From A to 4z

Am I the only one who feels their best when the sun comes out?

Now that the weather is warming up and spring is in full swing, I'm considering switching out my long-term, protective style of two strand mini twists to simple plaits and larger twists.

Generally speaking, I like wearing my hair in the same set during the colder months. It's also the time of year when I have less time to focus on my hair because the children are in school and after school activities.

In the summer, when our schedules are more relaxed I can devote more time to changing things up and experimenting with my hair.

What about you? Are you seasonal about your hair care?

Check out the latest on From A to 4z YouTube:
https://youtu.be/wrV-6-x9HyI

Don't forget to check out the latest on From A to 4z Youtbube: https://youtu.be/4avRqVn5NXk?si=XlVfZZ8YFlt-NPpy

To be fair to my camera roll, I’m going to post some of those images alongside new content.

And since I’ve been away for a minute, in lieu of a re-introduction I’m going to post 5 things about myself and my hair.

⌛ My name is Janice and I’ve been natural for around * counts fingers * around 12 years. My desire for caring for my natural hair came out of frustration with having natural hair for most of my life, but not knowing how to take care of it and make it look as long and healthy as many of the ladies I was starting to see online.

🌿 I love DIY hair care and my routine is definitely not like most natural haired girlies out there. I mostly use herbal treatments, I finger comb, and heat isn’t part of my regular routine. (Be sure to check out my latest YT video for more on my routine.)

🍫📺 My guilty pleasures are sweets and reality TV. While, I admit that chocolate and cheesecake are not great for optimal hair growth, I’m hoping that distressing in front of franchises like LIB [insert country] and RH [insert city] counter the negative effects of the sugar. 👀

👩🏿💻 One of my goals this year is to learn basic Python. I’ve been volunteering with my children’s First Lego League (FLL) club. While, I’m strong on the project management component, I think that I could be even more helpful if I learned how to code and even build.

🪮 After all of this time, I STILL do not know how to style hair and so I’m forever living in my two strand twists. Over the past two years, I’ve come to realize that my hair thrives in mini twists that I can leave in for 2 or more months. This doesn’t make for a very exciting Instagram feed, but it’s helping me to reach GOALS.

Drop a line below to say “hi” and tell me something about yourself. Or, feel free to ask me something that you’ve always wanted to know about me.

I've been on my HHJ for over 12 years. Over this time, I've learned so much from YT hair "gurus" and trained stylists alike. While they've taught me a LOT, I've also learned that if I listen to my hair, I can learn so much more.

Not everything that I do to my hair follows conventional wisdom. But that's perfectly OK. I finger detangle, clay wash, use Ayurveda...and more.

What unconventional hair practice works well for your hair?

https://youtu.be/4avRqVn5NXk?si=r_dC6RhbC8A8siqi

The twists are in! It’s been three weeks since this install, but they’ve been holding strong. This set took about 13 hours to install, but I know that I can wear them for quite some time without issue. Initially, my goal was to keep them in for 2 to 3 months (approximately until the beginning of September), but I’m wondering if I could wear the same set until December? 🤔

My strategy for keeping my twists to last a while without webbing:

👉🏿Senegalese/rope twists are compact, similar to braiding. Their compactness holds the individual strands in place which means that they don’t have the ability to move around within each tendril. Limited movement means less chance of knotting and meshing.

👉🏿Smaller twists allow me to wear them longer. They don’t seem to get or look as messy as larger two strand twists. In this manner, smaller sections mean that if a strand does stray, there are less strands for it to wrap around and get tangled into.

👉🏿Keeping my hair moisturized reduces single strands knots (SSKs). For this purpose, I say, “yes oils and yes butters”. Also, yes to leave-in conditioners. These products keep my hair lubricated so that at the end of the three months, the strands aren’t like Velcro and the tendrils separate easily. I also will heavily oil the ends of my hair so that there is less chance of them getting SSKs when I manipulate my twists into other strands.

👉🏿I wear my ends off of my shoulders often. This could be in the form of buns, ponytails, beenies, and scarves.

What are your tips and tricks for wearing your twists and braids longer?

It’s always good to measure your ingredients when making your recipes. Normally, if I’m making a hair wash for the entire family, I measure the amount of water that I need. This time I eyeballed it. What I ended up with was far more product than I could use.

I washed two heads of hair and jarred the rest for later use – above. After washing the remaining four heads of hair, I still had two jars left. I used some of that in a subsequent clay mix and threw away the rest. I didn’t want to chance using the mix beyond a week after making it.

