My Journey Back to My Natural Hair: 8 Months In
After relaxing my hair for the past eleven years I'm shaking things up by taking a break and letting my hair do its thing!
The decision came about when I first met my hair stylist during an interview with Tippi Shorter . He did a marvelous job with my hair and when I went back to see him for a much needed trim, he suggested I lay off the relaxer and try Vigerol instead, a liquid relaxing treatment that's supposed to be milder, only loosening my natural curl to make my hair easier to straighten. During that visit, it was already three months since my last relaxer touch up and had to wait three more to get that treatment done.
In November I got the Vigerol treatment done, got a fabulous cut, and on my way to a new type of hair.
Now its eight months later and boy am I noticing some changes.
The Good Changes
My hair is going back to its natural black color. The relaxer had my hair more of a brownish color so it was nice to see my hair back to black again.
I have a lot more volume. My hair was always naturally fine and while It was relaxed it was too straight sometimes, without any body to it. Now it moves and bounces without me having to do ten million things to it!
My hair is growing back fast. My stylist gave me some cute bangs and their already grown out. My hair in the back that was cut short due to damage is already gaining some length and its only been three months. Hopefully my hair will grow longer than what it was when I was relaxing it.
The Not So Good Changes
I'm experiencing a lot more breakage, which I read is normal when the hair is tranisitioning. Because my hair essentially has two different textures going on, where the natural hair and old relaxed hair meet is the weakest part of the my hair. Therefore, it tends to break there a lot so I have to be extra careful with my hair.
My hair gets tangled way too easily. This all goes back to the different textures so whenever I wash it and gets tangled right at that demarcation line which is an utter pain. I have to load my hair up with conditioner and carefully detangle in the shower, which takes me extra time when washing my hair.
My scalp is getting drier, which I think it's due to the products I'm using. When my hair was relaxed, I recently took it easy when it came to my hair products for using too much would easily wear my hair down. Now my hair and scalp need a lot more moisture and need to different things, so I'm looking out for more natural hair friendly products to solve this problem.
All in all my hair is going through some major changes and though it can be difficult sometimes I'm learning to embrace it. I'm going back to my stylist in about two months for another Vigerol treatment and to get some of my relaxed ends trimmed. I'm waaay too chicken to get the big chop done (i.e cutting off all of my relaxed hair) so doing it this way is helping me ease into the transition.
I would LOVE any advice from you ladies out there that have gone through the same thing! Any product recommendations would be great because my hair products need a big overhaul!
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