Updos

I’d said awhile back that I wanted to straighten my hair at the end of September. Well, I’ve had some interesting, er, experimentation since then.

I started off with a simple braid out. It was very soft and my hair felt moisturized. After a day of wearing the braid out, I say to myself :”Self, I bet if you took a flat iron to this incredibly soft and moisturized hair, it will straighten nicely and easily”.

Why do I lie to myself? This was the result.

Cute for a blow out, but not for flat ironing! Yikes.

I think the main source of my anger was because I wasted the time straightening. It was straight as I was ironing it, but then puffed right out once I tried to wear it all down.

Because I was so mad that I got it so wrong, I decided to try something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I wanted to rollerset my hair, then blowdry and then lightly flat iron. My main problem: Rollersetting has never gotten well for me. But it’s something that I need to practice so I thought, why not now?

I know to some of you rollersetting divas out there, this might look like a hot mess, but it is much improved from my prior attempts. I actually *gasp* let it dry completely over night after sitting under the dryer for about an hour. My hooded dryer is not very good and extremely cheapo so it would take hours for me to get completely dry.

I took the rollers out in the morning and I was surprised at how soft it felt.

As you can see in the picture above, I used a technique called “ponytail rollersetting” I saw someone do one years ago on some hair board or blog and have always wanted to try it. I have to say, it makes the whole process so much easier.

What is ponytail rollersetting? It’s the use of a band (I used small no snag bands) on each section of hair, near the scalp…hence the term ponytail. This helps to stretch out the roots of the hair before putting it the rollers in. It only took me about an hour to put the rollers in.

I didn’t have time to flat iron it so I put it up in an updo while I went to one of DS’s extra curriculars.  I have no idea how I did it, it just happened lol.

I then flat ironed lightly.  Since I’d applied flat ironed less than 2 weeks prior on the braid out, I didn’t want to overdo it with the heat.

I really wish I’d taken pictures right after the flat ironing, but my husband wasn’t available to be my photographer. My five year old attempts is but his finger is usually in the shot or the angle he shoots at makes me look like a giant. By the time hubby was able to take a picture, I’d worked out some and had some reversion. Has anyone else noticed that it gets harder and harder to take pictures of your hair once it grows a good amount?

Anyway, here’s the picture. I think I’ve had a bit of growth and I’ve realized that my hair grows in a “V” shape as much as I was trying to get it to grow in a blunt shape. Oh well. I’m going to straighten again in 2-3 months and maybe trim then. I am just barely touching waist length, especially when I pull it down a bit more. I’m not going to claim WL yet though.

Here’s the breakdown of everything I did, if anyone is interested:

•  Shampoo and DC  and detangled with  Lustrasilk Shea Butter Plus Mango
•  Rollerset with Nexxus Leave In and ponytail elastics (the little black snagless ones). I used hard rollers with roller pins.
•  Let hair dry completely.  Take out rollers.
•  Blow dry each section with comb attachment and Pure Elements Blow Dry Creme
•  Flat ironed on about 300 degrees with GVP flat iron

My future plans right now are to practice my rollersetting! Thanks for reading

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