I gave in and ...... COMBED : o

I know some of you will be thinking "errrm... so??" Let me explain. About 5 months ago, I had a bad experience with someone combing my hair in a very rough manner, causing a lot of breakage ... I think from then, I developed an aversion to combs. Other than that, I also figured not combing would help me retain more length, which it definately has. There's no doubt that most things we do to manipulate our hair (combing included) will cause some sort of damage. So I guess not combing has helped me minimize the damage and subsequent breakage.

So why did I decide to comb today you ask. I've gradually been realizing that shed hair tended to hang at my ends. I can mostly fingercomb it out, but it sometimes ends up in the ends of my twists, tangles and forms what some ladies on either BHM/ LHCF (can't remember which) colourfuly described as "dreaded end balls" lol. For the most part, I can usually 'massage' these and then work them out of my hair. But some ... decided to permanently squat in my fro *humph.* So I decided to do a 'clean' up today and get ALL the shed hair outta there.

Surprisingly, not much hair came out at all ... well, considering I hadn't combed in about 5 months. So for me, fingercombing has largely been effective. I took a pic of the hair that came out ... I was "this" close to posting the pic, but I know shed hair grosses some people out, so I didn't. If you want me to post the pic, I'd be happy to, just leave me a comment or something. That said, I WON'T be going back to regular combing at all, but I think I'll do it every 5 - 6 months.

My process:

• Shampooed hair

• HEAVILY coated with Herbal Essences Hello Hydration (best damned slip ever!!!)

• After 10 minutes, applied Hebal Essences Longterm Relationship to just my ends (don't ask me why, lol, coz I have no idea! I think I just wanted to make sure my ends were protected).

• After another 5 minutes of psyching myself up to put comb to hair, I finally started combing with my wide tooth shower comb. In small sections and starting from the ends of course, working my way up gently towards the roots.

• Then I did something I've never done before. I used a small tooth comb. I figured that if the wide tooth comb had done a good enough job, a small tooth comb should, technically, be able to comb through with little difficulty and get more shed hair out. Again, I started from the ends and worked up to the ends. The small tooth comb pretty much glided through <3

• I then unbraided each section and rinsed. I fingercombed under a running showerhead. It was really cool to not have any additional hair at all coming out as I ran my fingers through.

My hair just after shampooing

I'm so figgin in love with my hair right now <3

Hair Growth Progress - Thicker

So over the weekend, I was looking at photos of my hair from a few months ago. Apart from length, I noticed a marked improvement in the thickness of my hair too! I'm so stoked about it and hopefully my hair will continue to thicken:



YAYness!

From what I know, what we normally refer to our hair's "thickness," can be attributed to 1) the thickness of each individual strand 2) The number of strands we have. I'm finding that my hair is still as fine as it ever was ... so I believe my progress is a function of growing in and retaining more strands (for example having some of my edges back. That is, my hair has become more DENSE. I think it's a result of several things like more washing (cleaner and healthier scalp = 'happier' follicles?), reducing mechanical stress to the follicles by not braiding or weaving for the last few months, and conditioning allowed me to retain more of that new growth.


Of course I'm interested in achieving even more density. My goal:





LOL, clearly, I've got a long way to go. But I'm getting there, that's the main thing : )

Hair Growth - Growing Back Edges with Emu oil - Update 3

Hi guys,

As I promised, here is an update of my edges to date:

From top to bottom 12 May 09, 12 June 09, 15 July 09 and 31 October 09

So it's been about 5 months now and I think my edges have done pretty well. They're not only getting longer, but also continue to thicken. I couldn't be happier!

I also wanted to address other factors, besides the Emu oil, that may have contributed to the growth.

• I think, obviously, one of the biggest contributers has been not braiding my edges with extensions. Research tells us that hairstyles, such as braids, allow pulling forces to be exerted, causing mechanical damage on the hair follicles. This damage, if done repeatedly will cause inflammation and eventually lead to reduced hair growth (Khumalo, N.P., Jessop S., Gumedze F., Ehrlich., R. (2008) Determinants of marginal traction alopecia in African girls and women. J Am Acad Dermatol, 59, 432-438). So not braiding my edges would have reduced mechanical stress on my follicles and allowed proper growth. I have however left my hair/ edges unbraided before and my edges didn't grow back, so I assume that although it was a huge contributor, it wasn't the only reason for an improvement.

• Moisturising would also have helped retain the length that I got. If my edges were dry and brittle, they would have broken right off and I wouldn't have seen any improvement.
  

• Hmm... can't think of anything else. Can you? The reason I decided to do this list is that I don't want people to think that they can just slap on Emu oil and they'll go from neck length to waist length in one month. You still need to take care of your scalp and the hair that eventually grows as well. This along with the Emu oil that I believe has alleviated some of the inflammation caused by tight braids and weaves is what I think helped my edges grow back.

They're still not as full as i'd like them to be. But I'm certainly proud of the progress thus far : ) . I will continue to use Emu Oil regularly on my edges, but I'm also going to start incorporating Megatek to see if the results are any different.

Have you tried Megatek? Any Megatek hair growth success or failure stories?