November Goals!

Happy Halloween! I took my 5 year old son Kaylin trick or treating for the first time today. We went out twice actually. The first time we got rained out so we went back out later in the evening. Had to make sure he got a proper experience right? Of course! We didn't get as much candy as we would have earlier in the day but that's fine. What we got is definitely a much healthier amount... for me and him both. With that being said, after eating two pieces of his Halloween candy, I decided that it's time to get back to being healthy and set some goals for myself.

Goal #1: No junk food. NONE. This is going to be especially hard for me. What can I say? I love snacking. And not even the healthy snacks. No, no, no. I just have to have candy, cookies, and ice cream. You know, the things you should avoid when you want to lose weight. Luckily, I do love my fruit and vegetables. The problem is, when I want something sweet my first thought is not to grab an apple. I need to change that. When I go grocery shopping I need to make sure I get enough fruit and add things like rice cakes to my list. I am nervous but I think I can do it!

Goal # 2: Limit heat styling to once a week. As I said in my first post, this is how often I was flat ironing my hair during my original HHJ. The problem is that flat ironing daily has become routine with my short cut and that's no good. Plain and simple, it has to stop. Hopefully I can break this bad habit.

Goal # 3: Moisturize and seal EVERY night. This has become a major problem for me since cutting my hair. I used to m&s faithfully, wrap my hair, and cover it with a silk scarf faithfully. Clearly the stylist cut off more than hair because my good habits went right out the window as well. I need those back! Right now I'm using ORS Olive Oil moisturizer but after I hit the beauty supply store this weekend I'll be back to my Elasta QP. Not that there's anything wrong with ORS, Elasta QP just works better for my hair. To seal I'll be using either grape seed oil or coconut oil. Coconut is my favorite but I haven't really experienced grape seed oil so that may change.

Goal # 4: Drink more water! I love water and drink it daily, but certainly nowhere near the recommended eight glasses. I've been drinking way too much soda and I'm pretty sure that's been adding to the breakouts I'm experiencing. So for healthier skin, hair, and healthier everything else, more water will be just what the doctor ordered.

That's all for tonight, I'm beat! Good night world  :)

Me! And My Hair Story

Hey! I'm Shaniqua and this is my first post here. I decided to switch my blog from another domain (which shall remain nameless) because blog spot offers more freedom as far as design goes. Anyway, this blog will be about my hair journey for the most part. I'll add in a few other things from time to time but I'll be pretty much rambling about hair, products, developing and changing my regimen, and anything else that comes to mind.

SO, a little back story. I have put my hair through HELL over the years. Up until 2011 I continuously dyed, bleached, and fried my hair. Literally. I was flat ironing every single day, sometimes more than once. Then my best friend and I decided we wanted to go the natural route and chopped all of our hair off. I went from using heat every day to not using heat at all. I didn't even use a blow dryer in 18 months. My hair grew back past its original length, in that time. 

04/2011

10/2012

In October 2012 I decided to go to a salon to get my hair blown out and trimmed. Let's just say it all went downhill from there. Everything was fine until I decided to wash my hair and realized that the lady had mixed a relaxer into my conditioner. I was ready to burn the place DOWN. Instead I just went back and the owner "fixed" my hair, according to her. She ended up cutting off about two inches of damage. It didn't really help, because my hair was just falling out. 

So in November I decided to just relax it again. From there I continued taking care of my hair and it grew back once again. I stretched relaxers for 14 weeks, washed and deep conditioned once a week, did the GHE (green house effect) once a week, moisturized and sealed nightly, limited my flat iron usage to once a week, sometimes less, wrapped my hair and covered with a silk scarf nightly. I also participated in a 3 month long protective styling challenge which did amazing things for my hair.

Newly relaxed, 11/2012

 

It grew a great deal. I made it to just about APL.

02/2013

Then on July 4, 2013 I decided I wanted a change and went to get a pixie cut. Now don't get me wrong, the short cut was fun. But it is WAY too high maintenance for me. 

07/04/2013

07/04/2013

 For one thing , I've gone back to flat ironing EVERY day. Hate it! I also slacked off completely stopped giving my hair the TLC it needs. I haven't been moisturizing and sealing, haven't been deep conditioning, no GHE at all, and tying my hair up when I remember. Shame on me, I know. In my mind, I figured that I barely had any ends so I didn't have to moisturize and seal right? WRONG! Yet somehow, almost four months after cutting it, my hair is growing back nicely. The back is very dry, but after relaxing on 10/25/13, I've gotten back on track. I've been moisturizing and wrapping my hair every night. Haven't been sealing because I don't have any oils right now. I'll be making a trip to the beauty supply store and HOPEFULLY my mom will send me my grape seed oil and hooded dryer. Hi mom :). Anyway, my updated regimen will be in the next post. I'm hoping to be back to shoulder length by August of 2014. We'll see.

Current length, relaxer 10/25/13