My wavy/curly story

My name is Jess, better known as Jess the Mess on CurlTalk. I have debated for weeks about starting a curly blog. There are so many good ones already by women that know soooo much more about hair than I do and I wanted mine to be a little different. I finally decided to start mine and make it all about the tons of products out there for us CGers and anyone else who is interested. I want to do my own reviews as well as others from naturallycurly.com. I am a huge PJ (product junkie) and also love to make my own concoctions at home. I will try ANYTHING in the search for perfect hair.

But before all that I want to tell my wavy story. It's a little long as I love to write and I tend to ramble. I promise not all my posts will be novels. I was born with STRAIGHT hair. I didn't get wavy hair until after I had my first baby. At the time I was letting a perm grow out and had moved from CA to the humidity that is VA so I thought my waves and frizz were just from the weather. I finally cut my hair short and could just use a round brush and blow dryer like I always had. Two years later I moved back to CA and had my second baby and that's when it all changed. My hair was a big, wavy poof ball. It took 40 min to blow dry smooth and by the end of the day it was frizzy. So I started to straighten. It also took a ton of time and made my hair brittle and dry (yes a $200 straightener will still do that). I hated my hair.

After a 3 year battle I finally figured out that with some Aussie Sprunch Spray I could get some waves and ditch the straightener but it was hit or miss. Sometimes it would look great and sometimes it would look horrible. I remember one time my best friend Lauren saying to me "You're going out like that?" But the straightener was killing my hair and I knew I needed to stop so I dealt with it. I started using tons of expensive products to repair my hair and while they did I still didn't know what to do with my waves. I still hated my hair.

A year and a half later I had a "fate" moment in a T-Mobile store. The girl behind the counter and another woman with tons of gorgeous 3c hair were talking about good straighteners and as the nosey, outgoing person I am, I chimed in about my favorite one as I was still occasionally straightening. We got to talking about curly hair and the 3a woman gave me the number of her stylist, a curly hair specialist. I was so excited. And then I lost the number. I was devastated as she gave me the stylist personal number and not the name of the salon. All hope was lost, or so I thought. 5 months later I found the number tucked under the seat of my car and I immediately made an appointment so excited. I called my mom to tell her and she said "You don't have curly hair." Little did she know.

So I went for my appt. and was introduced to Deva products and the Curly Girl book. The book, by the way, is where the term CG comes from. I think I read the whole book while I was there. Jessica taught me how to put in my product and how important moisture was and that terrycloth was no longer my friend and what a co-wash was. She took the time to explain how curly hair works and what it needs. I walked out of there with the most amazing waves and I was in love. Then came the hard part.
I had no idea that I wouldn't be able to duplicate my salon hair. The Deva products stopped working well after a month and clipping totally eluded me. My hair did look tons better but I knew there was more out there than Deva and I started searching. I found naturallycurly.com and it has been amazing. So many waves and curls with advice and support. I learned about plopping and the pixiecurl method and WOW. I have to say I was overwhelmed at first but I just kept reading and lurking and finally started asking questions. I realized that others were disappointed with Deva and were using other products getting better results. Just a side note...I'm not knocking Deva and I still keep their products in my rotation.

In Dec I decided to go full CG and start trying other products and my PJism was born. Here is proof. These all stay in my shower or my cabinet all the time and I rotate pretty much allof them. I want to try everything. I dream about hair products (only sometimes). I will re-do my hair if something new comes in the mail. I go to the beauty supply store for fun. I can't go to Target or Wal-Mart without looking in the shampoo isle. I have so many products I stare at my cabinet for at least 5 minutes trying to decide what will combo of products will work the best. Bottom line...I love being a PJ and wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you for reading my hair novel and so the blog begins...