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View Full Version : Hi, finally got my curls back, but lots of questions :)



yellowhairdgirl
April 27th, 2008, 08:45 PM
Short intro- was looking up ways to help stop my SD on my scalp and eczema/acne elsewhere and someone pointed me your way. I have completely changed what I wash my skina nd hair in, what I eat etc...and am so pleased with the results. My skin is 100% better and the SD has almost complete gone away. I went to no sulfates, cones, parabens in all that I use.

I am loving CO though I still have some ???s...Pretty happy that my wavy hair has finally turned back into the curly hair I once had, people keep asking me if I had a perm. I started showing my Dd what to do and her curls are coming back too.

now for the all kinds of questions part of the show-

How in the world do you come up with the 1a...hair classification? dont pay attention to mine because I had no idea what it all meant. So any help in that area would be great.

Are there any other people with SD that do CO? What conditioners do y'all use? I love the giovanni tea tree but I dont get as good of results overall as I do the elcheapo VO5, but with the vo5 I have had some slight irritation. Last time I mixed in a bit of the giovanni tea tree and the aubrey island naturals with the vo5 dilution and had better results, but it did sting a little bit.

I'm misting with aloe, jojoba (my hair seems to love this oil), apricot oil, veg. glycerin, and a teeny bit of G.Tea tree cond/Aubrey IN cond....the curls pop!

As for length I decided to go at least a year without cutting it and managed 14 months. I found a lady that really respected my length and cut a little off with some soft layers, all blended well. She also talked me into a few highlights. My hair is blonde but there was some gray peeking through and fading it out. She did a great job of blending it so well that it still looks natural 3 months later. My hair usually gets pretty light in the summer so I dont plan in doing anything again with it until the winter.

I've heard alot about ACV but when I applied a dilution to my face, I had a horrible weeping rash for over a week...had to resort to steroids to get rid of it. I am leery of putting that stuff near my noggin. Is a good clarifying shampoo enough or do I need to do something like acv/baking soda?...how in the world do you mix ACV and baking soda and not have a volcano on yer noggin?:confused:

I know lots O questions, when I get brave enough I will post a pic...right now I have a green tea/asprin mask on so I will spare y'all the sight of me.

Riot Crrl
April 27th, 2008, 09:03 PM
What are your curls like? It's basically like 1: straight or slight wave, 2: wavy, 3: curly, 4: really curly and then the letter is kind of what the tightness of the wave/curl is. Like I have spirals but they are big old loose floppy banana curls, so my number is 3 and my letter is only a. Pics can help us classify you and you don't have to put your face :)

Do you have Whole Foods in your area? I highly recommend their store brand (365 Everyday Value) of conditioner for co-washing. It has no cones, protein, parabens, good ingredient list. There are like 6 or 8 different smells available, and one is even totally unscented. It's $3 and change for a bottle, but they are rather large bottles, so the cost is not much different from Suave or Vo5.

I love me some vinegar rinse personally, but if your skin reacted like that I wouldn't risk getting it near my scalp, or anywhere, again.

I just never clarify at all besides the vinegar rinse pretty much. How are you with lemon juice? Lemon juice + conditioner is supposed to do something similar. Since you're not using cones (and I presume mineral oil) there is nothing really too tough to clarify off. Just oils, and co-washing might be good enough alone. And possibly minerals from hard water, but I tend to classify that as not really a clarification issue but a chelating issue.

yellowhairdgirl
April 27th, 2008, 09:04 PM
For anyone that wants to help me classify my hair type -


Since I dont have a pic of me now, imagine a little more chunk, alot more years, and quite a bit longer......This is me a looooong time ago, no hair products, I used to only wash with baby shampoo and condition, condition, condition...but went astray led by the hand of Paul Mitchell and his other buds in the product biz that sold me all kinds of stuff that promised to make my hair look like it did in this pic lol, I am such a goober, not sure why it didnt occur to me until now that maybe it was the crap I was putting in my head that was messing my head up.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h186/nahum1_7/babygoobergirl.jpg

Riot Crrl
April 27th, 2008, 09:06 PM
Solid 3a in my opinion! Possibly even 3b potential at least in parts!

yellowhairdgirl
April 27th, 2008, 09:07 PM
Thank you I didnt see you post, I'm slow LOL

I do have a Whole Foods near me and was thinking about their line. One more thing, I am very very very allergic to anything sunflower or safflower which takes out half the no sulfate/cones etc products. I will check their list and give it a go.

Thanks for the clarification. Is white vinegar ok? I wonder if it would produce the same reaction.

yellowhairdgirl
April 27th, 2008, 09:14 PM
again thanks for your help! My head is a little irritated so it must be something in the vo5 or something else I'm using. Hopefully there wont be any sunflowers in the 365 and I can try to unscented.

Just thought of something, do you think the jojoba/apricot oils, glycerin, (forgot about the aloe vera in it)...etc mister bottle solution could be irritating my scalp?

I used to have to Caruso curl my hair to get it all to behave, I wish I had read about co washing sooner.

yellowhairdgirl
April 27th, 2008, 09:15 PM
one more thing, what does f/m ii/iii stand for?

Riot Crrl
April 27th, 2008, 09:21 PM
Are you allergic to apples? If not it might just be the fact that it's vinegar... I dunno. If you are going to experiment with that it might be safer to maybe wear a tiny drop of it for a while on an area that would be less painful and problematic than your whole scalp or face...

I totally just use white vinegar rinse on my hair and not apple cider. Because I am lazy and cheap and we always already have it. I think the main reason people like apple cider more is because of the smell, but if you find you could tolerate white it does work fine. I don't know about the reaction though, I have always been able to eat and expose myself to all vinegars.

I can't check right now since I ran out of the 365 conditioner and DH threw away the bottle and I've been improvising with evil Suave, but I don't think I recall sunflower or safflower. Checking is good though!

Riot Crrl
April 27th, 2008, 09:28 PM
Just thought of something, do you think the jojoba/apricot oils, glycerin, (forgot about the aloe vera in it)...etc mister bottle solution could be irritating my scalp?

Possible. Stone fruits (like apricots) can be a problem of many people. Since you are making it yourself, you could patch test each ingredient on your skin and see if one gets irritated.


one more thing, what does f/m ii/iii stand for?

F/M/C is fine/medium/coarse. It's the circumference of individual hairs. If you can pull one hair in your fingers and barely even feel it, it's fine. Coarse feels more almost like a thread. I have a combination all over my head as many people do.

i/ii/iii is the circumference of the total hairs. Put in a tight ponytail and measure the circumference. I remember the low end of iii is 4 inches, but I don't remember what the low end of ii is. Mine's only 3.5" or 3.75" but I put ii/iii in my profile cause I like it better :)

justgreen
April 27th, 2008, 10:12 PM
White vinegar is better for blondes. Have you given any thought to diluting your shampoo? I used to have horrible itchy flakey scalp, and sometimes sores. Combine that with oily scalp. I was washing every other day. Finding this place turned me completely around. Once I got off the cones , snipped off 2" of damaged ends and started doing CWC, I've never looked back and I hardly pay attention to my scalp anymore, it's always pretty happy.