Hiya,
I mentioned in an interview I had with Sizzling Mom here when asked about exercising, that I exercise but what I failed to mention was the hatred I have for stringent gym work outs, running on the thread mill or lifting weights till there's no strength in me!! Hate all that! So you can imagine my joy and excitement when I tried out Zumba dance fitness class, a class started by Miss Faka Ben-Kalio earlier in the year, it was perfect for my post postpartum body, every muscle in my body definitely got a work out but this time around it was dancing to very fun Latin dance music. I left that class wanting more and have attended very regularly since then! Enough about my experience, meet my Zumba instructor- 




who also isn't joking with caring for her hair!  
Please Introduce Yourself...
I am Faka Ben-Kalio AKA Fabila, a Lawyer by profession, a Zumba dance fitness instructor by passion!

Since this is a hair blog let's talk hair first of all,
How long is your hair? My hair is currently past shoulder length well on its way to Arm pit length (APL);

NOVEMBER 2011

In October 2012;

Hiya,

RACHEL COMEY

SUNO

I also created some looks of my own;

Hiya,
So you have seen the picture of my horrible inverted V here! Now let me tell you all about it!

Just before I started this blog I noticed the ends of my hair were thin all across;'


Not  particularly in a V shape or a U shape or a Z! literally from one end to the other so I cut it but I noticed as I took about 5 inches of my hair off that I still had a thinner spot at the back in the middle of my ends; (can you see it?)

 However I didn't think much of it and thought it will grow out in a few months. 

For a minute it looked like it had filled out,


This I am guessing was due to the pregnancy hormones! By the time I had my baby and the postpartum shedding set in, the V began to show again;

 Instead of give it the needed attention I treated that spot like every other part of my hair, and worse; I let my ends dangle quite often and still didn't notice how deep my V was getting until I took this after pic for my blog anniversary;



 I was like WHAT!!

I dabbled with the idea of cutting my hair then and probably should have but I was stuck with this idea that my hair was bra strap length finally and I didn't want to go back to APL- look at what boxing yourself in all these phrases can cause! Anyways I ignored the V, hoping it will grow out, I also saved myself the stress of stressing over it by avoiding taking pics of my back hair-ignorance is so not bliss with hair care! You have to face the problem or else it will not go away- something this inverted V taught me!

July came by, then August , September came and then I took this picture to show the back of the NHCG t-shirt I made;


and that V stared me in the face, then and there I decided enough is enough, this V has got to go!!

So I decided that rather than wait for the V to grow out which would not make a difference because the long part would just keep getting longer, I rather cut most of it out and nurture my middle back hair to prevent it from breaking off and creating that V again!

Moving Forward... I have come up with the perfect plan to combat the inverted V or any part of my hair especially the ends that tries to be weak and get in my way of healthy long hair! Since my relaxer I have taken the following ample but critical steps;

I now Bag my ends EVERY SINGLE NIGHT! I have talked about bagging a few times now,check here I used to do it occasionally but I have been doing it every night for the past week and I tell you my ends have never felt so good! They have remained moisturized and sealed with black castor oil all day and night and apart from shed hair I am yet to see any broken hairs.

I simply moisturize my ends with any moisturizer I am feeling at the moment(I am so spoilt for choice right now) and then I seal with either coconut oil, olive oil or almond oil but then I follow that with a final black castor oil seal and apply a little of the castor oil to my roots at the middle back area.

I then roll my ends in a bun, pin it down;


and cover it up with a nylon bag( which will help create steam and keep your ends from drying out), I secure the nylon bag with a hair band;

and pop on my silk scarf.

I have also started sleeping with a silk pillow made by me :) this is to ensure that just in case my silk scarf falls off(as it has many times) my hair will still be protected especially my hairline.

The final new thing I am doing is, I concocted a TEA SPRITZ!  This is by far the most exciting part of this new 'combat' because this tea spritz is  PACKED with great stuff!


The first thing I did was brew some tea bags;


 Black tea to preventing shedding; this post  tells you more and then this mint and green tea;

( I brewed it and had a cuppa- Divine!!)

 Mint is very good for cleansing, conditioning the scalp and stimulating hair follicle growth. 

I added the two tea bags because the green tea bag did not have enough caffeine in it to prevent shedding  which the black tea bag compensated for and I also wanted the effects of the green herbs and the mint.

