Talking about hair...

[ReptilianFeline]

I'm going to describe my hair, as best as I can, and then ask for some thoughts about it.

My hair is in three major lenght at the moment; BCL, waist from growing out using a metal clasp to hold a ponytail all the time, and shoulder from
growing out a bad shed. I trim a little att the BCL lenght to help the rest catch up.

My hair strands are fairly thick, zig zaggy, with a slow curl along the lenght, and sometimes some strands have not round bits in it... I guess that's called kinky? The baby hair on my neck will curl like crazy, creating knots when I'm brushing.

If I take a strand of hair and try to pull it apart, it will stretch a bit and then snap like a spring. It's kind of hard to do, so the hair is strong.

I bun my hair 95% or so if the days in a year, so my ends don't have a lot of split ends.

I wash my hair once a week and have done so from when I was little. The shampoo has changed though.

My hair is very dye resistant and the only thing that seems to hold on for longer is henna, but I want black hair, so I have experimented a bit and found that PPD henna works best for black hair. I'm not allergic so that's OK. My real colour is mousy brown with plenty of grey at the top.

When I had my huge shed around March 2017, I freaked out, and decided to try something new as to washing my hair. I had used for several years a sulfate-free shampoo and a cone-free conditioner. I had mostly used coconut oil to help detangle and some hair oil mixes on my scalp to combat itchyness and dandruffyness. After some research I decided to go with the ayurvedic herbs - aritha, shikakai, amla and neem. It seemed to help. The shedding almost stopped and the itchyness subsided. Not the flakyness though... that became worse. To top it all I felt a buildup of some kind of coating on my hair that I didn't like at all. When I used my shampoo (the sulfate-free one) it cleaned my hair all right, but *ugh* my scalp hated it.
I have since adjusted my recipe to use a base of chickpea flour and homemade juniper water with a bit of either aritha or shikakai and neem. I like to feel the scrubbing from the herbs against my scalp. It feels good and my scalp feels clean.
After a botched dye job with henna that sat for 24 hours, my scalp has stopped itching all together and there is almost no flaking. I decided to add henna and indigo to my shampoo mix and loved the scrubbyness of it. I let it dye release properly before using it, and since it's pretty old henna there hasn't been much of a stain from it. I want to use up it though before getting some new BAC henna. It's a nice scrub, I'm fine with that.
However... after three washes and the last one with less chickpea flour I ended up with a lot of green gunk on my hair. At that point I started to consider it being sebum mixed with leftover herbs. I could be wrong.
I decided to clarify but making my shampoo mix without henna and indigo, and adding a can of non alcoholic beer as a first rinse and my regular lemon green tea rinse as the second rinse. It helped! Now I just have a little sebum coating my head hair and I'm trying to figure out how to use a BBB to fix that.

I'm sorry for the long post. I'm happier with my hair now than ever before, but I feel I'm entering unknown territory with sebum and BBB and not using proper store bought shampoo. I don't know what is normal with my hair since it has been washed in regular cheap shampoo almost all my life. The sulfate-free shampoo has been going on for just about the last five years or so, even if I stopped with that about nine months ago.

Things are going well, even if I'm a but confused. There is no way I'm going back to store bought shampoos ever again.

[lapushka]

If you're 2b/c, it's not "kinky". Kinky is when you're a 4 category.

I'm astounded and glad that ayurvedic herbs are great for you. They never worked for me. I'm also glad you managed to get rid of the flakes by making your own DIY recipes.


I'm sorry for the long post. I'm happier with my hair now than ever before, but I feel I'm entering unknown territory with sebum and BBB and not using proper store bought shampoo. I don't know what is normal with my hair since it has been washed in regular cheap shampoo almost all my life. The sulfate-free shampoo has been going on for just about the last five years or so, even if I stopped with that about nine months ago.

Things are going well, even if I'm a but confused. There is no way I'm going back to store bought shampoos ever again.

I think if you keep experimenting (but not too much) and figuring it out as you go along, it will turn out fine. You have managed to do that so far. So hang in there.

Good luck!

[ReptilianFeline]

I'm astounded and glad that ayurvedic herbs are great for you. They never worked for me. I'm also glad you managed to get rid of the flakes by making your own DIY recipes.

I think if you keep experimenting (but not too much) and figuring it out as you go along, it will turn out fine. You have managed to do that so far. So hang in there.

Good luck!

Thanks!

I never thought it would work... not like this. The pivot point was when the result of the clarifying wash with my regular shampoo was such a disaster for my scalp. After that I knew had no choise - I had to, HAD TO, get it to work. Tweaking and testing and searching... but most of all not giving up! :)

[Dark40]

I'm going to describe my hair, as best as I can, and then ask for some thoughts about it.

