Update on My Hair and Crochet Braids and Plans for my hair

Hi! Privet! Pryvit! Salut! Hallo! Vahām̐! Hola!

In case you didn't know, I love languages! Whether spoken or signed (I sign in ASL).

Anyways, here's just an update on my hair:

So....I cut my hair. I just trimmed off about an inch of my hair, don't worry :) and I believe I've grown all that I cut off back. I haven't taken down my latest crochet braids yet because I have a ball to attend in early July and I plan on reinstalling my crochet braids so....since I'm going to be back home in May, I decided to wait till then so my crochet braids are at their neatest during the ball and so it's easier to manipulate it if I need to. I miss my hair, I should add.

When it comes to washing my hair, I water-only wash most of the time, and usually just my edges (which have been growing pretty well and becoming thicker). When I use shampoo (sulphate-free), I prefer to dilute it a bit and I keep washing until the water runs really really clear and my scalp feels awesome. I don't wash my hair as often as I should because of the drying time and because the weather just mere weeks ago was still on the cold-side. Also, I just didn't have the time to wash my hair often. Anyways, I condition my hair afterwards, but I don't care that much about rinsing out all the conditioner.

To keep my crochet braids looking good, I cut out the tangles daily (not daily when I'm at home and not leaving the house, though). Cutting out the tangles retains that fresh/near-fresh look and it lets you wear your crochet braids for as long as you wish to.

My plans when I take this protective style down is to give my hair a lovely treatment/treatment. Wash it out thoroughly, detangle and wear a wash and go if my hair hangs long enough (and my curls are defined without the need of a gel) for about a day and then stretch out my hair using African threading for a few days before letting it out and just retaining a stretched look (I will wear a puff or bantu knot out/twist out/braid out at times, though). I probably will condition my hair more often or just leave in some conditioner whenever I'm refreshing my hair, but that's pretty much going to be it. I AM GOING TO DO A LENGTH CHECK TOO!!!! :)

I hope that this year, I am as close to waist length as possible. Like, I want to be below bra-strap length before the end of this year! :)

~Sammy

p.s I'm looking into new DIY protein treatments as I'm not keen on putting eggs in my hair anymore and in case you didn't know, mayonnaise contains 0% protein (check the back of your jar/bottle).

Dear Hair Ends....

Dear Hair Ends,

It's over. You have got to go.

Love,
~Sammy


I've noticed for some time now that my ends look snaggly and downright nasty (to me, no one's commented on the, so I don't know if they see it (they're just like, "I love you hair!")). My ends are a mess and I've been like, I'll start trying a twist 'n' curl or something to make them look a bit better, but nuh-uh, THEY.HAVE.GOT.TO.GO!

I style my hair sometimes and I am irritated by them. I guess it's from all the braiding and stuff that I used to do all the way down to my ends. Since I started African Threading my hair from the point where it lifts of the scalp when doing cornrows, it has looked a bit better and hasn't been getting as damaged as it used to seem. My ends are also sorta thinning out-ish (I don't know if I'm the only one that sees this). The braids down to the ends, whenever I took out my hair, I always lost a little at the ends no matter how gentle I was in taking down the braids. Also, combing to detangle caused a bit of this ends issue. Last week, I finger detangled and my hair looked and felt better. I did the detangling in sections. Actually, I took down the African threading and finger detangled that area then took down the cornrow and finger detangled one cornrow at a time. My hair looked and felt better and it was like she was literally thanking me. The weather too.... somedays it was hot and dry and...gaah! Nowadays, it's raining or drizzling everyday (moisture weather :) ) My hair seems to be doing better now that it's getting some daily moisturising.

I know I played a part in my ends ending up like this and dear ends, I am sorry for the part I played.

So, here's what I going to do.
Get some hair shears and snip off a bit of my ends now and before I get my crotchet braids done (after grad, most likely), I'll snip off some more. I'll continue finger detangling and African threading my hair from the point where it lifts of the scalp when I braid my hair in cornrows. Anything to have healthy and beautiful looking ends.

