Texlaxing: Is It Right For My HAIR....?

"Since my severe under processing (which I know I keep on going on and on and on about....!) I have been reassessing whether texlaxing is the right thing for me.  As a new year approaches and being 18 months into my HHJ with disappointing progress, I'm wondering whether I should change my relaxer practices to one which could be a little easier to manage when it comes to my relaxer."

Don't get me wrong, I love texlaxed hair.  Texlaxing has made my hair appear fuller, especially when air dried.  Even bearing this in mind, I don't know if it is the way to continue to go for me.  If my hair could look as lovely as Miss Kibibi's or Zan and Rob's hair then that would be all good and you wouldn't hear any kinda complaining from me.  But, as we all know, no two heads of hair are the same, nor are the environmental conditions which support the growth.  I am just thinking that maybe I should try to find another way.  Somewhere in between the bone straight relaxer result I got when I used to go to a stylist and the highly varied texture which I currently have.

Yes, my hair fell out real bad when I was bone straight, but that was down to a mixture of things.  Although I used to buy great produts (soley the Keracare line) and take care of my hair to some extent, I really knew nothing about really taking care of my hair, apart from how my hair felt and looked.  I  had some bad practices also combined with a not so great diet and I also had my touch up and trim done every 5-6 weeks and only went to the salon once a year for a treatment (although I used to do these regularly at home).  I know that the frequency of the touch ups are the big contributory factor in damage which ultimately thinned out my hair and then this was only exacerbated by the low iron related shedding which would have been far worse if I had not embarked on this HHJ 6 months prior.

I am feeling really pissed off with my hair at the moment.  Yes, it is longer..  Yes, it is stronger....  Yes, it is healthier.......BUT  it looks so damn thin!  This is despite all my hard work, time, effort and lets not forget money......!!!  In the back of my mind I know it will take a while for my hair to recover from the serious shedding I experienced for months, if not years.  In reality I think it will take as long to get better as it did to get so bad.   I just need to be patient, but paitence is not one of my strong suits.

I have very fine strands and low density, although when I look back at pictures I think my density was more on the medium to low than the low low low low that it is now.  At the moment my strands seem stunted to me.   It is only now since this last relaxer that I have truly realised just how bad my shedding was in the past.  I literally couldn't touch my hair without losing precious strands...it really was that bad! I left strands of hair everywhere.  Now, I can M&S then style my hair and lose less than 5 strands to shedding or breakage combined during the whole process!  This is how it should be.  I really feel like I have lost out on at least a year of my HHJ which really hacks me off!  I am so deflated by my lack of progress.  I've had to trim and cut my hair last year like it's going out of fashion.  Another trim will be coming up when I do the corrective as it's been over 7 months since my last trim/cut.

At the moment my hair looks pretty thick because it has been air-dried. I think I should pack away my flat iron and blow-drier for 6 months and only use them on my lace unit and just air dry or roller set my hair for 6 months.  I will also continue to take my iron tablets, L-lysine and MSM as I have slacked off this for the past month and see where I am at the end of the 6 months.  (I would love to join Longing 4 Lengths roller-setting challenge but I am rubbish at challenges so joining in would set me up for failure.  I might join in unofficially  which is what I did for Love Your Tresses 6 month protective styling challenge.  I started late (half-way through) but I still carried on for the 6 months and got great growth and retention).

So, back to the original subject matter of this post.   I think I've decided that when I do my corrective relaxer I will take some of the texture out of my texlaxed strands by pulling the relaxer down through the under-processed areas and only putting preservo on the texlaxed section and vaseline on the previously relaxed sends, which I will probably cut off.  This way my hair will have a smoother feel and appearance and will need less heat when I straighten my hair. It should be easier to detangle, less prone to dryness and breakage.  The only part of my hair that I think I will continue to texlax will be my nape as it seems to be working for me in this particular area.

I hope I can manage to hit some hair goals in 2012 which will put a smile on my face....!

Ciao 4 Now