That damn dry itchy scalp

Its no secret that I have an issue with dry scalp. It itches like mad. At one point before I started my current shampooing situation my scalp was so dry and flaky it was white. My scalp was a huge mess and completely angry with me. 

Everyone keeps saying did you put enough grease on your scalp and I have to tell them grease don't always help with dryness. It especially didn't help with the type of dryness I was experiencing. Heat would cause a lot of itching. My scalp would be sore from the scratching. At one point I had to ice my scalp is one particular section because it hurt so bad.  I was at a point where I wanted to cut all of my hair off and cry.  It might not seem like a big thing to other people but I was in hell. It was so hard living in Florida there is tons of heat and heat seemed to be like the lighter fluid that started the fire of itchiness in my scalp. 

I was shopping at the body shop and found ginger shampoo. Ginger has many healing properties and let me tell you that soothing scalp is one of them. It can help with digestion, nausea, the common cold and the flu. Ginger also helps with muscle pain and soreness, it can reduce chances of heart disease, and helps with cramping. I will add a website link that shows all of the uses of ginger at the bottom as well as pictures of the ginger shampoo as well as the tea tree and peppermint shampoo.

I actually mixed the two but I have to let you all know that the ginger shampoo is NOT sulfate free. My scalp stopped itching so I really don't care that it isn't sulfate free. I still have some dryness that I'm working out but my scalp isn't sore any more and it doesn't itch half as much. My favorite part is I don't have flakes every where just because I move my head. I've only used this shampoo concoction twice and each time it gets better. 

I got the peppermint tea tree shampoo from Walmart but not every wally world has one. My particular store stopped selling it so I have to go to Sally's Beauty Supply. As usual I hope this helps someone somewhere.  I will add the links to the shampoos as well just in case you don't have easy access to the products. Any questions feel free to ask

Ginger Benefits
https://authoritynutrition.com/11-proven-benefits-of-ginger/

Ginger shampoo
http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com/hair-care-products/hair-top-rated/ginger-scalp-care-shampoo.aspx

Eden Products tea tree and peppermint shampoo
http://www.sallybeauty.com/peppermint-hair-oil/SBS-649350,default,pd.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=SHO&cm_mmc=google-_-SHO-_-cpc-_-keyword&gclid=CjwKEAjwq8y8BRCstYTm8qeT9mwSJACZGjUkZGyJz21mI5WuAMRAI7kXytwnGiheEWEznQo728AU_xoC6efw_wcB

GHE and the Baggy Method

I've been reading on the GHE or Green House Effect for hair growth. I have to admit I'm a little bit intrigued. I thought to myself all I have to do is add a little oil and a shower cap at night and my hair will grow faster? I had to take a deeper look into this thing before I decided to give it a try.

Everyone knows I want longer hair. I want waist length hair at least once in my life and then I can let that go. I'm well on my way this time but I'm wondering will this help me get there a little faster. I will post a few links for sites that I went to if you want more information. I was cruising on pinterest when I saw something and I googled one thing which led to another. I read and learned about the GHE which is done on freshly washed hair. Some of the articles I read have conflicting information. I came across one article that actually breaks down the differences and I have to admit I'm a little excited to try the baggy method.

I have to admit that I'm in need of the baggy method because I have a huge issue with moisture retention and from what I read that is one of the main results when using this. The best part is you don't have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. It also doesn't require you to do a whole lot which is also a plus. I'm going to post the links in the order I read them. I'm sure some of you have already given this a shot or at least know about it. This may be nothing new for you but I'm a little behind the curve when it comes to some of these methods.

I hope this helps someone. With all of the craziness around us these days its nice to worry about something as trivial as hair to take you mind off the really tough stuff. Every stay safe and please try and spread some love!

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2014/08/the-greenhouse-effect-ghe-a-method-to-promote-hair-growth-and-restore-moisture/

http://www.lishaunaturals.com/haircare/real-queens-green-house-effect-regimen/

A short rant

Me being a woman I sometimes just don't understand some other women's motives. What motivates you to be mean and hateful towards another woman's hair. I just don't understand. I'm pretty impartial but I have to admit that it drives me nuts when women have long beautiful hair but hide it behind weaves. I understand why some my do it but it annoys me. I don't go around talking trash about that woman (you know who you are).

In the grocery store just recently one woman complimented me on my hair I said thank you and just as I was about to move on to get what else I needed I hear a snarky comment saying its really hard trying to look beautiful with such short hair. I turned smiled and said "That just goes to show how much you know about your own texture because if you knew anything you would understand shrinkage." I pulled one of my curls down to just past my shoulder turned and then left. I could have called her out because she was wearing a weave but its not my mission to shame a woman for her hair choices.

