Hey All!!! I'm new here!

[Julesn]

I have been a lurker for QUITE some time, but I decided to finally join in w/you all

Here's a little bit of my hair history. I am actually a hairdresser, so you can imagine what my hair has been through over the years~ha! I decided about 3 weeks ago to go COMPLETELY NATURAL w/my haircolor (I haven't seen it in YEARS), I have been doing HEAVY foils w/bleach for years & my poor hair is totally paying the price. I am SUPER COMMITTED to really growing it out this time (I've thought about it before), and I figured that there was no better place to get support on my very long journey ahead from all of you who have been there and done that! Anyway, my hair is currently in a bob, about chin length (growing out from the "Posh Spice"short bob). It's hard for me to tell the exact texture of my natural hair b/c most of it is pretty processed, but I'd say it's wavy. I have A LOT of breakage (which is what has made my decision firm to grow it out natural), mostly on the crown area, but thank God I have a lot of hair & it's wavy, so it's totally hidden. Some of the breakage is so short that it looks like new growth (again, thank God I can camoflauge it). I am not going to color it back to my natural color b/c I personally think that when your hair is white blonde, tintbacks can be very tricky. So, I've opted to just let it gow au natural & cut the blonde off in about a year and a half. I have about 1/2 to 3/4 inch of new growth now, and an inch in some parts on the sides and back (because it's foiled, the new growth differs according to what sections are foiled and when). I would guess that my hair probably grows about average of 1/2 inch a month, maybe a little bit more sometimes. I am taking those "Hair Formula 37" vitamins at the moment, (started about 1.5 wks ago) and I can tell a diffence in my fingernails already!!!! They are usually pretty good, anyway, but b/c my hands are constanty in water, they can take a beating.

I told my boss that I was going to grow my hair out and to be prepared b/c it was probably going to look bad for a little bit. He wants me to color it back, and I said no, so I think he is a little annoyed w/me...ha!

So, that's about it! If anyone here has grown out from platnum to natural, please let me know how you did it w/out losing your mind~~ha! Also, has anyone here tried those vitamins that I mentioned before? I used to take GNC Ultra Nourish Hair, but they made me really sick to my stomach I'm bummed about that b/c they are a heck of a lot cheaper than these new ones!

From reading all of the posts on here, I have also decided to try to not shampoo everyday b/c I think it's going to help me a lot (I will just CO for a few days, then wash it). To those of you who use styling products...how does the CO do at removing those?

Sorry for the long rant! I'm happy to be here with you all, and I know I will stay motivated with all of the support on these boards! Thanks again!!!


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[JessTheMess]

Welcome aboard!!! Good luck on your hair growth journey.

[Dientje]

Hey Julesn,

Welcome, we're also happy that you've joined!

Good luck on your journey to long, healthy and beautiful hair! Hopefully your boss will understand eventually :)

[jeno]

Good luck to you!
If you CO and leave the conditioner in your hair for more than 15 minutes, it will remove products. It even removes oil so I think it will work.

[BlackfootHair]

When you took the GNC vitamins, did you eat beforehand? One time I actually threw up because I took them on an empty stomach. Actually, it's not uncommon for vitamin companies to recommend you take them with food. I currently take the GNC Women's Ultra Mega and then a separate biotin. I have to take them right after I finish a meal, or I get sick to my stomach. NOT fun.

Good luck on growing out your hair! I'm sure you'll have to deal with a lot of peer pressure when it starts to grow out to cut or dye it. Dabur Vatika hair oil works really well. You might want to look into it. It's a coconut oil enriched with other great herbs for the hair from India. Dabur.com.

Happy Growing! :puppy:

[Julesn]

Thanks to all of you for your warm welcomes! It means a lot to me!! :)

Blackfoot~~~I did take the GNC vitamins with food, and it still made me sick :( There must be too much of something in there that just doesn't mesh with me! Sorry you threw up, btw!!

