Wash Day Diary: 22.11.13 @ 18 Weeks Post

"My wash days seem to be coming thick and fast... I seem to have fallen comfortably into a 10(ish) day wash day cycle.  At the moment, anything between 10-14 days seems best for me and my hair."

True to form, I decided that I wanted to try out yet another new product, but this time it wasn't some hard to find magical product, nope it was something I always have in my kitchen cupboards - good old sunflower oil!  Yep, I'm talking Flora and it appears my hair LOVED IT!

 

The picture above shows what my hair looked like at the start of my wash day.  I have been wearing these 10 twists underneath my wig units during the week.  My hair has felt soft and moisturised all week and I have been applying a mix of castor oil and Taliah Waajid Hair mist bodifier to my scalp every other day.

These are the steps I followed for this wash day:



 

These are the products I used during my wash day.  The solution in the ORS Dry Scalp Relief Oil bottle is actually my scalp oil made using castor oil, Taliah Waajid Protective Mist Bodifier and a few drops of rosemary esential oils.  It is the best thing I have found so far at keeping  both my new growth  and scalp moisturised and supple.

Detangling

My hair is still in the 10 sections and I must say I am loving them more and more as each week of my unintentional extended stretch is progressing.  I applied a little sunflower oil to each section in turn, from root to tip and then lightly finger detangled clipping the ends of the section together before moving onto all of the other sections - I didn't twist the sections at this stage so as to avoid additional manipulation.  I then adopted the new found process discovered during my last wash day and added a little deep conditioner to each section concentrating on the roots then  massaged the deep conditioner in and finally detangled with my Hercules Sagemann Jumbo Rake.  I was totally impressed with the reduced amount of hair which came out with tackling the detangling process this way.

Deep Conditioning
During the detangling process I finished off each section with a generous helping of my deep conditioner mix which consisted merely of 3 or 4 tablespoons of ORS Hair Mayonaise mixed with 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil and 4 drops of rosemary essential oil.  I then covered my hair with my gold (foil) conditioining cap, then put a warm towel on my head and left the deep conditioner on for an hour.

Rinsing, Shampooing & Deep Conditioning
I rinsed my hair in the shower and concentrated on removing all of the conditioner which felt incredibly greasy.  Rinsing took a while with my hair in twists so in the end I gave up and skipped to the shampooing.  I used my prescription Dermax Therapeutic Shampoo which I have diliuted.  I concentrated on massaging the shampoo into my scalp then rinsed.  The length of my  hair was still kinda greasy so I applied shampoo to the length, squeezed the twists using a fist action and then rinsed again.  I then followed up with a quick deep conditioining treatment using Keracare Humecto which I left on my hair for about 10 minutes.


Finishing Up
After jumping out of the shower, I covered my hair with a towel which I left on for 10 minutes.  I then left my hair to air dry uncovered for about an hour.  It was still quite damp after all of that time, which isn't normal for me - I think this was down to the sunflower oil.

Starting at the front section on the left side, I spritzed my roots with Infusium leave in conditioner, spritzed the length of my hair with Aphogee Green Tea Retexturizer, applied a small amount of Bee Mine Deja's Hair Milk, Keracare Oil Moisturiser and then sealed with Organix Coconut Milk Serum before detangling with my Hercules Sagemann comb.

Shedding
I have noticied a reduction in shedding this week. FINALLY!!  It's still alot by others standards (but I'm talking about my hair) and it's about half the amount when compared to my most recent wash day.  This could be down to either the prescription shampoo which makes my hair feel wonderfully soft and amazingly it seems to stretch out my new growth.  This could be down to the vitamin D3 I've been taking this week, although not every day.  Personally, I think it's probably a mixture of the two things but mainly the shampoo which I am kicking myself for not using sooner.  I first had this prescirbed 2 years ago - but not being a fan of shampoo I decided not to use it.  If it continues to work for me I will keep getting prescriptions for it as my hair feels fantastic, it's smooth, soft, strong and is shedding less.

Oh, you may have noticed that I didn't mention tangles during the wash day post.....well that's because I didn't really have ANY!  I could comb fairly easily from root to tip, well as easily as I can at 18 weeks post!  This low level of tangles is unheard of for me and I'm super pleased about it.

I am planning to relax my hair on my next wash day so all being well, stay tuned for that.  I am already 6 weeks over my scheduled relaxer day at 12 weeks so it is well and truly overdue.

Ciao 4 Now