I'm sorry ends, but our time together is over.


~SammyWithTheBigHair

Hair cut

Okay! So, it didn't happen and I'm pretty upset (so wasn't my fault). My mum spoke with the stylist on the phone and she was supposed to be there to get my hair cut (by the way, she's also the owner of the hair salon). Anyways, we got there and she wasn't there neither was another lady there that I might have let do it instead. There were 2 ladies and the salon owner's sister there. She then told us that her sis had gone down to London for the Olympics. So, I eventually just got my hair put in twists with extensions and I'm having them like this till the end of the summer.
I got to the salon at around 3pm and left at almost 9pm. At some point, 3 people (a lady and 2 guys) were working on my hair at the same time and it still took forever to finish even though one of the guys was SUPER fast! Never seen a guy twist that fast. I've never seen a guy twist, period!
The guy walked in, looked at my hair and started touching it (the lady working on my hair originally had stepped away for a second) I seriously felt like saying something like, "you don't touch a black woman's hair!  But 1. I'm only part black and 2. I was curious to know what this guy was up to. Next thing I knew, he was sectioning out my hair and then he picked up some of the extensions and about a minute later, this guy was twisting my hair perfectly, pain-free and so fast! The lady who was originally working on my hair was fast, yeah, but if I can still make out your fingers, you're not fast enough. Anyways, the twists she did hurt and when I asked her if she could stop making them so tight, she said, "no!" (and she calls herself a pro-braider/twister).
Anyways, totally lovin' my twists (can't wait till my hair's as long as they are lol)
By the way, my twists aren't tiny.




So...I'll talk to you guys later. Maybe when I get my BeeMine products :)
~Sam






p.s I want to stumble into some BritishCurlies members this summer :)

Countdown (Small Chop)

So!

I've pretty much been procrastinating about this, but this time, it's for real.
Tomorrow, I'm getting my hair cut. I'm losing all the relaxed ends left (not like they're that much). If not tomorrow, on Wednesday. Why either/or? Well...
1. My mum needs to be able to drive me down to the hair salon and
2. I need a specific lady to be there (the salon owner) 'cause she's the only person there that I'll let cut my hair. Even though she's scary when at it (she tends to take off too much hair sometimes x_X).

I know I've not put up very decent pictures of me on here. They're not bad, it's just that they don't look that good. Anyways, so I'm going to get my SC recorded and well...I'm skipping a lil here. So, I'm going to get some really good hair pics and my SC vid and put them up here once my dad finally lets me do so  and I don't know when he'll do that....

So excited! and at the same time.....scared x_X lol.
Can't wait! :)

Venting + First sulphate wash in like half a year...ish

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Hi,

So....I don't know which to start with; the venting or the sulphate wash............

I guess I'll start with the sulphate wash.

So, y'all know that I've been CG for quite some time now, but today, I had my mum wash out my hair with a sulphate shampoo. Yeah, I know, I said my mum :) I'm going to get my hair braided/twisted with extensions some time soon so I was bound to sulphate wash some time. By the way, I used a John Freida shampoo (you, know, the one for curly hair). My ends feel dry, but despite that, my hair's fine. I am, however, cutting off my ends, God-willing, next week. I might get a sulphate wash done again once before I switch to the BeeMine Botanical (sulphate-free) shampoo (ordering it this summer).

Now, the venting:

So, my dad's threatening to cut my hair off, like everything. It's going to be like a whole new big chop. Okay! so, if you've ever read my hair story (which is up on here somewhere), you'll know how I got my first BC. Dad got a pair of scissors (not hair shears/hair scissors) and snipped off my ponytail then had me got  to a barber's shop (yup! full of guys getting their hair cut) and level it out. So, I had this boy-ish hair cut, like a really short hair cut. You know, like a Denzel Washington kind of hair cut. Totally wasn't funny. I was the girl with the short hair at school. I carried my bag on my head the next day just to try and hide off my hair. I was the girl with the gorgeous long hair one day, and the next, my hair was gone.

