2. Progress

5 months

6 months

9 months

11  months

1 year

First things first, I am not a slave to my hair and I never will be. I do whatever I see fit, suitable and comfortable. I'm not afraid to walk out my house without having a weave in or braids, yes it did take sometime to gain this level of confidence but when you learn to please only your self and not those around you it becomes a lot easier to do what ever you want.

 I personally think the first year of being natural is the easiest well from my experience anyway;

• you're very excited about the journey
• you're extra careful with the way you handle your hair
• you want to see your hair reach its full potential.

 when I first big chopped I wanted to wear my hair out all the time but I didn't like the way I looked so I made my mum do my braids, I had braids in for the first 5 months (no not the same braids). Every time I took out my hair I would just shampoo and deep condition then a day or two later I'll be back in braids. I guess I was very protective I wanted to play it safe, I was too scared to experiment because I didn't know what my hair could handle, what hair type I had (4a,4b,4c etc), what I could and couldn't do. I went to my local hair shop and was advised on what shampoo and conditioner I should use, I also bought Coconut oil (my life) mainly because I always heard people talk about it, so I thought I will also give it a go. Out of all my many many hair products Coconut oil is baeee and it'll forever remain my favourite. 

I soon realised that my hair was long enough for a weave with a natural leave out. I can't exactly remember when I did my first weave since being natural but I think I was about 5/6 months in. now I've never been a fan of the invisible parting or the full head sew-in except for the full fringe/front fringe, I always did the natural leave out and I had to strain my hair with heat which at the time I didn't mind but now I sort of regret it. I was never a fan of heat protector because it always made my hair extra dry so I just never used it at all ( crazy, yes I know), like I stated in my first blog post I didn't have many people around telling me that not using heat protection was a bad idea. Whilst others were happy that I was back in weave especially my dad. He thinks once you get to a certain age you should only do a weave to grow your hair. Yes my dad is a little crazy and likes to contradict himself lol. I like to think that my first year was a success!

The growth of my second year was a bit slower. I noticed that my hair grows in width before it grows in length, which I'm very okay with especially after my episode of ultra thin hair. During the second year I started watching YouTube tutorials religiously. My favourite naturalista (natural hair guru) is Naptural85 she is amazing although she is miles ahead of me (hair/length wise) but I've learnt so much from her in the past 11 months. I've also learnt different tricks and made them my own. Don't worry I will reveal them in my later posts. I guess this was my year of experimentation, i tried so many different shampoos and conditioners, oils, hair masks, hair treatments, deep conditioners, leave-in conditioners the list is bloody endless!

What you see here is a failed attempt of me trying
to put bendy rollers in my hair. of course it
didn't go according to plan, everything just shrank lol.

This right here was after a hair mayonnaise
treatment. The shrinkage gets a bit extra
sometimes.

This was during an air dry.

And once again another flopped style ruined by
the shrinkage, this was suppose to be bantu knots out.
 As you can see they didn't work out lol.

Remember; everybody's hair grows at their own pace and we all have different textures x