My one year hair journey

As I reminisce on my one year into this hair journey, I have mixed emotions. I didn't reach my goal length, which was shoulder length hair; I feel disappointed. But then again, "it's a journey", I told myself. I'm gonna have ups and downs and it's a learning experience. And boy, did I learn! I learned about what works for my hair and scalp and what doesn't, and of this I am very proud. I'm also proud as this is one of the things that I have been focused on that is bringing results. Even though my hair is not at shoulder length, but they're not as short as they were last year. They're almost there. They're not as dry either.

Here are the things I found worked for my hair:

1. Hot oil treatment: I am not yet sure if the tea tree essential oil that I have been using since last December had anything to do with it, but when I warm up the oils (extra virgin olive oil, organic coconut oil, tea tree essential oil and most recently added castor oil) apply them on my scalp, saturate my damp thair with them and cover my hair for 1 - 2 hrs with several plastic caps, my hair grew way faster. I do this on a weekly basis before co-washing or shampooing.

2. Scalp Massages: I do this every other night depending on the hairstyle I have for the week. But when I am consistent, the growth is more noticeable.

3. Less heat: I now use my flat iron once a month. And as my hair continue to grow, I will set them on rollers to eliminate the use of heat (at least direct heat) completely. In the meantime, I do flat twists out.

What I have learn so far, is to:

1. Never apply any kind of relaxer on flat ironed hair. I did that last November... it dried out my hair. Seeing it didn't relax my hair properly, I flat-ironed my hair. I had to do my hair as I had to go to an office the next day... next thing I know, a couple of weeks later, the back on the right side of my hair was shorter than the other side! It's very noticeable. That was when I decided to lay off the heat and  started researching heatless hairstyles.

2. Stop using greases and pomades: I also learned as long as the ingredients applied to your scalp are natural products, your hair will grow faster. That's the reason why I stopped using grease or pomade on my scalp. Those hair products contain petroleum by-products, when contaminated with other chemicals, can cause skin irritation and allergies. So the effect I might think is the grease or pomade working its way through my scalp could be just scalp irritation. So I  stopped using them altogether.

Overall, I now have a pretty steady hair routine and expect to see more consistent results. I still need to master my relaxer application, which is actually not that bad.

Until next time, happy hair journey!