Essential Oils

Natural Oils and butters benefits of each

I wanted to add a little section about some natural oils I have heard people rave about on Hairlista and I just wanted to have a spot you can contrast and compare, pick and choose which one suits your hair needs.

Castor Oil:

-Moisturizes hair and scalp

- promotes thickness and growth

Coconut Oil:

-helps with hair loss

- rejuvenates scalp

-maintains high moisture because it doesn't break down easy

- Helps with dandruff issues.

Jojoba Oil:

-has the same qualities as the Sebum oil we naturally produce resulting in hair that is less prone to tangles dryness and split ends.

-helps with hair loss

-improves follicle growth and scalp stimulation

- softens hair.

Shea Butter:

-provides moisture

-protects against weather damage.

-Restores luster

-Prevents Dry and itchy scalp

-Strengthen roots

Olive Oil:

-prevent hair loss

-treat dandruff

-promotes overall scalp health

-makes hair shiny and soft

-kills head lice

Peppermint Oil:

-balances scalp PH levels

- normalizes scalps oil production

-treats dry hair

-relieves itching

- can be paired with other essential oils e.g Castor oil

- tingling sensation stimulates scalp for faster hair growth

*You should mix peppermint oil with other essential oils, rule of thumb is about 4 drops of peppermint oil in each cup of product

Eucalyptus Oil

-stimulates scalp

-revitalizes dull hair

-increases hairs luster and elasticity

-promotes hair growth

-gets rid of dandruff

and my own discovery...

Emu Oil:

-helps with hair loss

-frontal hair growth

-anti-inflammatory

-quickens cell regeneration including the growth phase of the hair cycle

-antioxidant

That's my oil list for now and as usual I will add upon request or if I stumble across something else.

Deuces and Happy growing!

T

Before you start

I think the key to growing your hair is understanding your hair, so I did some research online and I think the following are key to understanding your hair. Before you start building your regimen understand why certain products maybe more important than others; it might also save you some money by not turning you into a product junkie! :D

1. Your hair structure:

A key thing to remember is that the shape of our hair makes it more prone to breakage.

The Cuticle is the outside layer of you hair, it's job is to protect the hair shaft; it has a coating of Sebum, which is where the hair gets it's shine.

The Cortex is where the hairs strength, texture and elasticity comes from.

The Hair Follicle is the part of the skin that actually grows the hair.

The Sebaceous Glands is where the Sebum that was coating the cuticle is made.

The Melanin is what gives the hair it's color.

If you are like me, when you where trying to figure out exactly what your hair type was you came across some terminology you didn't quite understand or you did understand you just didn't know what that meant for your hair. Well, here are some clarifications I found helpful on my journey to understanding my hair.

Moisture: basically the amount of water held in your hairs Cortex. If you live somewhere humid the more moisture you'll have in your cortex, and of course in drier areas the less.

Porosity: this is the hairs ability to actually absorb the water and all the chemicals (products) you put in it. If you have normal porosity your hair maintains the right balance of moisture. If you porosity is high your hair can't hold it's moisture and thus dries easy. Low porosity means that your hair sucks in moisture but the problem is it cant hold it in. Relaxed hair usually falls in the high porosity category.

Elasticity: is your hairs ability to stretch and shrink back to normal. when your hair is wet it should be able to stretch double it's length without breaking. if your hair has low elasticity it breaks off when you try to stretch it. Relaxes hair usually has low elasticity.

Common hair Problems and their causes:

 Breakage  occurs when the Cortex has been damaged, common harmful practices that cause this damage are:

heat styling: such as flat ironing and blow drying your hair, what this is doing is basically burning the moisture out of your Cortex.

Overly Processing: processing your hair (e.g relaxing) already damages your hair just because you are altering the chemical structure of your hair, but overly processing your hair leads to high porosity and low elasticity which is a recipe for breakage.

Harsh products: using harsh shampoos and conditioners can cause your hair to be stripped of vital nutrients which leads to breakage especially if your hair is relaxed.

Dryness occurs Sebum is stripped from the Cuticle. Our hair is prone to dryness that why it is very important to buy water based products (where water is 1st to 3rd on the list of ingredients), and stay away from products with alcohol in them. Water and Coconut oil are the best for restoring moisture to the hair, oils such as mineral oils just sit on top and pretend to be working when they are actually just clogging you pores.

I think that probably covers the basics I will add more as I see fit or if anyone has a request; hope this is helpful!!

Deuces and happy hair growing

T

Where do i begin...

I have been a member of Hairlista.com for about 3 going 4 months and you know what? I’m still a newbie! During those 3-4 months I decided to get a sew in weave as my protective style and what happened? as the days went by I started neglecting my real hair more and more, till I finally decided to just take out the weave (two weeks ago) and vowed to never put in a weave again (personal decision)!

So what I needed to do was get my hair groove back; so I went back to Hairlista and watched a crap load of videos, subscribed to the ones I thought I related the most to in terms of hair type and made friends with Hairlista in my area and those who truly impressed me ( shout out to The Mrs).

After stumbling across a video by The Mrs which she calls her rant to the newbies lol (more like a much needed lecture), something hit me. In her video she states that we newbies have a tendency to go find videos of people with long beautiful hair write down their products and reg and go on a shopping spree, we don't realize that this may not be the same reg they started with to get that length. That was only one of our biggest mistakes! So that got me thinking maybe I should look at see someone’s journey from start to goal. But I didn't find any I found lots of pictures of hair growth but it wasn't the kind of info I was looking for-- which leads me to this blog.

I am planning on showing my journey from start to maintenance. In the beginning I will show my current products, regimen, my research, goals and current state. Though I have never made a video in my life (camera shy) I will do my best to at least have a video a month even if it’s just an update. These are The Shameful Diaries of a Hairlista Newbie; I’ll share my shameful mistakes, my biggest failures and my graceful success. I figured if I make my journey more public it will be harder to fall off track right? I also hope that others learn from my mistakes or even offer advice! Good luck to all, and subscribe to see where I end up!

Happy Hair Growing and welcome to my hair journey!!!!

p.s I’ll ask The Mrs if I can post her video on the blog.




**update**


link to the video


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKluGPk6isQ&feature=player_embedded