Long Time, No Blog

Haha I had to. It was just too cheesy to pass up!

Helloooo curly world! I did it again. I disappeared. My appologies. It's that final push to the end of the second semester, and the professors are really piling it on. It's as much as I can do to get enough sleep at night. There simply hasn't been any time for blogging.

But enough excuses. What have I been up to hair wise?

Ugh I've been having some issues. I think I had a pretty good case of build up. I'm not sure what it was from. But when I would scratch at my scalp, I'd get a very healthy portion of white gunk (yuck!) and I noticed a smell coming from my scalp as well. It's not my cowashing technique I don't think since I've been CG for a good while now without this issue, so I figured that I must have just reached my limit and something was just loving my hair and scalp so much it decided to stick around.

So I decided to try and treat it with a lowpoo first. The low poos (I did a couple over the course of a few days) helped; it cut down on the white gunk and smell, but something still didn't feel right.

So I did something bad. I reached for the sulfate poo. A lot of curlies who are CG tend to look at a sulfate poo as a death sentence. However, I don't think that one sulfate wash has the power to undo several months of proper treatment. I feel it's the repeated and frequent use of sulfates that does us in.

I kept my original bottle of sulfate poo that I used to use everyday (had to because my scalp would then overproduce oil and I thought I had greasy hair) when I went CG just in case I needed it. It's Herbal Essences Totally Twisted Shampoo. It's got not only sulfates but also cocamidopropyl betaine (and it claims to be moisturizing for curls *rolls eyes*) so it's definitely a cleanser. It's also silicone free.

So I did it. Oh my goodness did my hair feel STRIPPED! It was really shocking to think that that feeling used to be normal. It felt like it was literally going to scream for help it was so dry and...*shudder* squeaky. I knew that this would kick any build up in the bud though, and if it didn't fix my issues I'd have to look elsewhere for answers. So after I sulfate poo'ed, I slathered on just about every conditioner I could get my hands on. My hair felt better after the conditioner got put on.

I styled using KCCC on top of KCKT. Boy was I frizzy and undefined. I know it's from the sulfate poo, because I've been using this combo with great success lately. Yuck. Bad hair day. Made me wish my hair was long enough for a scrunchie.

Good news though. Whatever was built up seems to have been sent down the drain with the curl-killing suds of the sulfate poo. I'll have to keep this in mind though. I went about 5 months and then needed a sulfate poo. I did about 4-5 low poos in that time. So I'm not good with permanent cowashing. I suppose that makes me modified CG, even though I cowash the vast majority of the time. Eh, it's just a label anyway!

The important thing is that now that I've gotten moisture back into my hair and I'm build up free, things are looking good on the hair front. I've had some really awesome hair days with BB's Flax Gelee, KCCC, and Curl Junkie Curl Pudding (more on this next entry). Still using and loving the curl towels. I've been diffusing on Tuesdays and Thursdays now because I have later classes on those days (9:30am's woo!) and I can get up and shower and officially style my hair. Love the volume I get from diffusing. I'll have to take pictures the next time I do. I've also had one miserable failure with a product. I'll blog on that next entry though :)