[Patrycja]

Welcome! :flower: LHC is a wonderful and very addictive place :D You'll learns tons of information on growing healthy hair :)

[brok3nwings]

Welcome Julesn, i think its important for us to know your journey and how your hair is at the moment to be able to support you and give you advice. I am pretty new here, but my hair is so much better since i´ve joined!
I dont know if you use heat on your hair but if you do you should stop using it..there are people who do it from time to time and that is ok, but as your hair is damaged and fragile i would consider leaving it for a long time.
I dont know what you have learned already but CO is a good option, actually the conditioner cleans the hair. Sometimes my hair is durty and my scalp is oily and i do a CO with huge sucess. Also i´ve started doing white vinegar rinses (you should do white vinegar as you have blonde) and i dont rinse after with water, it helps me a lot to keep my hair really smooth and without build up from the conditioner or whatever im using.
You should also look for the oils we use to keep the moisture after, it takes a bit to see whats your favourite and also how your hair prefers it. I personally take a drop of coconut oil, with aloe vera gel and that makes my hair really smooth and silk.
About your hair i can understand what you say about colouring the foils with your natural (i dont know whats your natural but i assume is brown or dark blond) but if you are growing you have to be totally strong at not colouring at all. Cause if you let it bother you would probably use bleach and that will ruin your hair (as you have intensive breakage and a lot of foils...)
I just hope you enjoy beeing here, this can be a bit addictive if you really adore hair. Welcome! :)

[Elleyena]

Welcome! There's plenty of information and fun here. Best wishes for your growing experience!

Cheese! :cheese:

[Julesn]

Barbara~~

Thanks for all of your insight! I truly appreciate it! AND..also to EVERYONE ELSE who has responded to my post! :)

So, Barbara~~I barely heat style, but if if do, it is w/a diffuser only & just my fingers (no brushes or tugging, etc). Because I am in the beauty industry, I have to have something sorta done w/my hair when I go to work :) ha. Believe me...I WILL NOT be tempted to color it again. I am just so sick of being married to doing it, plus, I am totally sick of all the breakage. Once it gets long enough to put back, probably by Christmas time I'm guessing, then I will be able to air dry it more, but I'll still have to wear headbands or something b/c my boss will FLIP OUT if I come to work everyday in a ponytail stub~~ha ha. I work in a pretty high end salon, so we have to look the part, you know? It would be a lot easier for me if I had a different job, and it is going to be a real bummer to be surrounded by mirrors all day looking at my regrowth. Ha :) My natural haircolor is about a level 6, which is considered dark blonde/light brown...mine being more on the brownish end. I was watching Sex and the City last night & Sarah Jessica Parker almost ALWAYS has HUGE dark roots, and I'm guessing that's what mine will look like as it grows out. My hair is sort of wavy/curly, too, so I think it will be easier to grow out b/c of it, being that I won't be able to see the demarcation line as much as if my hair were staright.

Thanks again for all of the great advice!!!!!

Julie :)

[Elyce]

Hi Jules! Welcome, and thanks for sharing :0

[brok3nwings]

Julesn i adore the difuser when i want to keep my waves and i dont have the pacience to let it dry without toutching it! I am used to toutch my hair while is wet to help it dry... I absolutly understand your situation, i must say you probably will have to be stronger than some of us, cause you have the pressure of having "all good days" of hair.. I am afraid that your hairstyle may not be enough to your boss, i hope it is and i hope you can convince him. But have you considered keep giving your hair glosses of colour (im not sure if thats the name, i think it could be a toner) ? I know you understand a lot more of that then i do, but i dont know if you have considered it... that way you wouldnt mess with your virgin colour, you could keep it lighter but reduce the contrast. I just think that platinium to dark blonde/ light brown is a huge difference, but if you can stand it, that is the healthyast way for sure :) Ah, and i´ve seen platinium girls that have gone dark brown, of course its done in the hairdresser but for sure you would know how to get to the colour

[China Cat Sunflower]

welcome you will love it here :)

[Haith]

Good luck! I have no doubt that you'll get the support you need here. We are, after all, a community not just a forum.

[Katze]

Welcome, from a former bleach addict!

For years I thought I should bleach my hair to match my eyebrows (pale blonde) and the color my hair was as a kid, then was frustrated that my hair never grew. :silly: Almost every salon I went to, except for one very expensive one, treated my hair roughly, and cut off "all those old ends" without telling me how I SHOULD take care of my hair. Blowdried, bleached, straightened with the curling iron, my hair looked like the upper l. hand pic in my signature. I hadn't seen my natural color in decades and, despite buying every product that promised me "repair", could not get my hair to grow.

A friend turned me on to natural hair care, but I kept bleaching. Then I found LHC.

Many difficult months later, after countless SMTs (Snowy's moisture treatment; look in the "recipes" section), a corrective dye, one or two home streaking experiments, and trimming off probably a foot of hair overall, my hair is finally soft, smooth, and healthy, and about 80% virgin in color.

