[Hair] My Hair’s Current State and My Exciting, Pending Visit to a New Salon

Greetings!

Below is an update regarding my hair’s length and health. It’s grown, but I’m thinking I might need a serious trim, if not a cut. Details are below.

NOTE: In my NEXT TWO, PHOTO-HEAVY POSTS, I will share (1) the regimen I designed for participating in the ALove4Me Extreme Hair Growth Challenge and (2) each stage of and the final results of my wash-and-style day #1 of the challenge.

Definite Growth and Retention

So, my hair has definitely grown over the past 5 months. I don’t know how much because I haven’t been to the salon for a trim and length check since my last salon visit in 2018! (Not good, I know.) However, I did do a few impromptu pull tests, and my hair at the front easily reached beyond my armpits. That’s definite growth.

Do My Ends Need Major, Major Trimming? I Think So (EEK!)

Unfortunately, I imagine a significant amount of my hair’s growth this year might (need to) be cut away when I visit the salon this month: Because I have not been getting my ends trimmed in a timely fashion, I think I might have a significant amount of ends’ damage that needs trimming. I’ll see when the stylist examines my hair.

I plan to instruct the stylist to just remove all the damaged hair — without focusing on trying to preserve length — and then shape my hair. THAT could translate to a significant bit of hair being trimmed/cut. EEK! I’m honestly kind of scared about this.

A Bit of Heat Damage for Sure

Though I don’t know how much my hair has grown since December 2018, I do know that my hair has a little heat damage from a day I decided that I had to see whether I could successfully straighten my hair myself. I don’t regret attempting to straighten it, and thus I don’t lament over the heat damage. I really feel as though I had to try the process of straightening it myself at some point, and I decided I’d rather do it earlier in my hair journey, versus later when I’d have long(er) hair. I didn’t want to grow a lot of hair just to damage it. Better to try to learn how to straighten my hair before all that growth, I reasoned.

I’m Pretty Sure My Hair Has Sustained a Not Insignificant Amount of Mechanical Damage

Besides heat damage, my hair seems to have sustained a noticeable-to-me amount of mechanical damage over the last 5 months. I’m pretty sure that I know the reason: Quite frequently over the last 5 months, I would apply not-slippery-enough gel to my naked hair and attempt to brush the gel through. I was skipping applying leave-in under the gel because I didn’t want any leave-in to counteract the hold of the gel. I was hoping that if the gel could FREEZE MY CURLS in place, my hair couldn’t tangle much. My rationale was that preventing tangles, in turn, would allow me to avoid the mechanical damage that comes from detangling. Ironic, right? I seem to have mechanically damaged my hair in the attempt to protect my hair from mechanical damage. Sigh.

The good news: I don’t think my hair is in terrible shape, just in a state of needing improvement. I’m enjoying my hair and have been enjoying wash-and-style day. Another really good thing: My hair is pretty to me. That’s an achievement. Adjusting to my natural hair — the shrinkage, the hair care, the styling — has been challenging for me. 🙂 I’m so grateful to be liking my hair! 🙂

A Major Strategy Change in My Approach to My Hair, Going Forward

I recently realized: For almost my entire natural hair journey, my hair has been shaped/trimmed to look good when worn straightened. The issue with this is that I wear my hair curly 99.9% of the time. In fact, I only wear my hair in a straightened state for the 2-3 weeks after I’ve gotten it straightened at the salon for a trim.

I believe that it’s partly my dissatisfaction with the shape of my hair when CURLY that has lead me to overmanipulate my hair during styling. The overmanipulation and constant detangling are the cause of the mechanical damage, I’m fairly certain.

I want to change this going forward, so I’ve decided that after getting a salon treatment to reverse the bit of heat damage I have, I want to get my hair shaped to be worn curly. The awesome news is that I’m pretty sure I’ve found a stylist who is astonishingly incredible with repairing, shaping, and styling curly hair. I’m so, so hype! 😀

My Pending Exciting Visit to an Exciting Stylist at a New-to-Me Salon (I’m SO EXCITED!)

I texted a former stylist of mine, Angela Hicks, and I asked her if she could perform an Olaplex (curl restoration) treatment on my hair, and if not, could she recommend someone who could. She recommended two stylists, neither of whom showed up in the results of my Google search for “natural hair stylist Olaplex Dallas.” I find that to be very interesting: There is literally NO WAY that I would have found those two stylists on my own. So I learned an important lesson about how to find new service providers: Best to ask someone who is in the know for a recommended service provider, someone whom you trust to advise you, than to blindly find a service provider from an online search.

Anyhoo, I went to the two stylists’ salon pages, Instagram pages, Facebook pages, etc. to learn more and check out their work. I was amazed by what I saw! The results! The hair care and styling passion! The reviews! It was so hard to choose, but in the end I chose to make an appointment with Sonnie Garrett of Silked by Sonnie.

It took me quite a few days of calling to actually reach Sonnie. Once I did she let me know that I could call her the next Monday to get my questions answered, or that I could text her my questions. I ended up going to her Facebook page and typing my questions there. She answered instantly and thoroughly! And I had a handful of questions, too. I really appreciate her diligence and time.

In Closing . . .

I’m really hype about my pending salon session with Sonnie. I keep going back again and again to her silked_by_sonnie Instagram page. Her wash-and-go’s are transformative! I can hardly WAIT to get my hair restored, shaped, and styled in a wash-and-go by this stylist. 😀 Until then, I’ll be following her recommendations on how to prep my hair in the weeks before the Olaplex treatment and trim, and I’ll be participating in Achia’s (of A Love4Me) Extreme Hair Growth Challenge.

As always, thank you so much for visiting this blog. I truly appreciate the support, the questions, and the advice! ❤

Until next time . . .

Yours,

Yvette ❤