My hair is in three major lenght at the moment; BCL, waist from growing out using a metal clasp to hold a ponytail all the time, and shoulder from
growing out a bad shed. I trim a little att the BCL lenght to help the rest catch up.

My hair strands are fairly thick, zig zaggy, with a slow curl along the lenght, and sometimes some strands have not round bits in it... I guess that's called kinky? The baby hair on my neck will curl like crazy, creating knots when I'm brushing.

If I take a strand of hair and try to pull it apart, it will stretch a bit and then snap like a spring. It's kind of hard to do, so the hair is strong.

I bun my hair 95% or so if the days in a year, so my ends don't have a lot of split ends.

I wash my hair once a week and have done so from when I was little. The shampoo has changed though.

My hair is very dye resistant and the only thing that seems to hold on for longer is henna, but I want black hair, so I have experimented a bit and found that PPD henna works best for black hair. I'm not allergic so that's OK. My real colour is mousy brown with plenty of grey at the top.

When I had my huge shed around March 2017, I freaked out, and decided to try something new as to washing my hair. I had used for several years a sulfate-free shampoo and a cone-free conditioner. I had mostly used coconut oil to help detangle and some hair oil mixes on my scalp to combat itchyness and dandruffyness. After some research I decided to go with the ayurvedic herbs - aritha, shikakai, amla and neem. It seemed to help. The shedding almost stopped and the itchyness subsided. Not the flakyness though... that became worse. To top it all I felt a buildup of some kind of coating on my hair that I didn't like at all. When I used my shampoo (the sulfate-free one) it cleaned my hair all right, but *ugh* my scalp hated it.
I have since adjusted my recipe to use a base of chickpea flour and homemade juniper water with a bit of either aritha or shikakai and neem. I like to feel the scrubbing from the herbs against my scalp. It feels good and my scalp feels clean.
After a botched dye job with henna that sat for 24 hours, my scalp has stopped itching all together and there is almost no flaking. I decided to add henna and indigo to my shampoo mix and loved the scrubbyness of it. I let it dye release properly before using it, and since it's pretty old henna there hasn't been much of a stain from it. I want to use up it though before getting some new BAC henna. It's a nice scrub, I'm fine with that.
However... after three washes and the last one with less chickpea flour I ended up with a lot of green gunk on my hair. At that point I started to consider it being sebum mixed with leftover herbs. I could be wrong.
I decided to clarify but making my shampoo mix without henna and indigo, and adding a can of non alcoholic beer as a first rinse and my regular lemon green tea rinse as the second rinse. It helped! Now I just have a little sebum coating my head hair and I'm trying to figure out how to use a BBB to fix that.

I'm sorry for the long post. I'm happier with my hair now than ever before, but I feel I'm entering unknown territory with sebum and BBB and not using proper store bought shampoo. I don't know what is normal with my hair since it has been washed in regular cheap shampoo almost all my life. The sulfate-free shampoo has been going on for just about the last five years or so, even if I stopped with that about nine months ago.

Things are going well, even if I'm a but confused. There is no way I'm going back to store bought shampoos ever again.

You are so lucky to be at BCL! Right now I'm at WL hoping that by Christmas of this year I will have reached Hip Length. My hair texture is curly and frizzy too! I try to do everything I an to tame the frizz by deep conditioning treatments and hot oil treatments. I also try to stay away from sulfate shampoos, and use cone conditioners. My hair is much happier if I use cone and silicone conditioners. Yeah, I agree with lapushka.....your hair isn't kinky unless it is type 4a or something like that.

[FrayedFire]

There's different kinds of BBB, but you don't actually need one, you can use your fingers, it might even be better with your hair type.

[ReptilianFeline]

@Dark40 - I feel almost like cheating when I say my hair is BCL when so little of it actually reaches there. I have used coconut oil as a detangler as well as catnip tea and both have worked well for me when I used shampoo, but now I have to learn a new way of doing things. I remember liking the slip the coney conditioners gave me, but it did build up onb my hair and when I started using sulfate free shampoo I went cone-free as well and started to think it wasn't really needed when I used the coconut oil.
Hair and water is different for everyone. Don't change things until you need it.

@FrayedFire - Can you please explain how to work the sebum with my fingers? I feel like hand oil will mix into the sebum if I use my hands too much?
I do have trouble working the BBB through my hair past my neck.

[leayellena]

@FrayedFire - Can you please explain how to work the sebum with my fingers? I feel like hand oil will mix into the sebum if I use my hands too much?
I do have trouble working the BBB through my hair past my neck.

I have the same Problem. This is one of the perks of having oily skin and therefore oily scalp. Wash your hands, dry completely (my hair breaks if I handle it with damp hands) and start over.

