I'm Back

For real this time. Obviously, my last post did not come to pass. I'm sorry for any false hopes. I did notice however, that in my hiatus, the number of page views for my blog is nearing 50,000! That's unbelievable. I imagine most of that is due to people checking out my CG guide from being linked to it by the lovely ladies of naturallycurly.com, so I'm super happy that even in my absense, the blog was helping some curlies out!

So here's the hiatus explanation. I had some serious hair issues this summer. My fair felt nasty and my scalp was a disaster zone. Not even my beloved brown sugar scrub could zap the flakes and gunk. I tried co-pooing (combining a cowash with a low poo), which worked for a while then quit. I tried low pooing exclusively, which really dried me out and made me tangly and nasty. Finally, I threw in the towel and started using Aussie Moist Shampoo (main cleaning ingredient: Ammonium Laurel Sulfate. Yikes) and Aussie Moist Conditioner (this is actually not too bad, the only non CG thing is a bis-aminopropyl dimethicone). I very rarely actually styled my hair since using CG products with a non CG routine just doesn't work for me. When I would style it, it was very obvious how dry it was. I really didn't want to be on CurlTalk during that time because it was very frustrating doing things that I knew were not good for my hair but seeming to have no other choice.

I think now that my hair has been sufficiently sulfate damaged yet again, my hair may finally be ready to try CG again.

Here's the gameplan. I bought some of the Curls Cleansing Cream and also their Curls Coconut Sublime Conditioner. I figured that going from using an ALS shampoo straight to cowashing would lead to some funky greasiness since when I'm on sulfates, my scalp gets oil build up (and I have to wash it every day). So, I figured I'd give a really gentle low poo a try for transitioning sake before I try straight cowashing with Suave Naturals Coconut again. And if straight cowashing doesn't work out, then I have a nice moisturizing low poo to fall back on/alternate with cowashing.

This stuff is a little pricey, but I tried them today and I've gotta say I'm impressed. I really like the texture of the cleansing cream. It's very thick, which is a good sign. Both of these products come in pump bottles, which is really nice. I like the conditioner, but my hair really ate it up. I think I was around like 10 pumps before I was satisfied. Hopefully the amount I need will slow down as my hair recovers from the summer, but I can see why the cleansing cream comes in an 8oz. bottle and the conditioner comes in a 16oz bottle! By the way, they both smell fantastic. Very coconut-creamy. Yum!

After I did my Curls washing and conditioning, I applied a nickle size blob of Kinky Curly Knot Today and then scrunched in some Curl Junkie Coffee Coco Cream. I'm airdrying for the first time in a longggg time. I forgot how long my hair takes to air dry even though it isn't long or thick. I'm at 2 hours now and I'm just starting to feel a slight bit of crunch forming from the Curl Junkie.

I have lots of exciting new products and techniques to try once I finish adjusting. I'm going to stick with the above routine for at least a week or so. Then cowashing, and hopefully an easy adjustment!