A New Plan for 2004

With this new year I devised a new plan for my hair. I am on a personal challenge to grow my hair to unbelievable lengths. I'm determined to grow 6" of hair by the end of this year! I also plan to keep the hair I already have on my head. I've been on the LongHairCareForum a little more last year and picked up a lot of tips and have tried some of them and they really are working for me:

VO5 conditioner washes every other day. I love the smell of their new line of conditioners. They're less than a dollar (so don't get them at the 99¢ store!) I actually feel like my hair is being cleaned. I think this is because I stopped using heavy creams in my hair. And, from the looks of my past entries about the "no poo" method, Practice Makes Perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Using less to no heavy products in my hair. When I used CD's Healthy Hair Butter for example and tried to conditioner wash it out (with a 2 in 1), my hair stunk like a skunk until my next wash. I found that it was because the stuff I had in my hair was so thick that it needed to be shampoo'd out. I think it mainly has to do with the beeswax content in the Healthy Hair Butter and the Mimosa Hair Honey. I 've almost completely stopped using these products, gels, and oils in my hair! My hair still feels soft and healthy without them anyway.
Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize"! So many women would repeat this line over and over in the message boards that I frequent, but I would never know what to moisturize my hair with! After splurging a couple times at Sally's, Kmart, Sav-on's, Trina's (in L.A.) and wherever else hair products are sold, I've finally found moisturizing products. Protectiv, Elastica, and Pantene are some companies I've been experimenting with recently. I've also taken a liking to my once hated CD's Hair Milk; once I got rid of most of the oil in it, it actually felt like a very moisturizing white cream that feels good when rubbed into my wet hair. The smell doesn't get to me anymore either. Long gone are the days of using oil for moisture!
Every-other-day rinsing. I work out atleast 3 days a week, so I've been trying this thing of rinsing my hair in the shower after a workout. I usually let conditioner sit in my hair after rinsing while I shower, and rinse it out minutes later. This works best for me if my hair is in twists, so I don't have to worry about parting, combing, brushing, or anything and can just run off to work or classes as it dries. I love this conditioner wash/rinse thing because I noticed that going a whole week without washing my hair put my hair in bad shape. If I was wearing a ponytail for the week, for example, my hair will stretch straighter everyday until my hair is so stretched and stiff that I can hardly do much with it. Daily use of products also makes my hair feel weird after some days when I used to wash just once a week. I'm hoping that this frequent rinsing will help my hair grow!
Eat right. I've gotten the gym down, now I need to practice eating right--or eating at all! Since I've been living on my own I haven't been splurging at Jack In The Box or cooking big meals nightly. I've been watching my money, and inturn I've been watching what I spend on. With the Ramen diet (lol), I lost 10 lbs of unnecessary weight last year (whoo hoo!) But now, I find myself unknowingly skipping meals and in the long run that won't be too good for my health. I plan on adding lots of greens and fruits to my weekly eating regimen, along with "hair growing" foods like Horsetail, Molasses, and protein shakes (yum). Throughout the year I'll be experimenting with these kinds of foods and incorporating them into my daily eating.
Taking care of my ends!! This is why my hair doesn't seem to "grow". It's because I haven't been tending to the hair I already have. And since my ends are the oldest part of my hair, I should be taking even better care of them :) I used to remedy bad ends by cutting them off. If I keep on with this I will never be able to realize any length with my hair! I am now concentrating my moisturizing creams to my ends... before I go to bed, and in the morning b/4 I leave for my day. In addition, I started running my fingers down bunches of strands of hair to feel for knots at the ends of my hair. When I feel one, I whip out my trimming scissors and clip it off, one by one. This is a good way to get rid of the obviously bad ends, without having to chop off hair all around my head when I could just get that one bad hair.