Hair experiment results from last week

Hello all,

Okay, so last week I tried two things, first a twist out (about 15 twists throughout the hair while wet, let dry, loose and go). Second, I tried conditioning only twice during the week opposed to my norm of every other day. I learned several things during my twist out experience.

• the twist out is not for me-I've tried this before, and I didn't like it then, and I didn't like it last week either. My hair did not look wavy or crinkly curly (it sort of did the first day and that was it). It was big, and it didn't flow or move, or lay well. My hair got dry, and just looked like a nappy mess. So, below are a couple of pics from day one. About 2 hours into my work day I realized that I needed to put that sucker up!!!!
  

Okay, so maybe I just didn't do something right. I conditioned my hair (with Garnier Fructis, color shield, which I'm quite loving by the way), put Shea butter on, and twisted. So, I thought to myself...hmmm...princess (that's what I call me, and you can too;-), maybe I should put some leave in (Garnier Fructis) on first and then Shea butter. So, I tried that.

That time was even worse than the first. My hair got pulled up immediately after this twist out.

Okay, so the top two pics are day 1 of the second round of twist out for last week, and although my outfit was cute, and I was diggin the flower in my hair, I did not like my hair. The third pic is from day two, and my hair almost looks as it normally does. I put the front in two large twists, and pulled the back together with a ribbon (this is one of my fav styles, it gets the hair out of my face, does something a little different in the front, and still leaves my little poof curls out in back).

So, twist out conclusion: not for me, unless I am just doing something wrong....oh well.

Other lessons learned from the week's experiment

• my scalp likes olive oil-I used extra virgin olive oil to oil my scalp multiple times throughout the week and it absorbed well, and seemed to make my scalp happy. My scalp has been kind of itchy lately, so I'm trying to alleviate that.
• my hair needs water-So trying to condition my hair less was not successful. I need to condition or at least wet my hair more than two times per week, or it gets too dry; this problem may be solved by a good moisturizer or leave-in that works well on dry hair, but I currently don't have that product.
• Don't hold your hair to unrealistic expectations-unrealistic expectations are breeding grounds for disappointment. I expected to do a twist out, and have my hair look exactly like curly Nicki's (which I love, for her blog link refer to my last post); however, surprise, I'm not curly Nicki, and I don't have her hair, so I shouldn't expect my hair to look like hers (that's a life lesson for the people ;-).

So, all in all, it was an interesting hair week. I'm pretty sure the people at school/work are wondering what in the world I am doing :-) But they probably usually wonder this.

Next hair adventure will be straightening and trimming, because I haven't had my ends trimmed in about 1 year :-0 I don't love my hair straightened, mainly because it's too much work, and too hard to keep straight amidst Columbia heat/humidity and sweaty post-workout me. But we'll see how the straightening goes. Oh FYI-this process will occur after I get paid again, because I will be paying someone to both straighten and trim my hair. I have enough stories of me taking scissors to my own hair ;-)

Tootles for now :-)