What I have learned after 3 years of hair care

Tuesday 31st January will be the 3rd anniversary of my hair journey. I am not where I thought I would have been by now. The goal was BSL but setbacks have led me back to SL territory. I can't deny my frustration given that I did what one was supposed to do: I deep conditioned, moisturised and sealed and protective styled my little heart out and what happened? Breakage. Breakage so gradual that I was unaware until there was a significant change in my hair.

Now is the time to sit back and reflect on the journey and learn from my mistakes as I once again try to grow my hair.

If it ain't broke then don't fix it. My products and regimen were working for me, given that my hair went from between NL-SL to past APL between January to October. However I was constantly searching for better products, buying and rejecting products and, in effect, wasting a lot of money. I would hear someone raving about a product and I would have to run out and by it. This leads me to my second lesson.

Keep track of what works and does not work. I kept changing products, testing and rejecting, and at the end of it all, I could not even remember which products I had been using in the early days when my hair was thriving. If you must change up your products constantly, then I advise that you add only one product at a time and take a note of it.

Comparison photos are important. This seems odd but I did not recognise that my hair was breaking off until I compared pictures from 2011 with pictures from 2009. I almost cried when I noticed that my length at July 2011 was shorter than my October 2009 length. I had stopped doing comparison shots. I was, instead, doing length checks. I now vow to do comparison photos with each texlaxer and link it from year to year. This way I can tell if my hair is indeed retaining length or breaking off.

If you are on a hair journey, then your hair should look like it. Your hair should be shiny, full of body and generally healthier looking than a person not on a journey. There should be a difference, particularly when you are several months or years into your hair journey.. If you are taking the time to care for your hair then people should be able to tell. It should look like hair that is well maintained.

So now that I know what to do and what not to do, I am curious to see how quickly I can regrow my hair. I predicting full APL by August/September, full BSL/MBL (as I wear my bra low and have a short torso) by May 2013 and WL by September 2013. Ambitious? In terms of growth, not really. When I look back at my photos I can see I had a lot of growth. I was just having problems with retention because of the errors which I committed from October 2009.