HAIRY SITUATIONS: MY HAIR DIARY W/CANTU

I've been using Cantu. And here is how I've felt about it thus far. ( Earlier in July I wasn't ingredient obessessed but like.....now I am just for the record) All the photos are pics of what my hair looked like that day of washing or styling described in the paragraph

7.8.10
Washed hair with cantu: Hair seemed to detangle in the shower (my hair was previously knotted and dry) However when I started combing my hair I thought that I was loosing a lot of hair...not sure if that was the product of neglecting combing my hair out -hopefully it was the latter
Conditioned with cantu: my hair WAS noticeably softer. So the product lived up to the standard. Curls were looking beautiful.
Leave in contitioner and Organics shea butter: so my curls have never looked better to me. I was so impressed but then I pulled out the diffuser
Conair Tournaline Ceramic Dryer: Dried my hair quickly and was quiet but my hair just kept curling (and curling throughout the day) I didn't appreciate all that shrinkage but the curls were prety defined -not sure what the back looked like. (I'm not sure it was worth buying though....)
That night: After work I put on the leave in conditioner again -and the curls were looking marvelous again it stretched them but kept them (if that makes sense) so I was happy but then I put on the satin bonnet

7.9.10
Woke up with my hair mad shrunken (Like worse than the day before) but it allowed me to see myself with a short due and I gotta say it wasn't bad. I was afraid that it looked like I had bed head (the satin bonnet kinda flattened it) The front of my hair is so confused (I'm tempted to cut it but I know that it isn't straight due to a perm and it's been cut before and grew back just as straight) I spent a while trying to make it stand up like the rest of my hair. I put the shea butter on it. It stayed relatively fro'd. When I got home I put my hair in two strand twists to stretch it. I used the shea butter again. I moisturized my scalp with it as well. I loved the look. I initially set out to stretch my hair with the twist and then take it down in the morning and because I planned on going to the gym (but I didn't) I didn't think I'd like this protective style

Question: How much shedding is too much shedding?



7.10.10

Woke with wavy and beautiful and SOFT hair. The twists stayed plump (it was about 7/8 of them but I expected them to go flat idk) my concerns were 1. feeling like it wasn't a legit hairstyle 2. Upon scratching my head I noticed that my hair was MAD oily and I HATE that. I would hate to start affecting my already challenged facial skin (which happened...and let me just say it WAS BAD) I don't know how long I'm gonna leave them up. I'm debating co-washing tomorrow.

7.11.10
Co-washing is NOT for me. At least right now. I think I was messing with my hair way too much. Like I co washed and it was a problem initially because I felt like I was wasting mad water (I'm sort of a tree hugger) and then I was combing in my head again after 3 days...and then like I tried rolling my hair because I wanted to do this hairstyle I saw in a Chiselle Couture video and suddenly it occured to me that my hair isn't nearly as thick as hers and so I bought all these rollers and I just felt like I was stressing my hair so I just put on the Cantu leave in and left out for the day. The curls were a bit frizzier and I think it was because I didn't have the organics shea butter but yeah.

7.12.-7.23.10

I wore my hair in twists this week. I washed my hair then put on the leave on and twisted my hair. I retwisted every day with the bio-infusion hydration stuff because my 3b/3c hair texture looked TERRIBLE after a day (it looked like a weeks worth of frizz even with me wearing a satin scarf) not to mention my hair kept unraveling. I still had a noticeable amount of hair shedding daily. It wasn't like OH MY GOSH but ya know I thought it'd be less since my hair was in a protective style. 7.24.10
*research makes you aware*
after learning what I have about ingredients that discourage hair growth http://hubpages.com/hub/Rules_for_Growing_African_American__Curly__or_Ethnic_Hair_Ingredients_that_Slow_Your_Hair_Growth_and_Damage_Your_Hair

and discovering that cantu has all of them...I don't want to use this product anymore (I'm thinking Komaza)

When I took down the twists (I don't like my hair posts a twist out... just for the record) My hair definitely had a lot of product buildup. Once I got in the shower and the water hit my hair it felt so soft! It started curling though and I know that my hair had minimal knotting since they had all the twists in them -but my hair was curling and I had to comb it out. Didn't think I'd have much tangling but....anyway. Cantu rinse out conditioner still leaves up to the hype. My hair is noticeably softer and makes my curls sing lol) I put on the leave-in conditioner and braided my hair in 7 braids.

I took them down later (I love braid outs) and put them in a bun.
Later when I took down the bun the crimped style look that braid outs give me was gone! I was dumbfounded. I was like....why are they gone I just bun'd my hair (I just made up a word lol) Against my will I moisturized my scalp with the bio-infusion stuff and then used the care free curl stuff I had been using earlier in the year. Hair breakage was minimal

7.27.10

I took my hair down (it had been in the braids for 2 days because I hadn't gone anywhere) and then I moisturized with the bio-infusion because I know my hair was dry and then put it in a bun. Later that night I moisturized with the Cantu shea butter (which smells a lot better but not any better ingredient wise) and braided my hair back into 7 braids and again hair breakage was minimal. It's time to make the bun sexy again. I like it better than the twists.