Hair Goals 2012

 

I like goals! They steer and enhance performance and give us things to look forward to. Every goal we accomplish, the more rewarding the journey is. I always set personal, financial, health and life goals, but rarely do I set hair goals. I simply state healthy, long hair is a goal of mine. So here is my 2012 Hair Goal List. I hope to reach these goals by the end of this year.

Hair length goals
1. Maintain healthy, moisturized, split-end-free hair.

2. Grow hair to a little past shoulders when stretched. Current length is just above shoulders in the back.

3. Speed up the growth of the front and sides of my hair. This part of my hair grows incredibly slow! While the back is almost grazing shoulder length the front of my hair is like ear length. Business in the front, party in the back = no bueno!

4. Protect my hair and look cute in the summer. Accessorize with more hats and scarfs to protect my hair from the heat of the sun, especially between 12-3pm.

Product goals
5. Streamline products

There is nothing wrong with being a PJ (product junky). It helps you discover new products that work for your hair and keep an open mind. However, I'm tired of shopping around. Our city is not exactly a haven for curly hair products. Besides, I'd like to go to the store, pick up the exact product I require and move on. My goal by the end of this year is to have: 1-2 shampoos, conditioners, styling products and oils that work well for my hair and no more!

6. Stop buying things that do not work for my hair.

Case and point, gel. I have a huge tub of eco styler taking over my medicine cabinet. Gels have never worked on my hair and I need to move on and accept this!


Style goals
7. Stop fearing the flat-iron! Words like heat damage and loss of curl pattern, have terrified me from picking up the flat iron. The versatility of being natural is that you can rock straight or curly hair. Of course, I don't want to flat-iron my hair weekly, but I would like to do a blow-out/flat-iron/roller-set every 3 months i.e. 4 times per year.

8. Have a salon experience. I haven't been to a hair salon in over a year! I miss it so much! The chatter, the female bonding, the gossip, having someone else's hands play in my hair. So, I would like to have a pampering salon experience at least once per year. I'm thinking of going to my old stylist and getting a roller set on my trip home this summer or checking out Aveda salon to receive a pampering deep conditioner and head massage.

Will keep you updated on my progress.

What are some of your hair goals?

Protective styles. Do I have to?

I am almost 8 months post-relaxer. The date of my transition chop (TC) keeps changing from 1.5 years to 1 year. There are days like today, where detangling is a breeze and my comb just glides through my hair. And then there are days when I can barely pull a comb through my hair. This yo-yoing causes me to frequently change my TC date. As of today, my TC date is on March 5th, which is 1 year after the start of my transition.

I really want to have more length before I chop, partly due to the fact that I'm afraid of hating my hair short and curly. Tiny cropped fros are cute and look wonderful on many people, but I'm not sure if it will suit me. I'd hate to chop off myhair at and not love it, without any solution. I'm not a fan of weaves or extensions, so that wouldn't be an option. My hair is growing and I'm trying to do everything I can to keep it healthy, so it grows to its full potential. I'm eating healthy, exercising, deep conditioning and using natural oils. I've reduced my use of direct heat. The first time I used a flat-iron was last week and I hadn't used it for 3 months prior to that. However, there is one thing I am not doing a lot of and that's protective styling. 

Protective styling, often referred to as, a low manipulation styling technique (e.g. bun) that keeps the ends of the hair tucked away for an extended period of time. I really dislike my hair in buns, particularly in its current state. I have really thick new growth and my relaxed ends are thin. Add that to the fact that my hair is all different lengths! Whenever I put my hair up it just looks odd! Typically, I prefer a braid out or roller set as I enjoy wearing my hair down. I've read that protective styling is a must for length retention. However, I just really don't want to wear a style that I don't like.... So that's my dilemma, protective styling, do I have to? According to many, who have transitioned to natural hair--- yes!

