Here I go again

I decided to start blogging again. It might not be guest reviewers every time but it's sure to still be fun and informative. Hopefully some of you curlies out there will be willing to contribute.

I decided to start again because I've been having a real love/hate relationship with my hair and I'm hoping to just get back to the love part. I found that when I'm documenting what works and what doesn't it is much easier for me to love my hair. That being said let me start by telling you a few things I've learned (or still haven't learned) about my hair.

1. I cannot plop anymore. I just get bad root things going on if I do. It's OK though. My CurlsLikeUs towels are my new best friend and I don't really need to plop now that it's warming up.

2. I still don't know what to avoid even though I know that I have fine, porous hair. I read and read an then forget. I know that acidic rinses are helpful and I know I should need protein but that's about it. When to use glycerin and humectants baffles me and frankly I'm tired of checking the dew point every day before I do my hair. So there!

3. I cannot scrunch upside down. Even if I do upside down first then right side up it doesn't clump right. Upside down at my length just DOES NOT WORK for me. I'll sacrifice root curl so that I don't have bald patches.

4. I hate diffusing. Yes it gives me better waves and ringlets but it is soooooo boring. I can only stare at myself in the mirror for so long. R2D2 is great but he just doesn't dry my ends and I don't have the same volume as diffusing. Air drying is a nice happy medium for me. I'm not diffusing longer than 4 minutes anymore.

5. I have made peace with my frizz. Sometimes there's tons and sometimes there's a little but it's always there. More LI hasn't worked. Weekly DT's haven't worked. Protein treatments haven't helped. Oh well.

6. More is more. I need much more LI, curl enhancer, and gel than I thought. I use a minimum of a quarter size of each, usually more. I'm surprisingly not getting weighed down at all and I have much better definition now. Who would have thought my fin hair needed more.

7. I finally found a technique/routine that works for me. I smooth in LI before I get out of the shower then I wrap my hair in a t-shirt towel while I finish the rest of my after shower routine and get dressed. I take my hair down and smooth in whatever curl enhancer I'm using that day then distribute with my Denman. I then scrunch, scrunch, scrunch all over. I bend my head really far to the side so that it's parallel to the floor and scrunch all the way to my scalp to encourage some root curl/volume. Then I scrunch in my gel in 4 different sections making sure to really scrunch, scrunch, scrunch (are you seeing a pattern here?) until I'm happy with my clumps and curls. I then use my CLU towel to scrunch a little more, clip my roots, then diffuse or air dry. I am getting pretty good clumps and curls this way. Can't believe it took me almost 2 years to figure it out.

So I had a huuuuuuge PJ attack and ordered a bunch of new stuff so expect lots of reviews in the next few weeks. Bellacurls and Shescentit to name a few. WooHoo blogging again!