Changes....

I'm not on my usual computer (had a sad accident with water and keyboard), and everything looks a little off. My gods, a 19 inch screen is bloody HUGE.

Urm. Hair.

This is gonna take me a while, as I have to take breaks.

*blink*

Okay. Had to adjust the size, but it's still - off.

Hrm.

Anyhow.

Today, I've rinsed my hair (straight water), clarified my hair (baking soda and water) and hennaed my hair (henna, water, and conditioner - cheapie V05 Blueberry something or another).

I also came to terms (more or less) with the fact/concept/meme in time that I simply CANNOT allow my hair to shrink un stretched.

I've rather got the Hair Up (98% of the time) thing down pat.

I'm rather fearing that I will have to add a hair stretched 99.9% of the time challenge to it, as well.

Why?

Well.

I rinsed out my hair, and DH took this lovely in-shower shot of me.

I added baking soda and water, and shrinkage took over with a vengeance. It was rather amazing, how - powerful my shrinkage was. I got out of the shower, and chilled for a while, and my hair became - dare I say it - unmanageable Tight, strong, dense. How did I handle it? I climbed back into the shower, and let the magic of water weigh it down. Not only did it weigh it down, it ALSO made it incredibly easier to comb through.
I detangled (again), and put into two strand twists.

The shrinkage, however, would not be denied - despite the fact that I could GET my hair into those twists, my hair rapidly shrunk right out of them. It was kinda amazing, frustrating, and cool as hell, all at once. *lol* So.

Mrr.

What can you do about that, besides grow more hair?

I put the henna into each 1/4 at the same time, then split them in half, twisted, and tucked into themselves.... that way, I ended up with eight two strands twists/treeknots on my head.

So, at this point I'm in 8 sections to twist up my hair. Slowly, as my hair gets longer, I'll graduate to four, and then to two, and then to one.

I don't have Dyslla thick hair, but I think that my hair is - well, my kink makes my hair pretty impressively thick - and VERY fucking short. If I want to see the full length of my hair, I HAVE to make my hair 'thinner'. If I want my hair to be thick and luscious - I have to accept that it will also be shorter.

The were rather interesting looking, coated in baby-poo yellow as they were. The conditioner I used was blue, and ew, simply. I don't think I"ll be doing that again - I'll be sticking to yellow/pinkish conditioners, as that makes the prettiest henna ever. Hah. As if it makes a difference in the final results. *eyeroll at self*

Speaking of difference in the results, I mixed up a fresh batch of henna this time, and it stained my gloves like I'm used to FNWL henna staining my gloves. I really do think that the old mixed henna (from August, maybe) has been slowly demising all along, despite being in the freezer. *sigh* If that's the case - I don't know. I think that I will alternated - fresh henna/old ass henna/fresh henna, until I'm out of henna all together - then I can re-up on henna, and start all over again.
I'm rather excited to see what my hair looks like, since it's been getting 'redder' as it is with just the SAF - it will be interesting to see if the henna really shows up better.
It got gooky, too, which is something I haven't seen in my henna for a while. So. I'm thrilled, also, with that.

My hair - ohmigods, I also think it's growing. I got kind of depressed over the fact that I figured out my hair is ABOUT 6 inches long, which means I grow an average of 3 inches a year, which means I grow about a 1/4 inch a month - and dear me, but that's the LOW end of hair growing.

However.

I'm almost certain that my hair is distinctly longer in just two weeks of using the Mega-Tek. I'm not totally sure, as I haven't compared the pics myself - but just washing my hair, and looking at it - it FELT longer.
Sqquuueeeeeee.

If it is - ohmigods. Me and Mega-Tek will be like WHAT? WHO!

*blush* I'm shamed to admit, I was looking at some dog shampoo, and thinking of how fabulous the ingredients sounded.

It's so not a good thing. Trying to control the PJ'ism.

Speaking of which.

The conditioner chemicals I have are:

Glyceryl Sterate
Cetareth-20
Cetearyl Alcohol 30/70 NF

All from lotion crafters, so I should be able to look up their properties. Mrrr. None of them have been ones I've heard GREAT things about (though, I do know that Cetearyl Alcohol is one of the 'good' alcohols) - so, thay aren't really crushing my urger to get some Dipalmitoylethyldimonium Chloride from soapcrafters.com............... Grrr.

I've also (man, it feels like it's been a while since I've posted) come across a new forum, thanks to one of the members posting a link to the Caramel Treatment pictorial I put up. They seem to generally rock, AND they allow cussing. Which, ya know gives MAJOR bonus points to a forum, in my mind.

At HC, I've seen references to both Kinky Curls Knot Today, AND BBD Stretch - both of which are held if HIGH respect. *stomps on my inner PJ*

*sigh* Dh is almost done with dinner, so I'm not going to go and get links to EVERYTHING right now.

I'll post, and come back and edit.

I'm hungry. ;)