[Arctic]

Hair can be kinky even if it's not type 4. It simply means there is a torsion twists along the hair shaft (feels like bumbs when you run your fingers along the hair strand). Type 4 hair is "kinky curly", a combination on kinks and curls.

[Dark40]

@Dark40 - I feel almost like cheating when I say my hair is BCL when so little of it actually reaches there. I have used coconut oil as a detangler as well as catnip tea and both have worked well for me when I used shampoo, but now I have to learn a new way of doing things. I remember liking the slip the coney conditioners gave me, but it did build up onb my hair and when I started using sulfate free shampoo I went cone-free as well and started to think it wasn't really needed when I used the coconut oil.
Hair and water is different for everyone. Don't change things until you need it.

@FrayedFire - Can you please explain how to work the sebum with my fingers? I feel like hand oil will mix into the sebum if I use my hands too much?
I do have trouble working the BBB through my hair past my neck.

Awwww, ok. That's a shame you feel you are cheating when you say your hair is BCL. How long is your hair really? Yeah, it's best to do what works for your hair. Because, what works for you may not work for someone else. I love using coconut oil on my hair too. I also use other essential oils as well. Like, jojoba oil, vitamin E oil, tea tree oil, and olive oil.

[FrayedFire]

@FrayedFire - Can you please explain how to work the sebum with my fingers? I feel like hand oil will mix into the sebum if I use my hands too much?
I do have trouble working the BBB through my hair past my neck.

Wash your hands. Twice if you must - I actually find that the sebum is also good for my nails and cuticles, just don't forget to clean out under your nails.

There's several ways to do it, and it does take a bit of time, but I find that goes very well with preening... and if you really want to spice it up, the inversion method is a great way to do it as well. I usually detangle, preening lightly as I go, and then more heavily preen the top 2/3, and then the bottom 2/3. Braiding is another good way to preen, just smooth over the strands several times on every cross. I sometimes use a firm bbb on the canopy, and then a softer one along the length for a few strokes.

[ReptilianFeline]

Wash your hands. Twice if you must - I actually find that the sebum is also good for my nails and cuticles, just don't forget to clean out under your nails.

There's several ways to do it, and it does take a bit of time, but I find that goes very well with preening... and if you really want to spice it up, the inversion method is a great way to do it as well. I usually detangle, preening lightly as I go, and then more heavily preen the top 2/3, and then the bottom 2/3. Braiding is another good way to preen, just smooth over the strands several times on every cross. I sometimes use a firm bbb on the canopy, and then a softer one along the length for a few strokes.

Preening - why do I have the image of a duck using its beak going over the feathers, then the spot just above the "tail" and then back to the feathers?
My hair tangles very easily if I go from inversion back to normal, but I will try it, because I think it will help lifting my hair a bit from the scalp.

@Dark40 - my full lenght is BCL because that's the lenght I use when I bun my hair, but it is with fairytail ends, I guess, and with wurly hair, when I let it down, it looks shorter, and the resulting look is about waist. The waist section is slowly catching up with the BCL ends, and so I'm keeping my hair at that lenght, or I could have "cheated" my way to being able to sit on it. If it tickles my butt in the shower, then that's the lenght ;)
I've been cutting it back for the last five years or so, to let my full hair catch up, and I was so dissapointed when I had my large shed and lost half my volume. Maybe when the waist lenght hair is at BCL as well, I can start letting it grow longer even if the shedding short shoulder lenght hair isn't there yet. Maybe a year from now or so, to go.


I tried to fingercomb properly yesterday, and ended up with static from just using my hands on my hair??!! I didn't know that could happen.

[enting]

That's pretty much exactly what preening is: smoothing oils down the hair (or feather) to make it lay nice and be glossy :) (On birds, the area above the tail is where they secrete oils, the rest of their skin doesn't produce oils.)

I get static from fingercombing, too!

[ReptilianFeline]

Thanks @enting! A part of me now want to get the beak off a stork so I can preen my long hair properly :)

[enting]

I'm sure there are some silicone (or wooden) prosthetics you can acquire to wear on your fingertips! But hey, fingers may be the best shape for hair. Beaks are a good shape for feathers. While similar in substance, the shapes are different.

[ReptilianFeline]

BBB and sebum manipulating makes my hair greasy and flat. I won't be doing that again.

I'll work on getting better at my no'poo making and washing, using that as a "preening" tool/session when I wash my hair.

I have hard water. I have to find the right mix of ingredients and manipulation to counter that. I think I'm on the right track.

Coffee rinses are amazing! I wonder if I can make lavender tea coffee?? :confused: Need to test that :D