Honey aloe vera gel - I want to make this

My Product Wish list. Tell me what you think

Aloe Vera Gel
Glycerin
Coconut Cream Concentrate
Shea Butter
Miss Jessie's Curly Meringue
Miss Jessie's Baby Butter
Miss Jessie's Rapid Recovery
Oyin Handmade whipped pudding
Oyin Handmade Shine and define
Suave humectant
V-05 - Heat defense - Extreme heat
Xanthan gum

I'll probably add to this list. and I promise to do a length check very soon. I wish I kept up with the month to month length check because I know i've been having major breakage around my hair line. (the wig)

The many hair styles over the years

Since I'm on a posting roll (and no doubt i'll probably stop posting for like 4 months lol) i thought I'd post old pictures of myself when my hair was relaxed (if i can find any) and when my hair had weaves and when I wore the Full lace wig and the lace front wig (which i wear now).
Okay... i hope y'all are ready because I have LOADS of pictures to post up here!
So here i am with a weave in my hair (above) This was in... August 2006
Here I am with my hair out- but with a perm while on vacation in February 2006
This picture (above) was taken in April 2006. I was wearing my hair out (without weave)
This picture is when I was rocking the full lace wig back in September 2008. I wanted to buy a curly wig, while I grew out my natural hair.
This picture is really old. It's from 1st year uni, way back in March or April 2004. I wore braids for the entire year.
This crazy picture is from 2007. I was wearing a weave. You can see that I stopped perming my edges because I was fed up with breakage.

This is me with a short Weave. I must have cut off the ends. I always did weaves by myself (i would never pay someone to do my hair...ever). And when the ends were starting to look mated I would cut it into a short hair style before it was time to redo the weave completely.

MY NEW HAIRSPIRATION

This is Louel83 from the Netherlands. She is probably the first person on youtube I've found with long hair that closely resembles my hair type which is such a relief because of course....you want to know what you're hair is going to look like as it grows out. There are loads of girls rocking long hair on youtube, but I know that their hair just does not represent what my hair looks like. They either have a far tighter curl, or a far looser curl...or their here was just not a ridiculously thick as my hair is. (Y;all don't eve know the half of this thickness) so I really had no idea what my hair could potentially look like as it grows out. That is until I found Louel, who has the greatest afro. I'm just so sad that she's not making videos anymore an I only recently found her. :(

2 Years Natural

I just realized I've been natural for 2 years! My last perm was June 2008. I had not consciously decided to go natural at the time though - I did that in September of 2008 when I decided to buy a lace front wig and was doing research on youtube (where I fell upon the natural hair care channels which changed my life. The lacefront wig ended up being a major set back (pulling out the hair in my hair line so i wore my hair out while it was transitioning all summer long). This was also a major set back because I worked at a summer camp and had to swim with the kids daily and was out in the sun for the majority of the day. It's a wonder how my hair started growing at all. I should probably mention that I didn't 'Big Chop'. I transitioned for a VERY long time...a year in fact.

When i went to London i started wearing wigs as a protective style which is when my hair began growing, but it is also when i stopped caring for my hair. So i have yet to find a happy median. Despite all the setbacks my hair has been growing. Hoepfully in another two years it'll be at a length long enough for me to wear it out and styled without worrying too much about peoples reactions.

I think although i've gone natural and my faimly and friends are supportive i'm not 100% comfortable with the idea and still wear wigs etc. Perhaps I make excuses which are practical, like 'in the winter the Canadian weather damages the hair, and in the summer the pool dries it out' but at the end of the day, I definitely have trouble with the length of my hair. I am NOT a short haired person. I have never had short hair. Actually that's a lie, i did in Grade 12, when my hair was at it's worst as far as damage. I had permed it, coloured it, flat ironed it, you name it I had done it and I had NO idea how to care for it, other than greasing my scalp with Dax. It was horrible. After I graduated and started uni, i wore my hair in braids, then i took up weaves. But despite wearing weaves I still had to perm my hair. I then began wearing weaved without perming my hair just to see how long my hair could grow before I had to perm it again. Eventually I was tired of having to pay for weaves and settled on investing in a lace wig. (you know the story from there).

I thought i'd just recap my story. Not necessarily for everyone benefit, but for my own. Just to remember how far my hair has come, because it's so easy to forget. I honestly thought I had only been natural for a year for some bizarre reason.

So to sum up
2 years since last relaxer
1year 8 months since deciding to go natural
1 year since transitioning and chopping off ends (I had about 6 inches or so on my head... there are pictures if you trackback a bit)

Coconut Cream relaxer

Since I'm finished school for the summer and have a bit of time on my hands before I start working I have gone HAIR CARE CRAZY! I've been catching up on all my natural beauties and I've been educating myself on the new hair care products (or maybe old?) that we just HAVE TO TRY!

