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amnicare
August 13th, 2009, 05:32 PM
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/images/icons/icon1.gif Re: No trimming club!
Hi,

I'm new. I just had a trim which I'm pretty upset about because I lost three months of growth in fifteen minutes.
Now I'm going to do my best to try to keep my hair healthy and moisturized so that I don't have to trim it.

So far what I plan on doing is :

1. Eating right.

2. Following the basics in "Keeping Split Ends At Bay: Secrets of Gently Handling Your Hair" written by Teacherbear.

3. Daily moisturizing with pea sized amounts of almond oil/jojoba oil.

4. Monthly search and destroying of split ends.

5. Monthly application of egg yolk and oil. (My own idea, don't know if it's a good one)

6. Shampooing twice a week with CDC.

I was hoping for advice. Is this enough to do to have moisturized ends so that i get good healthy growth?

Somethings I need help figuring out are:

I have a little dandruff on my scalp, and was wondering what I should do to get rid of that problem. I only use Aubrey Organic conditioner, and natures best shampoo (also an organic brand). Both free of SLS

2. I was thinking maybe I should keep my hair in braids and not pony tails, to prevent pulling and hair loss.

3. I was wondering if when I shampoo should i only use cold water. If hot blowdryers, and straighteners are bad for cuticles then wouldn't hot water do the same.

4. I don't know what a seamless comb looks like and where to buy it from.

5. I was thinking a diet of five meals will prevent me from losing hair (comes out in bunches every day, don't know if a normal amount is falling out). If there may be something wrong with this type of diet please let me know.

Breakfast boiled egg 1 whole wheat toast one fruit
Snack cottage cheese 15 almonds
Snack carrots 1 fruit
Lunch bowl of Spinach, 1 tomatoe,1 cucumber, 1/4 bell pepper, 1 apple, 10 almonds, all in a large salad. With 8 oz. yogurt
Dinner Grilled Chicken brown rice brocolli
6 glasses of water.

Any help with my plan so far would be great :)

amnicare
August 13th, 2009, 05:35 PM
By the way could someone give me their suggestions on the do's and don'ts of how to tie up hair:confused:

rogue_psyche
August 13th, 2009, 05:48 PM
Tea tree oil (diluted with a carrier) might help with your dandruff if it is a fungal problem. I'd do a scalp massage with it the night before wash day.

Before your daily oiling, use a small amount of full strength, moisture-heavy condish as a leave in, concentrating on the ends and going as high as the ears or nape. I don't know which conditioner from Aubrey is really big on the moisture. Oil isn't really moisture, but it softens hair while sealing in existing moisture, so that is why I recommend a leave in.

If you sleep in a braid, make sure to moisturize the tassels again. If you are planing on getting rid of the braidwaves anyway in the morning, tie off your braid higher up than you need to so you aren't putting stress on the ends. You don't need to have them tied off super close to the ends in order to keep tangles from forming, especially if you are starting out with healthy ends.

As always, your mileage will vary with all of this, and good luck growing!

Madame J
August 13th, 2009, 06:55 PM
Make sure you are eating enough calories to prevent hair loss, along with plenty of protein sources, and vitamin-rich foods, like veggies. It's not about how often you eat during the day, but how much you eat per day total. So if you're eating 5 300-calorie meals per day, but you need 1800 calories per day, you're going to lose more hair than if you eat 3 600-calorie meals. Broccoli is a great food because it has a high percentage of calories from protein, and it has a lot of micronutrients, but don't deprive yourself -- the best hair and skin I ever had was when I worked for Godiva chocolatier and ate chocolate everyday. Of course, if you're trying to lose weight, you'll have to balance eating the right number of calories to lose weight without losing too much hair.

Also, look up Kirin's and Ursula's articles for newbie in the Articles -> Hair Care section. And remember, shedding 80-120 hairs per day is considered normal. If you're not losing ponytail thickness, it's nothing you need to worry about. When I had waist-length hair, my roommate wondered why I wasn't bald with the amount of hair she found in balls around the apartment, but since I never noticed any thinning of the hair left on my scalp, I didn't worry about it.

For putting hair up, check out the Hair Styling section of articles for ideas for updos. At BSL, you should be able to use hair sticks to do a bun. I think there's even an article about how to put in pins, sticks, and forks to keep a hairdo up.

Good luck and welcome! If you want an example of a hair routine, I have mine posted in my user profile, along with a public album of some updos for shorter hair.

Vermelha
August 13th, 2009, 07:45 PM
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/images/icons/icon1.gif Re: No trimming club!
Hi,

I'm new. I just had a trim which I'm pretty upset about because I lost three months of growth in fifteen minutes.
Now I'm going to do my best to try to keep my hair healthy and moisturized so that I don't have to trim it.