Why can't we as a community build each other up? We see it all the time on tv. Influential women kicking, punching, biting and slinging drinks at each other. I just don't get it. If you are struggling with your hair be it natural, relaxed or weaved I want you to feel like you can read the crazy crap that I rant about and feel ok about you. In the words of Steve Harvey We are the prize. Women. I don't care if your hair is straight, wavy, curly, or nappy just celebrate the best you.

Just remember you need no ones approval for how you wear your hair. If you love it then I love it. If you decided to shave it off tomorrow then do it. We only get one go around with this thing called life and you don't want something as simple as hair to hold you back. It can and will grow back.

My rant is over and I know I was all over the place but forgive me, its my first day back to work after vacation and things went to hell and hour into my shift.

Thoughts about Protective Styles

Why do you protective style? I do it because I don't want to have to do my hair every day. I'm lazy that way and I'm ok with it. I got together with some girlfriends and hair as usual came up and the topic was protective styling. We discussed if it was necessary for hair growth because some many blogs and websites are saying no. 

One of my friends like me is just lazy. We don't want to do our hair every day and so we do styles that last longer. My go to is 2 strand twists. I love them. It takes me about 4 hours to do my hair myself but in the end it's worth it. My lazy friend wears a lot of braids. She wears it up for 1-2 months and then takes it down and let's her hair breath for a while and then back up again. 

One of my friends believes it's truly the only way her hair will grow. She wears her own hair in braids for maybe a month. I don't know how she does it because the frizz would drive me nuts. Her hair never looks frizzy though and I hate her for it but not really. She has beautiful hair and it's about shoulder length now.

My final friend has beautiful healthy hair that she keeps about medium length because she doesn't want long hair and I respect her for that. Not every one wants long hair remember my sister loves her fade and it looks great on her. Anyway my friend has gorgeous curls and doesn't protective style at all. She feels no need to  because her hair continues to grow and she keeps it  cut to the length she likes.

It's all about your preferences.

I will be posting my before and after pictures from my first month of exercise and hair grow challenge.  I'm looking slimmer and my hair is a little longer. I had to make adjustments to my hair growth options which will be explained another time

Natural hair vs Relaxers vs Weaves

I'm going to ask that whoever reads this gets all the way to the bottom before getting angry with me. I'm a pretty neutral person when it comes to hair and whatever you want to do who am I to say otherwise. I will do each section individually and state my experience and opinion.

I will start this with a quote I saw while watching the Steve Harvey show. This woman say you have to love the base you before all of the embellishment. I completely agree with that. "One of my favorite quotes is I'm beautiful in my way because God makes no mistakes."  Unknown. If you don't believe in the same God I do then that's fine as well you understand the basics of what I'm saying.

I'm going to start with relaxers because I don't remember much of my hair before that and what I do remember will go in the natural hair section. I got my first relaxer in 1997. I was 12 years old. I was the last of my cousins in that age range to get one (more detail in natural section). I thought my hair was beautiful, it  was finally straight and I could wear it down. My hair touched my shoulders and I was so excited. The burning pain was worth it in the end. Over the years I'd spent only God knows how much money to maintain it.

I'd burned my hair and had to get it cut 3 times in the 16 years I had the relaxer.  There was heat and color damage, in the end my scalp truly hated me. I itched all of the time, I had horrible dry scalp and no matter what I put on it nothing worked. My scalp was white from all of the flaky dry skin. If I put too much on it the build up was crazy. It didn't end well for me but for a long time it worked great for me and I really did love it. If someone loves getting relaxers then I'm happy for them, it just stopped working for me. I went to stylists and one was able to do something that worked but she was so dang expensive that I said forget it. I cut my hair off for the final time in 2012.

I'm going to natural hair now. When I was a little girl my mom would take down my hair Friday night and wash it every 3 weeks on a Saturday, and every Sunday evening she would braid it for the week. That was my routine until I got old enough to wash my own hair and then I was doing that part up until the summer of 1997. I got picked on a lot by my cousins and people at school and I gave into peer pressure. People said some really mean things to me, I was called a slave, or told to go back and pick cotton, the usual nappy head, and some other things. What's interesting is it was only black people who put me down.

Fast forward to 2013 and I decide I'm done. No more relaxers! My first steps were to stop my scalp from itching and to get it healthy again. I didn't realize that everyone from my cousins to a grandmother and people at school actually peer pressured me into getting a relaxer. I saw the documentary Dark Girls and it was an eye opener. One thing that struck me and I remember is when one of the ladies said, "I had been taught that straight was right." I can't say if that is an accurate quote but that's what I got from it. It made me think what does my natural hair look like? I don't remember it, was it curly? was it wavy? was it nappy? I really didn't remember. I said Ok, I'm going to give this one year and see if I can do it. I started to transition in May 2013 and here I am 3 years later still going. I officially went back to the natural do in Feb 2014.