                                    I also bought mint leaves which I added for an extra minty smell;


I used few drops of extra virgin olive oil, almond oil and grape seed oil,all light oils because I wanted the spritz to be light/watery and not oily.

Then I ground some Fenugreek seeds;


My first encounter with Fenugreek was in January, my doctor recommended it to me to help with some post partum issues I was having, so I got a bottle of fenugreek capsules from GNC, took them for a while but could not stand the maple syrup smell, YUCK!! I love maple syrup on pancakes but this was just too much, I was sweating maple syrup! so I dumped it! Few months down the line, I am reading an article on herbal hair treatments and I see Fenugreek as one of the herbs great for hair, I look for my GNC capsules everywhere and then realize I must have dumped them in Houston!! Arrghh. 

I thought I might have to import it but then yesterday as I was browsing through the indian spice/food stalls at Park n Shop where I got the mint leaves and the tea, what do I see, a pack of Fenugreek seeds for cheap!! I excitedly grabbed a pack!

I will have a separate post on Fenugreek in a few days but in summary this seed contains nicotine acid, protein and lecithin which are all great for hair because they help stimulate growth, strengthen the roots and bring back moisture and luster to hair from root to tip! Fenugreek  is used to prevent balding or thinning in men and women!

I decided to grind mine and sprinkle the ground seeds into my brewed tea;


 There are other ways to use it which I will share in a future post..
 

Then I added drinking water(because it is sterilized and less likely to create mold) and shook the living daylight out of the mixture (which will remain in the fridge for added preservation). 


I will use this mixture on the scalp of my middle back hair from now on every morning, I decided day time is better than night time because I don't want my bedding smelling of mint/syrup/black/green tea all at once before my hubby chases me from the bed!LOL 

As for styling, I had my hair down today and regretted it, my hair just has to stay up and off my shoulders for a majority of the time from now on!

In December the verdict will be in and I will let you know how successful (fingers crossed) this combat was!!

I have come to the end of this long post! If you are suffering from a set back or you have a thin spot, you can decide to nurture it and see if it will recover using these tips and many others I have on this blog under the HAIR CARE CATEGORY  or you can decide to skip the wait and give that spot a reasonable cut so you have a good starting point like I am doing!

Please whatever you do, do what is best for your hair! Do not hold on to 5 strands of hair that go past your shoulders so that people can say you have long hair; most of the compliments I get about my hair being long always follow with 'and it's so full and healthy to the tips' so you can imagine how I started feeling when I saw what the V was doing to my ends!

My dear friends take Health over Length because when you focus on health, length follows! Simple!!

Stay tuned for my next post, maybe tomoz seeing that I will be free because it's  a 4 day weekend,  Whoop Whoop!!

Xxx
Dabs

Hiya,
How's everyone doing?! hope all's well and good at your endz! Well its that time of the month when I bring a relaxer update after a successful 9weeks stretch! I was gunning for 12 weeks but then I did the math and realized that I will not be up to 9 weeks post relaxer in December by the time its my son's first birthday and you know how I like fresh edges for special occasions, so I stuck to my 9weeks calender.

I decided I was going to try out Jen from Justgrowalready's method http://www.justgrowalready.com/2012/10/relaxer-touch-up-video-of-how-i-self.html#.UINwDrJmR3d of relaxing hair by getting them sectioned in small twists. I also decided to TEXLAX my hair this time! So I gave myself 15 minutes from start(after twists were done) to finish! With my eyes on the clock I was off to a speeding start!!

I coated my ends with conditioner and olive oil and twisted them in small sections;
Look at all that texture!! I see great things for the ends of my hair in a few years time with texture like that!! :)
Oh and the answer to what I did about my horrid inverted V I talked about here is, I CUT MY HAIR!! I will have a separate post on the entire inverted V saga; How it started, what I think caused it and what I have learnt moving forward. But for the mean time my ends went from looking like this;

SHOWING YOU HOW I STRAIGHTEN THE ROOTS

The products I used

Sectioned hair in small parts

Spritz my roots with detangler

Applied Tresemme Curl hydration from root to tip

Then applied split remedy to the tips of my hair

Chi silk infusion before I applied the heat

Using very low heat- level 10 out of 35 I straightened that section of hair

Then applied black castor oil to the very tips of my hair