I want to have really healthy hair, so if this is what it takes I am willing to try. So until the end of October, I will enjoy letting my hair down and starting next month I will challenge myself to do protective styling for 30 days to see if it really makes a difference. If by the end of November, I notice healthier, moisturized hair, particularly, my ends, I will do more protective styles. The only problem, I am not very talented when it comes to styling, so the only protective style I know of is the dreaded BUN. I'm not really a fan of buns, always thought I looked so matronly when I wore them! However, it seems like this is the only way, so I'll have to just deal with it for a little while. Guess, I'll go out and buy some cute headbands to make it a little more playful!

Peace & Love!

Just think my head looks odd when I sport a bun.

Salon Hubby

I once had a chat with a friend, who is Latina and hair is probably type 4a (very coarse, densely-packed, tight curls), but she relaxes. She mentioned that her husband, also European, is very against relaxers and slightly protests each time she applies one to her hair. Talking with her, I realized my husband has no idea about my hair routine. I guess I just left him in the dark since we started dating. I'm not sure why, but I guess I just felt I didn't need to inform my husband about my hair and up keep, he's married to me not my hair. Of course he knows the troubles I went through finding a suitable salon in Europe, as my hair is not the same texture as European hair and he knows that when my hair is flat-ironed (as opposed to scrunch and go) that means I sleep with my "night hat". The first time I wore my durag to bed, my husband, at the time my boyfriend, asked why I was wearing a "night hat", I found his accent and this choice of wording so cute that I continued using it with him ever since. So, that's the extent to what he knew about my hair.

Recently, I realize my not telling him about my hair issues was more of a defense mechanism to protect myself. I was really lying to myself, as I was hiding everything I went through to achieve "perfection". I'd style my hair, when he wasn't home, time our shared activities (going to the lake, spa or running) around the state of my hair, never really explained the process behind the relaxer, but instead just said "my hair is really thick and difficult to manage, so I just get a process that loosens it and makes it easier to style. Instead of telling him, I'm putting an alkaline based chemical in my hair to alter the structure of my curl pattern, which makes my natural hair irreversibly straighter. I think I was mostly afraid, that he would find the process dangerous and unhealthy and protest my doing so and at the same time dislike my natural curl pattern. This all sounds very irrational as I write this down, but this is what I felt. I've heard stories on blogs where women's boyfriends, often black, have left them after they decided to go natural, why wouldn't the same apply to a white male?

As I decided 3 months ago to go natural, I sat my husband down and started to tell him about my decision and what I had been doing to my hair. I try to make this an ongoing conversation , so that he can understand that this is a theme, that goes skin deep and is not just about the hair. He thinks my decision is wonderful and always tells me nonchalantly "I'm in love with you and not your hair, you'd look hot bald, so I could care less." (I'm lucky, I know). I think next, we are going to watch Chris Rock's Good Hair together. Maybe I'll interview him on my blog to get his perspective on the movie and topic. I'm really happy that I opened up to him and think it's crucial he understand black hair. We're not quite ready for kids yet, but are definitely at the stage where we talk about raising a family. Seeing that we both have super curly hair, I can only imagine our children will have the same, so it's good that he'll know how to care for and understand their hair when the time comes.

....

Last night, I bumped my hair quickly with the flat-iron after wet wrapping and sitting under the dryer for about 1 hour (this made my hair so much softer than direct heat from the blow-dryer). It came out okay, but like I said, I'm looking forward to learning more methods that don't involve the heat. Perhaps soon I'll try the flat twist out, I've seen a couple of videos on YouTube and it looks manageable. My husband trimmed some of my dead ends for me yesterday. Yes, that's right, my husband trims my hair. I don't trust anyone here to do it but him and he does a pretty darn good job. In the US, each time my stylist would ask if I wanted a trim, I'd leave with a haircut, so I'm happy he just gives me a trim. Like I said before I'm not ready to part with the length yet, so don't want to cut off all the relaxed ends yet. I'll probably wait a year or 2 to do so, depending on my new growth.