So far what I plan on doing is :

1. Eating right.

2. Following the basics in "Keeping Split Ends At Bay: Secrets of Gently Handling Your Hair" written by Teacherbear.

3. Daily moisturizing with pea sized amounts of almond oil/jojoba oil.

IDK if your hair can take a lot of oil, but we curlies can use a bit more than a pea sized amount and not look greasy. Curly hair tends to eat up products and oil for some reason...but that's all up to you.

4. Monthly search and destroying of split ends.
It's a good habit to S&D, but too much could cause you a setback (it did me that way...I trimmed too often and ended up the same length for 6 months). I could see you going for a longer period, like every 6-8 weeks...but that's just IMO

5. Monthly application of egg yolk and oil. (My own idea, don't know if it's a good one) Sounds good! Just don't leave it on too long or rinse in hot water, or you'll cook the egg. Plenty of people do the egg yolk and oil treatment!

6. Shampooing twice a week with CDC.
That sounds good.

I was hoping for advice. Is this enough to do to have moisturized ends so that i get good healthy growth?

Somethings I need help figuring out are:

I have a little dandruff on my scalp, and was wondering what I should do to get rid of that problem. I only use Aubrey Organic conditioner, and natures best shampoo (also an organic brand). Both free of SLS

Like someone else mentioned, Tea Tree Oil (and a base oil) massaged in the scalp nightly, especially before wash day, could help. Coconut and Jojoba Oil work well too. Also, waiting even longer between shampoos helped for me.

2. I was thinking maybe I should keep my hair in braids and not pony tails, to prevent pulling and hair loss.

Braids, rope braids, plaits. They rock! Ponytails ripped my hair out big time. And when your hair gets long enough, buns! Just don't do them too tight, or you can get some breakage...

3. I was wondering if when I shampoo should i only use cold water. If hot blowdryers, and straighteners are bad for cuticles then wouldn't hot water do the same.

Warm water helps the shampoo suds up. And it's not really advised to wash hair in hot water. Warm water washing, followed by a cool or cold water rinse can help close cuticles.

4. I don't know what a seamless comb looks like and where to buy it from.

Bone combs are seamless. So is the Jilbere Wide Tooth Comb... I'm sure there are other ladies that could give you advice on this one.

5. I was thinking a diet of five meals will prevent me from losing hair (comes out in bunches every day, don't know if a normal amount is falling out). If there may be something wrong with this type of diet please let me know.

Bunches doesn't sound good, IMO...but we do shed anywhere from 150-300 hairs a day. The longer the hair, the more it looks like we've shed. Anywho, you may need to up the protein and some multivitamins. Dieting (meaning eating less than your body's metabolic rate) does cause shedding for some and, in some cases, hair loss...I don't think anyone should go under 1,000 calories a day. Listen to what Madame J said...

Breakfast boiled egg 1 whole wheat toast one fruit
Snack cottage cheese 15 almonds
Snack carrots 1 fruit
Lunch bowl of Spinach, 1 tomatoe,1 cucumber, 1/4 bell pepper, 1 apple, 10 almonds, all in a large salad. With 8 oz. yogurt
Dinner Grilled Chicken brown rice brocolli
6 glasses of water.

Any help with my plan so far would be great :)

I responded in the bold....Good luck with your regime! I don't know if what I said was even useful, since there are TONS of long haired mavens on this forum that could surely help you along the way. Happy growing!:cheese:

Sissy
August 13th, 2009, 09:52 PM
you have been given good advice by the others so I'll just add a couple of things. A good place to find a seamless comb is from Hairsense.com but her combs on her ebay store are cheaper. The Detangling Rake and Proffessional Detangler are both good.

I agree that you may need more protein in your diet as well as a multi-vitamin for sure. There are other supplements one can take for hair growth. Biotin is one supplement I take. Also, drink plenty of water and be sure to get protein omega fatty acids and eat lots of ruffage, especially cucumbers as they contain silica. Try to lead as stress free of a life as possible and do things to releive your stress... bath, yoga, keep a journal, etc as decreasing stress is very good for hair. Be sure to get enough sleep at night and consider a satin pillowcase as they are gentle on hair. Hope this helps!

amnicare
August 15th, 2009, 03:31 PM
thanks for all your advice everyone.

I think I will be sure to add a protein to each of my five meals, and maybe even a sixth meal when i have time.

Does anyone know of an all natural leave in conditioner? Wow I had no idea that oils don't work as moisturizers.

Thanks for the info. about hairdos, suggestions for what articles I should read, and oils to use.

I also had no idea that warm water usage followed by cold water usage closes the cuticles. that's a good thing right, because then the cuticle prevents moisture from being lost. I always simply used warm water only.

I am definitely going to check hairsense.com

thanks again:)

Ursula
August 15th, 2009, 03:36 PM
It looks to me as if you're trying a lot of new things at once, which is a recipe for confusion.