Anyway, I was doing some research on effective ways to naturally loosen your curls. I always henna my hair because of the various benefits and I have heard that it is a good way to loosen your curl, but i'm not sure it has over the 4 times I have. My hair is very very very fine but very very very thick (so not coarse and thick, fine and thick - as in I have LOADS of hairs on my head). When I henna my hair, it coats each strand and makes my hair coarse and thick. So it gets even bigger. I've definitely noticed that my curl pattern has changed from when I was a child before I began relaxing my hair. Anyway, i'm trying to get back to that, or at least ease the maintenance of my natural hair. (I don't care how many times people say it natural hair is definitely high maintenance... but so is relaxed hair if you know how to care for it.)

I discovered this video on a effective natural way to 'relax' your hair using coconut cream and coconut oil i believe. Check it out, I'm dying to give this a try when I pick up the products from my beauty supply store. I'm interested to see if and how it works.

Cornrows and conditioner baggy

Okay, so I took down the saran wrap this morning and honestly it didn't do anything for my hair. Like at all. I don't think i did it correctly. Plus I didn't sit under a heat cap or anything. Anyway, i left my hair open today, and decided to get my mom to braid it for me today since she hasn't in years. So she cornrowed it up for me. I trimmed off my ends and finally decided to put my ends in a condioner doggy bag. I've seen it done before...here... but never tried it. We'll see how it goes. I think my ends need some love, because the ones that I trimmed today were a knotted mess.

Straightening Natural hair and a cling film hair wrap

So after my honey treatment I rinsed my hair. I didn't shampoo it and I didn't condition it at all. Which I completely forgot to do, I was just blow away by how moisturized and soft my hair was (I honestly just realized.... as I was typing this... that I didn't condition my hair). Anyway after rising my hair I detangled it and placed my hair in rollers.I then blow dried my hair on low heat. I planned on sleeping in my hair like this until I got frustrated at how long it was taking and decided to comb-blow dry my hair.
This sped things up some what. Once my hair was completely blow dried I put my hair in braids and thought I would sleep in them like that. But once again I changed my plans and decided to take out the braids and blow out my entire head just to see what it would look like. Here are pictures of my hair after I took out my braids and the one below is after the blow out. I wish you could see how insanely shiny my hair is with NO product. I mean. aside from olive oil and honey left overs i suppose. These webcam pics don't do it justice. It's just insane. Not to mention the henna treatment already gives my hair a wicked auburn shine. I forgot to take pictures while I was straightening my hair, but basically I part my hair into two sections, top and bottom, and work my way from side to side of my hair in smaller pieces while using the flat iron (maxi glide) to straighten the hair. The maxiglide setting goes up to 10 and i straightened my hair on the 3 setting. In my opinion it was still WAY too hot, but anyway. So if you're wondering why it isn't Bone straight, that's why. This is the result, which i think is horrendous to be honest lol. I think it has to do with my wretched untrimmed knotted up ends, and the fact that my hair was being straightened while It had sugar on it. Way to damage my hair (it's the first time I've used heat since going natural - over a year ago- too).
I really wish you could see the colour and shine! Anyway, after this I brushed my hair around my head into a wrap around and decided that I'd try the cling film wrap that I saw moncherie(?) on youtube do. Her hair is relaxed I believe So i know I wont receive the same flowy results, but damn it's worth a try. We'll see how my hair looks in the morning. I'm excited. I'm going to trim the ends too. Cause they have go to go pronto!

Honey Oil treatment

I am a sticky mess. Honey and Oil everywhere! Lord have mercy.

Okay, so basically i'm doing the Honey and oil hair treatment. I was bored and in the kitchen and notices that I had honey so I thought, hey why not. My hair is wrapped up in a plastic bag now. I'm going to wash it out in an hour and I'll see how it comes out.

Last night I put my hair in big twists (I was bored) and took them out this morning. This is the result, for ppl with my texture and length, wondering what it would look like

Hair pics again - JUNE 9th

I just took out my cornrows and put a ton of conditioner in my hair (I have a tendency to this every now and then). Gonna have to braid it back up again. Man I can't wait till my hair grows out properly. I mean it's quite long now, but it's still definitely something I have to get used to and comfortable with. But short hair definitely does not suit my face. IMO. Anyway, I'm still growing it out. I probably won't wear it "out" definitely wear it pulled up, for another year and a half.