Its a lot of work and its not at the same time. I think you have to be prepared to do it and not just get mad and cut off all of your hair because that will lead to depression and regret. I say think about it and research about it and make sure its what you want to do. Personally I wish I'd gone back natural years before I actually did.

Now for the weaves. I'm talking braids, twists and sew ins. Anything that is a way of adding hair with out it being a wig. I use to love weaves so much. I wore them all and with no problem. Now I think I might hurt someone if they mention me wearing a weave ever again. I just wore box braids for a month and I felt like I was being driven insane from the itching and dryness. I had a lot of issues. I either don't have a healthy scalp or I'm allergic to the hair. I can't get to my scalp the way I want to and it annoys the heck out of me.

It truly amazes me how women can wear weaves for long periods of time and not miss touching their scalp. I need to run my fingers through my own dang hair. What concerns me about the weaves is hearing women say they aren't beautiful without it. I'm hearing girls (under 18) say they don't love their hair and that they need a weave to be beautiful. I'm not saying weaves are bad, I'm saying love you before AND after the weave.

I don't hate any particular style. There are just styles I personally wont wear. I see women getting put down for stupid things like hair and make up and we should be building each other up and not slapping each other down. As long as you love you at your most basic then it doesn't matter what's on your head

Hair Growth

I've been reading a lot of articles about stimulating hair growth and I've read a lot of different things. This post is going to explain the things I've read and what I'm actually going to try and for how long.

The thing I hear about the most is taking pills. The hairfinity or the biotin pills. Less just face it hairfinity is just more expensive biotin and other vitamins put together. I personally don't like biotin. I looked like I was just reaching puberty with the amount of acne I got. I was told to increase my water intake and I did and nothing changed. I didn't really notice a difference in my hair but my skin was not happy. If this works for you then keep it up but it didn't work for me.

The next thing would be drinking more water. This one is hard for me because I do a lot of driving. I'm a field service tech so I'm driving from place to place and you don't want to use just any bathroom. I did need to increase my water intake because I started working out again. If you are driving a lot like I do (500+ miles a week) then you need to find dedicated restrooms that you know will be clean because you will be peeing A LOT. I try to at minimum get the recommended 8 cups a day. I don't always do it and I don't expect everyone to be able to do it either but I say give it shot. I will.

To piggy back off what I just said about the water I'm increasing my exercise. I'm 5 ft 4 inches and I weigh 172 pounds.  I'm considered overweight border line obese. I read an article that said increasing exercise will increase blood flow which includes to the scalp which stimulates hair growth. I'm not trying to get back to 120 pounds, I think I want to cap it around 150 which means I have 22 pounds to go. I'm going to start off slow because I have a foot thing and blah blah blah.

There's always the usual stuff like less manipulation, trimming the ends, and working in sections. I already do those things and will continue to do them. I only get the ends trimmed once a year. I feel that's all I really need. My cousin goes every 6 months. These are just suggestions because you know your hair better than anyone. If you don't know your hair then check with a stylist you trust. You can't just go to anyone. I've spoke to stylists who are afraid of natural hair so remember to ask questions.

The last thing I got for you is using oils for your hair. All of my friends know that I'm crazy about using pumpkin seed oil. Its my go to oil. It works best for me. I read where women say they do scalp massages with warm coconut oil once a week about 45 mins before a wash. I find that interesting because I just did the hair detox from shea butter and such. I was never a coconut oil user so I'm not really sure if it works. I think I'm going to give this one a shot for 3 months and see if there is a difference.

I'm going to do this starting June 4th to Sept 3rd. On that day I will post before and after photos. I'm going to do full body shots to give myself more motivation to actually work out because I'm lazy. The next topic will be on a debate I saw on tv regarding natural hair vs relaxers vs weaves. I'm going to express my opinion openly and if anyone feels any different let me know.

Braids and other weaves

For the past month I have been wearing braids. I've learned one very important thing my scalp hates me when I wear any extra hair. For a long time I had no issues but now my scalp itches like crazy. No one could say that I didn't moisturize my hair because I did and often but my scalp was inflamed and unhappy. 

You name it I used it. I did manage to get a half inch of new growth out of the deal but still the trauma my scalp went through was nuts. I know trauma is a very dramatic word but almost every day was torture. My scalp was constantly itching and red and nothing made it better with the exception of just regular water. I even washed the hair before use and it didn't help at all. My hair is getting longer so I guess I can do without the extra hair anyways. 

The other thing I can't deal with anymore is sew ins. I learned how to do them myself about 5 years ago with a lot of practice and now I do them for my mom every now and again. I can't deal with it, I need access to my scalp. When my hair is done in these protective styles with additional hair its just painful. I've officially decided to give up on it. I'm thinking I might be allergic to the hair. I've tried human hair and synthetic hair and its all a pain in the ass. 

I'm not saying this to discourage anyone I'm just sharing my experience. I'm all for protective styling but there's a limit for me. I wish anyone the best of luck