I put together an article in the "Articles" section called "Ursula's Standard Newbie Advice", where I outline an experiment method of slow and careful changes, so that you know what the results of each change to your routine is before you start on the next change. It's helped quiet a few people here get started.

Link is in my sig.

danacc
August 15th, 2009, 04:08 PM
First, I echo Ursula. Change only 1 thing at a time, and go for at least 2 full weeks before changing the next thing.

I'm not at all concerned about the amount of protein in your sample diet, though. As long as you stick with whole grains like the whole wheat bread and the brown rice along with nuts, beans, or dairy, you're fine. In addition, you have 1 serving of meat. As a vegetarian, I have absolutely no protein worries about that kind of diet.

Make sure you're getting enough iron, though. It's much easier to meet protein needs than to meet iron needs through diet alone when you cut back on red meat.

ETA: Link to Ursula's excellent article: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=39

amnicare
August 16th, 2009, 12:14 AM
Ok I think in my intro thread, as a Newby I made the common mistake of failing to describe my hair. Instead I went right into asking how to fix my hair, which I guess I wasn't supposed to do.

I have curly hair. I have never colored it ever. I don't use styling products, not even hair spray or gel. I haven't straightened my hair in three years. The few times I did straighten it would have been for special occasions like a bridal shower or something. I don't blow dry it. I can't remember the last time I blow dried it. I haven't washed with hot water for a few years also. I haven't done these things because over the years I was told that it is bad for the hair. Besides that, these things also take time and effort and I just didn't want to take time to mess up my hair. Before I came to this site, I regularly put almond oil on once a week. I also used an egg and oil combination every month. I combed my hair with a wide tooth comb, but it wasn't seamless. I also only used organic shampoos and washed my hair about 3 times a week.
So the changes in my routine that I intend to make is:
pea sized amount of oil a day
CWC two times a week
increasing my protein intake

I didn't think they were big changes, but I guess I could drop one or two, if you think so.

danacc
August 16th, 2009, 10:08 AM
Based on your latest post, I wouldn't call you a Newby. :)

It is important to wait to see how your hair reacts on some changes, and not nearly as important to wait for others. If you already use a wide-tooth comb, and want to switch to a seamless one to do the same job, go ahead. The seamless one will be more gentle; there's no reason to wait to see how your hair "reacts" to seamless versus non-seamless. I would probably not make any changes to how I treat/handle my hair on that same day, but I'm just super-cautious like that. And I wouldn't be worried about the "seamless" change, but any other changes that came with switching combs like the material of the comb or a difference in the way the teeth are laid out.

The same goes with gentle hair handling. Gentle is always better; you don't need to make the one change and watch how your hair reacts unless you're interested in just how much better the gentler method is.

Increasing protein in your diet will have more of an indirect effect on your hair. This is also a change where you will not likely be able to see or measure a change for months. If you are doing this for your hair alone, I'd actually recommend to wait and have it be the last thing you try. That way, you can use a few months to measure the difference. If you're increasing protein for other reasons, just go ahead and do it. I haven't heard of increased protein intake having any harmful effect (others, chime in here if there is a chance of this). You just won't be able to tell if the increased protein intake is beneficial to your hair if you make other changes at the same time. That may or may not be important to you.

Other changes I would recommend doing one at a time. Different heads of hair react differently to these. Some hair loves a pea-sized amount of oil a day, other hair hates it. It often depends on the type of oil used. So, when you start trying the oiling, try it without making other changes. Otherwise, you won't know if a "bad" hair reaction is in response to the oilings or something else. This is one case where I'd say make the one change, and change nothing else for 2 weeks.

Another is the switch to CWC. Most hair likes CWC better than the typical western-style shampoo-and-condition. But yours may not. To reduce variables, when you first CWC, use the products you already know your hair likes.

If you'd like to try is going from 3 washes a week to 2 washes a week, try that by itself, too. (I couldn't tell from your post if you were trying to stretch washes from "about 3" with shampoo to "2 a week" with CWC.) Some scalps adjust, some don't. I've had to move very slowly in this area. After 18 months, I've gone from daily washing to every 3 days comfortably, and every 4 days if I push it a little beyond my comfort zone. If I would have changed my washing method, or introduced oiling at the same time, I wouldn't have known if it was the new washing method, the stretched-out time between them, or both that resulted in such oily hair at first.

amnicare
August 16th, 2009, 10:44 AM
ok thanks then I guess I will work on the shampooing first. Then I will work on the conditioning after two weeks or so.

Thank you

amnicare
August 16th, 2009, 07:51 PM
you know i asked about the dandruff but i just realized today that what I thought was white flakey dandruff was actually dried egg yolk that i hadn't cleaned out properly. ha ha ha. sorry about that.