Its hair update time.

I think it’s important to keep things real with my readers and paint an honest picture of the challenges I face on my hair journey. These are challenges you might face as well especially if you intend to stretch your relaxer like I do.

So as you may know, I relax my hair every 5 months (20 weeks). I have decided however to stretch even further and I relax my hair at 6 months.
I am currently 14 weeks post relaxer ( which simply means the last time I relaxed my hair was 14 weeks ago). Usually I start wearing my wigs from 10 weeks post but I’ve been enjoying having my hair out and was a bit reluctant to put it away….but you know what? I think I ‘am ready.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my new growth. I love how springy it feels but what I love the most is the volume it gives my hair. I have about 1.5 inches of natural hair at the moment so I have a mini fro beneath my relaxed hair. When it comes to MY hair, the bigger and poofier it is, the happier I am, so right now I am pretty happy.

The reality however is that there are some challenges that come with managing hair that has a lot of new growth.

 

CHALLENGES OF STRETCHING MY RELAXER

1) MANAGING TWO TEXTURES
When you have a lot of new growth beneath your relaxed hair, it is important to take care of both textures to reduce the risk of breakage.
I have keep both my natural new growth and my relaxed hair moisturised. However I have to be extremely gentle when handling hair with this much new growth. This is because the line of demarcation (where the relaxed hair meets the natural new growth) is very delicate and will break easily if handled roughly.
A lot of ladies notice that their new growth may feel dry. The only way to overcome this is to give it what it needs, moisture. I use braid spray or S curl to keep my new growth soft and moisturised.

2) MORE TIME & MORE WORK
I find that when I have a lot of new growth, my hair tangles and forms knots easily. The more new growth I have, the more times I have to detangle during the week. And because I have to be very gentle (because of the weakness at the line of demarcation) it takes me longer to detangle, moisturise and seal my hair.

I usually get away with detangling my hair once a week but when I have a lot of new growth like I currently do, I have to detangle my hair 2 or 3 times a week.
The fact is the more new growth I get, the more time I have to invest in keeping both textures happy.
Look at the picture below, imagine how long it takes me to get through all of that………

 

3) SHRINKAGE
All that lovely new growth means that my hair is higher/taller at the root (if that makes any sense). This makes it look slight shorter. I don’t mind to be honest.
In fact I kind of like it cos on relaxer day I’ll be like “ oh yea, I forgot how long my hair is”.

4) THINNER LOOKING HAIR
Because of the afro at the roots of my hair, the relaxed part of my hair look thinner than it actually is. I am not a fan of this but it is only temporary.

I don’t want to give the impression that natural new growth is a problem.  That IS NOT the message of this post.  The point I am trying to make is that when you have a lot new growth you have to amend your regimen slightly so that you take care of both textures. 

The main reason why I still wear wigs is to help me stretch my relaxer. The wigs give me a mini holiday from my hair. Rather than risk neglecting my hair, wigs helps me to cut back on the amount of time I spend detangling.
So with the that said, I think it’s time I put my hair away and switch to my wig regimen till I relax my hair early next year. For details of my wig regimen see this post.

A hair journey can be hard work sometimes but it is a positive thing. I compare it to trying to exercise, eat right and stay healthy, it’s not easy but it has its benefits.

I hope this post will encourage you to keep trying despite the challenges.

In the next couple of posts I will discuss mistakes I made earlier on in my hair journey and my bed time hair routine.

Thanks for visiting and see you again soon

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Lade
Learn | Change | Grow