So, Mr. daddy-o is threatening to cut my hair off again. I should mention that he claims to not like short hair. My sis always had her hair short while she was in high school and I think part of uni then my dad was like, "enough is enough!" got mad and made her grow her hair out (which is like back-length now). My sis loved her hair short. I love my hair long and now, he wants to take that away from me. Again?

I know I've been talking about this 'getting my hair cut' for some time now. You know, finally getting the less than an inch of my relaxed ends off. Won't this be a way to achieve that? Yes, but NO. I'm working at BSL before prom. If I have another "Denzel" cut, I would never achieve that. I doubt I'll even be at APL by then. The same man that acted as if he was finally relieved that I had decided to grow my natural hair out is so against it. I don't get it!
He thinks that unless my hair is stick straight, it's messy and not combed (he thinks that my hair's only culry when it's not been combed right). What is that? Hair discrimination or what? He makes my bro get his hair cut lower than that "Denzel" cut and why's that? "Curly hair's not responsible." OH.MY.DAYS!!!! My bro grows out his hair whenever he's away from home, but once he visits or updates, say, his BB Profile pic with a picture of him, woof! his hair has to go. He once got suspended from school for cutting his hair! I know, I know, it's a British thing. Same thing happened to my cousin when he cut his hair. They were both on suspension till their hair grew back out.
We talk about standing up to the curl haters. I just wish I could stand up to this one (but I know I'm just going to get shut down).

~SammyWithTheBigHair


p.s I'm done venting and talking bout my sulphate wash for now.
p.p.s My dad's the black parent. So, yup! he's got really kinky hair, but it's cut so low it's almost like the guy from 'My Wife and Kids'."

One of my worst hair salon experiences. What's yours?

Okay! so some of us have had terrible salon experiences. Here's one of mine:

Okay! so ever since I cut my hair 5 years ago, I haven't been able to grow it longer than shoulder length (I made terrible choices that's why). So, when my hair was finally growing out and it was at my back, I went to the hairdressers. I was flipping through a mag then I heard a snipping sound, I looked up and this guy that worked there had snipped off quite a lot of my hair!! I was like, "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!?!?!?!?!" Turns out he thought he was to cut my hair, it was terrible. I felt like crying. This happened on Sept. 7th 2010 (I remember..oh! and I had relaxed hair then). From then, till around summer of 2011, I hadn't been able to grow my hair out longer than a cm past the bottom of my neck. It was sooo upsetting.

Yeeeaaah, I'll tell you another one that happened at that same hair salon: 

Okay! so, I had extensions in and they were braided (with my hair) as...err....box braids, I think. So, I didn't have time to take them out at home, but I needed to take them all out before the next day. So...I went to the hair dressers and a lady there who was new (first day seeing her) offered to help me out. At first she tugged (that's a nice word for 'pulled') at my hair a bit while taking them out. She apparently picked up a pair of scissors and the owner of the hair salon noticed and told her not to cut my extensions because she didn't know my actual hair length (plus, I believe I was already transitioning then). Anyways, I started watching a movie (I believe it was an episode of Vampire Diaries Season 2) on my laptop and after a while, I heard a snippy sound and my hair felt lighter, I looked up and voila! she had cut my extensions! Aaand....my hair :| *sigh* I was like, "ohmigosh! what did you do!" and she was like, "I didn't cut your hair!" Already defensive before I accused her (sign of being guilty). Her boss overheard when I exclaimed, turned, saw my hair and started yelling at the lady she was like, "I told you not to cut her extensions because you don't know her hair length!" and the lady was like, "I didn't cut her hair!" So, her boss/salon owner picked up on of the cut pieces of extension/hair that had fallen, undid it a bit and yup! my hair was in it! *sigh*So, at the end of the day, I had lost over an inch of her (so, my hair was about midneck length again *sigh*) and the lady got fired.

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My bad salon experiences always ended up with me loosing hair (and me watching a movie, reading a mag, a novel or working on my laptop, I so need to pay more attention to what people do to my hair)


Wanna share? What's your bad hair salon experience? 


~Sam


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