list of priorities.

I LOVE all things hair, I love blogging, I love jogging, I love challenging myself to be healthier: exercise and diet-wise, I love diving, reading, painting, documentaries and art; These things make me happy, making less time for them for "me" was not a good idea.

I have often been naughty in that regard, but as they say fall down 7 times, get up 8!

So!

How's my Hair been Behaving (or Not! lol) of Late?

I've been having quite a bit of shedding lately - for the past 3-4 weeks really.

:-(

I attribute this to stress and poor stress management. 

As for my hairs texture! I learned something quite interesting last month. I went with my other half on a business trip to Miami in July, and I decided to let my hair down (quite literally lol) more often than I normally would, and guess what?! My hair LOVED it, at the end of the day it felt sooooo soft! 

 (above - air-dried loose)

(above - air-dried braidout success! :-D )

It turns out that the HUMIDTY was amazing for my hair. So much so I was considering getting a over-head steamer to moisturize my hair... I'm still thinking this one through...

Fast forward ---> Back in Tortola BVI: My hair feels like Straw! queue music: womp womp womp... lol. 

The weather here is very different, the air is drier and there is quite a bit of dust, I also work in a fully air conditioned hospital, so.... Yep my hair was and still is in protest, lol.

Where I am Hair-wise:

1. I am now exactly 9 weeks post relaxer - Yay!
2. My new growth is 2/3 of an inch in some areas and just over an inch in other areas.
3. My ends feel thin to me, but that will always be the case - at least for the next couple of months because I am still transitioning from relaxed to texlaxed hair
4. The Cassia treatment that went horribly wrong in December 2013 still has my hair prone to feeling like straw. Its not going to reverse, because this is now 8 months post treatment - sigh! You live you learn :-) I will just have to grow it out.
5. Looking forward to doing my own trim after my next Texlax Session.
6. I've been co-washing and deep conditioning twice a week to combat dryness and breakage
7. I've been taking my garlic tablets to help combat shedding.

Ceramide Challenge Results:

Yes yes I'm late I know, eeps! I wasn't able to make my butter from Shea butter and Grapeseed oil/Safflower oil, but I did do daily and alternate daily sealing with both oils as well as a bit of castor oil in a mix,

I also did Oil Rinsing with this mix.

For my oil rinse I Deep Conditioned with my Herbal Essences Hello Hydration Conditioner, then before I rinsed it out I applied Grapeseed Oil to the roots and length of my hair, then rinsed with warm water. I Skipped the ACV Rinse this time.

Below are the Air-dried results:

 Results? I think it helped to improved my hairs rough straw-like texture since I've come back to Tortola, but I think my new growth and and my relaxed hair like it more that my texlaxed middle pieces, strange huh? 

That's the thing with transitioning you end up with 2 or 3 different types of hair on your head and each is its own individual with its own likes and dislikes! It can be hard to keep up!!

Will I continue to incorporate this Ceramide Challenge in my Hair Care Routine? Yup yup! I think especially for sealing in moisture.

The only change I will make is I will use Grapeseed and Castor Oil only when my current mix is finished. I'm not to mad about the Safflower Oil for my hair. I used it by itself once just to seal in a leave in moisturizing conditioner that I had applied to my hair, and I was left feeling underwhelmed. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. My hair much prefers Grapeseed oil.

My New Hair Goals

I would still like to reach WHIP length in about 1 year, but for now I think my more immediate goal is to try to maintain Waistlength, trimming away at my relaxed ends as my hair grows out. 

In other words - I'm now aiming for thickness at waistlength. I think after that I'm all for WHIP length hair

My other Goal is more of a Hair-Care goal: 

To do a Hair-Care and Wellness plan at the beginning of every week. Then I would like to just do a little update at the end of the week to see how I did and what I could do differently to improve.

Positivity is in the air! hehe :-D

Yet another goal of mine is to figure out how to do my protective styling and not be bored. I have had twists and twists with braided roots for the last 2 weeks, 

It was okay for about a week and a half, but then I just was like, Naw boss, there’s got to be another way... LOL! I'm itching to try something new. I am actually thinking of adding hair (maybe next week) - i.e doing braid extensions to mix things up a bit, I'm still mulling it over,

When I decide what I'm doing I'll definitely let you guys know.

As a self professed/recovering product junkie, I must confess that I

 have some new hair products that I purchased and been trying over the last 2 months that I'll be doing a review on soon:

• Garnier Fructis Sleek and Shine Blow Dry Perfector Straightening Balm
• A Roots Colour Applicator bottle (which I will use to apply my oil mix to my scalp)
• Aussie 3 Minute Miracle Moist Deep Conditioner
• Shea Moisture Raw Shea Butter Extra Moisture Detangler
• Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose Conditioner
• Groganics Liquid Scratch daily Scalp Tonic

• Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus KIDS Moisturizing Detangler
• Giovanni Direct Leave-in Weightless Moisture Conditioner
• Nexxus Humectress Intense Moisture Conditioner

Ye, I may have bought a tad bit more products than I really needed, lol! But they seemed interesting so I figured I'd give them a try. :-D

So thats about it for now, I hope You guys are having a great week!

See you again soon!

Oh, by the way,

I just wanted to leave you guys with this picture, it MADE MY DAY! LOL!

 Laters! :-D

Xoxo,

Rachie :-)