History of the Mane

My story is just like many of yours. I had a gripe with my hair. Why won't grow? Why is constantly breaking? Is it afraid to go past my shoulders or something? lol I was one of those girls who put a towel over her head and pretended that I had long hair. Now I want my own and I'm slowly but surely making progress in getting the healthy longer that I wanted. But the hair practices that I was doing back in the day was not going to help me achieve the hair that wanted. I used grease, which weighed my hair down. I relaxed my hair every 4 weeks. Yes that is what I said and I am ashamed. lol I thought that I had a lot of new growth at 4 weeks post. Baby, looking back I had none. I stretch between 13-15 weeks now. Don't let me not be able to get to the shop on time for a touch up. Going an additional week would kill me and I would have my mom do my touch ups. Lord have mercy!!! What was I thinking. Anywho, I flat ironed a lot. I used that greasy Pink Lotion stuff. I didn't know what to do with my hair in between visits to the shop. When I would wash my hair in between visits I would shampoo and condition. That was it. I never deep conditioned my hair. I didn't have anything to moisturize my hair with. I was in bad shape for a long time.

What made me start a hair journey, you ask? Well, back in July 2010 I was completely fed up with my hair. It was neck length and not getting longer. The last straw was the area in my hair that constantly broke off started breaking again. I couldn't take it anymore. Here are a few pics of my hair in July 2010.

  

So in Aug 2010, I decided to put my hair in a sew-in. Initially, I didn't know how long I was going to keep doing sew-ins but eventually decided to keep up with sew-ins for a year. 

Pic of my progress after my last sew-in take down:

After texlax:

As you can see my hair did pretty good from keeping in that protective style for so long. So here are a few pics of my hair currently:

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Is my hair as long as I would want it to be? No but I am happy with the progress that I have made and the health that I have gained. Ultimately, I would like to get to BSB. I don't have a time frame or deadline to reach it. I'll just try to enjoy the ride as I make my way there. But I will say that I think that my hair is longer than it is the picture because I texlax my hair and it shrinks a lot. I won't find out my hair real hair length until the end of Dec when I texlax again.

Note: I decided to go ahead with my full 16 week stretch. I'll be relaxing the second week of January.