And I LIKE my natural hair color! So what if my eyebrows are light?!? :D

After a while away from the bleach, you will indeed experience ugly roots, but they will grow out faster than you think. Vitamins and extra care are good, but stopping bleach, heat, and other damaging processes are better.

There are a lot more recovering bleach heads here, and we are very happy to help you on your journey.

welcome here!

Katze

[Juanita]

Hi Julie
I have been growing out the dye for about 18 mths now I decided to let the grey be natrual.. It's just below earlobe and my hair length is from mid back to waist in length. Try scarves and fabric hair bands to cover growing out colour for work and also for those occasions when you want to hide the 2 tone look.

[Julesn]

Hey Everyone!!! ;)

You all are absolutely right...this site is totally addictive.

Thanks to everyone for all of your warm welcomes and replies! I appreciate all of you so much :)

Barbara~~The gloss (or as we call it in the salon "demi permanent color") that we use is by Redken & it's called Shades EQ. It's very good in that it has no ammonia and about .02% peroxide, and I throw just the clear gloss on my hair maybe 1X a month. It has wheat protein in it & ceramides, so it helps the cuticle lie more flat & makes the hair look healthier. As far as doing a tintback w/it though, I probably wouldn't. Don't get me wrong, that product is what we usually use for tintbacks, and in 13 years as a hairdresser (and about 6 as a certified colorist), I have yet to see a tintback that I am personally happy with. My customers have loved the results when I've done it on some of them (going from blonde to brown), but...I am a VERY PICKY hairdresser (I guess that's a good thing, though), and I can notice "off tones" (ie: too much warmth or too much ash/green tones) that the average customer can't see. That being said, if I did a tintback on myself and saw ANY of those off tones, it would send me over the edge & I'd probably shave my head (and get fired~~ha!). Thanks so much for your input, though!! If I wasn't a hairdresser & wasn't so anal about it, that is the road I would definitely take ;)

Katze~~ "Former bleach addict" I love it! I lol'd at that one. Boy, it sounds like you put your hair through A LOT before you decided to grow it out. It makes me feel in good company that you did it successfully, though! I have some hope & inspiration! ;) And as far as the whole eyebrow thing goes, I personally like the natural contrast between hair and eyebrows. I think it looks A LOT better than dying them to match the hair. Look at Gwen Stefani. She has WHITE hair & her eyebrows are still dark & I think it looks good...better than if she dyed them blonde. Her face would almost disappear if she did that. And I'm glad you like your natural color. NOw that you've had it for a while, I bet you can't imagine ever going back.

Juanita~~Great idea w/the headscarves & wraps. That's exactly what I'm planning on doing in a couple of months. It's not so bad now b/c I only have about 1/2-1 inch of regrowth & b/c my hair is curly, it blends in OK. Just curious...what was the dyed color that you were/are growing out? Was it dark, or does it blend in w/the grey alright?

Have a great day!!!

Julie ;)

[brok3nwings]

Julesn curly hair seams to take much better the growing roots eheh so you are a lucky woman!! And i see your point when you say you have the "eye" for haircolours... i have it too :( i am a painting student and i can really see the different shades even if they are really really really tiny, so i think i could never have my hair dyed cause i really get paranoid. The thing is, the hairdressers used to think i was annoying cause i really could never be satisfied with those "little" things...(yes i am a dark blonde and twice i tried to do really really soft highlights but then they put me a toner that they said it was the same as my colour, oh well, i endend up with golden awful blonde, like those stupid colours that white hair gets when dyed) Have a nice day you too :)

[wintersun99]

.................

[Julesn]

Barbara~~

Oh my!! You're a painter, huh? Yeah, than you DEFINITELY know where I'm coming from!!! We're surely on the same page as far as the color stuff goes. Sorry they turned your hair a nasty gold color! Yuck. Some hairdressers don't listen at all. I hate that. I will NEVER (and have never) been one of those. That's probably why I'm booked all the time~~ha!

Julie ;)

[Julesn]

Hey Wintersun!

Just curious...what's your length now?

Julie ;)

[wintersun99]

Hey Wintersun!

Just curious...what's your length now?

Julie ;)

oh, well right now it is just past SL, but it is heavily layered (from previous damage and a haircut to eliminate said damage) so I can get it into a pony-stub, but there is a lot of hair in the front and from bangs/fringe that just doesn't reach yet.

[Julesn]

Wintersun~~

Thank God for bobbypins, huh? ;) Those should def. help to hold the shorter layers back.

Julie

[ReadingRenee]

Hi and Welcome!

I just wanted to let you know that I grew my hair out from platinum to my natural color but the way I did it was I had a long pixie and when my roots grew out about an inch or two it looked like I had deliberately spiked the tips blonde and the natural ash in my hair matched the cool tones of the platinum. It was a lucky thing actually.

I know you are trying to grow your hair but if it IS damaged, maybe cutting some of it would be good? Especially with your job since you have to look good all the time.

Anyway good luck! many years and bleach jobs later I started growing my hair after bleaching the %&$& out of it and what I did end up doing was doing lowlights with brown and then doing an all over dye with brown so I didnt' get the "oil slick" look. At first it was darker than my natural color but as the brown faded and the blonde shone back in a bit it actually matched my roots perfectly since my hair is browny blonde. I never had to dye it again.

I know you are picky about the shades though so I guess that might not work for you.

[Islandgrrl]

Welcome, julesn! Very good to have you with us!

First...I wish you good luck on your journey to healthy, long hair! I know you know this, but it takes a great deal of patience to get past the awful stages when your hair looks fried & doesn't want to play nicely.

I have some damage on the lower part of my hair and I do a couple of things to help with strength and dryness (esp. because my hair has a tendency to be dry anyway). I oil my hair. Immediately after I wash, I apply oil to the ends and the part of the length that is damaged (about 4-6" of the ends). This helps to lock in moisture and makes the damaged part both look and behave better. I also use cassia to help strengthen my hair. With white-blonde hair you might get a yellowish tint with cassia - on my red hair there's no visible color change. But my hair feels thicker and stronger and I have less breakage (I also henna my roots to cover grey, but that's another thing altogether). The final thing that I do is to wear my hair up to protect it (especially the dry parts). This prevents mechanical damage to my hair, and also allows me to oil my hair more heavily - it's hard to tell I have an oil slick on my head when it's all piled up there! I don't know if any of these things would work for you....but I hope so!

I've really loved CO, but I don't use products in my hair, so I don't know how well CO would remove them. CO does remove heavy oilings from my hair with no problem though, so I'm guessing it should work just fine. If it doesn't you could always use some diluted shampoo and do a CWC. I alternate CO with shampoo bars lately, with really good results.

Vitamins....good thing. I take the GNC NourisHair formula and don't have a problem with nausea. I take them at night, after dinner, along with a couple of other supplements. I split my supplements into three doses throughout the day, though, since I take a few things (not all hair related) and if I were to take them all at once I probably would be pretty sick to my stomach!

There are a number of threads here that talk about the best ways to deal with damaged hair - I think it's Nightshade who grew out some pretty serious damage by trimming off half of her monthly growth (I hope I have that right). I imagine that might work quite well to get rid of the worst of the damage and color while still gaining some length - it won't be quite so traumatic, I would think, as growing your natural color out for a year and then whacking off all the damaged bits. More gradual....less scary! And you get the benefit of having nicely trimmed ends once a month!

Anyway, you'll find heaps of support and great information here! Have fun!

[Nightshade]

There are a number of threads here that talk about the best ways to deal with damaged hair - I think it's Nightshade who grew out some pretty serious damage by trimming off half of her monthly growth (I hope I have that right). I imagine that might work quite well to get rid of the worst of the damage and color while still gaining some length - it won't be quite so traumatic, I would think, as growing your natural color out for a year and then whacking off all the damaged bits. More gradual....less scary! And you get the benefit of having nicely trimmed ends once a month!

Yep, that's me :flowers:

Julesn- you can see my progress pics if you'd like :) I've got some posted on the public boards in this post. (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=177027&postcount=86) And you can read my horror story of dye damage here (http://www.hennaforhair.com/mixes/anya/). My hair was so fried that it broke off from hips to BSL and was nothing but Velcro ends and splits.

Fox's shea butter leave in (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=4586) helped me a lot as oils didn't do jack on my damaged ends, gentle handling, wide tooth combs and wearing it up helped too.

You've already gotten lots of great advice, so welcome to LHC and I'm sure I'll see you on the boards :)

[Vainjane]

I am also a recovering color adict. I have been red, brown, platinum; natural is med-dark blonde. I have at least 6 inches of natural color now. I used cassia to blend my bleached ends in somewhat. I CWC most of the time w/ diluted shampoo, I use straight poo when my new growth starts looking greasy. My wide tooth comb is my best friend.

[Julesn]

Thank you all SO MUCH for all of the GREAT advice!!!! You all are VERY motivating to me! You have no idea!!!

Thank you everybody!!!!! ;)

Julie