This recipe worked out well:

Reehta nuts -- cleansing
Sidr -- cleansing
Shikakai -- cleansing
Fenugreek – soften hair
Amla - regulates sebum production

Sometimes reetha can leave your hair feeling stripped and dry, however, this combination left my hair feeling manageable.

Have you tried washing your hair with reetha? What was your experience?

The threads are now out. I find that threading sometimes teases the ends of my hair so that they look worse than they really are. Despite that, after taking the threads down, I waited for the full moon and trimmed my ends. They now look and feel much better.

When I install braids in my hair, my method for moisturizing and sealing is different than when I install two strand twists. With two strand twists, I tend to create all of my twists BEFORE adding leave in conditioner and oils to my hair. When I braid my hair, I tend to apply my products AS I’m installing the braids. This is partly because I use a lot of tension when breading and the hair is more compact, which I believe makes it harder (for me) to properly introduce moisture into my hair after the fact. With twists, there is more space between the strands because of the nature of twisting and therefore they allow more of everything to flow through easier.

Confession: Part of the reason why I don’t wear braids much is because I feel like they show my true density. I want hair! More hair! 😂 I’m kidding, but only because I know how much more work it would take to manage it.

Do you manage and treat your braided hair and twisted hair the same way?

I don’t always thread my hair to stretch it, but when I do, I make sure to make sure that the ends of my hair are completely wrapped.

Wrapping my ends securely like this allows me to wear my hair down without worrying that they are going to suffer friction damage, from my clothing.

Before threading my hair, I go heavy with the moisturizer and the oils to make sure that my hair doesn’t dry out from the treads. I keep the threads in for one week at a time. By the time I take the threads out, my hair is still moisturized and it has been exposed to minimal manipulation.

What’s your secret for protecting your ends?

You most certainly can wash your hair in twists!

I have to say that it does take some getting to know your hair and the products that you’re using in order to get this method to work.

DO be picky about the products that you use when washing your hair. If your shampoo raises your cuticles a lot, there’s a good chance that you’ll run into difficulty with your hair meshing when it’s time to take your twists out. Shampoos and cleansers that aren’t followed up by adequate conditioning can leave your hair feeling rough and will cause a Velcro effect between your strands.

DO consider the size and tension of your twists. Larger, looser twists will allow hair strands to move around during your regular daily wear and moreso when you are washing your hair. This can make it difficult to avoid meshing when you’re washing and then not refreshing your twists. Smaller, tighter twists will anchor your strands in place, disabling them from moving around too much. This is truer still if you are wearing rope twists.

DO pay attention to how much frizz you get after washing. The frizzier your hair is, the more strands of hair were dislodged from their starting point, which means the greater chance you have of meshing and knotting. This tends to happen quicker with looser, fluffier twists. Silkier surface textures will also allow for hair strands to slip out of place faster, as do shorter hairs that do not match your overall length (i.e. breakage or new growth).

DO consider how you wear your hair after you wash it. We all love to wear our twists out, but binding your hair either at night with a hair scarf and/or throughout the day in styles like buns and banded ponytails will help to minimize the amount of frizz after washing.

I tend to wash my hair weekly and can keep my mini twists installed for up to three months (so far) without having to worry about any serious meshing using the tips above.

Do you wash your hair in twists? What are your tips for extending wash and wear of your two strand twists?

I'm still trying to figure out what a "failed twist out" is.

I only use three products in my hair: a liquid (often water), a water-based moisturizer, and some oil. I don't use extra holding custards or styling gels. I try to pay attention to the amount of tension I apply to a twist, but I don't dwell on any unevenness to the pattern.

If I create too much separation on one tendril, it means that I have the opportunity to create something unique with my style. I've failed my hair plenty of times, but it has never failed me.

If you just go with the flow (of your hair), you will rarely be disappointed.

Every so often, I learn something about my hair that I should have already known. My hair will show me things and I take it for granted that it behaves a certain way under certain conditions, but I don’t actually PAY ATTENTION to what I’m seeing. I don’t halt what I’m doing and consider this to be something that I should strategize against or work around.

What I’ve learned this past week is that my hair doesn’t really like the loose, jumbo twist flex (unless it has been fully stretched, first). Over the course of the week, loose twists allow my hair to shrink and my strands to coil on themselves. It gives my ends room to find friends to make pacts with and as a result, I end up with a ton of knots. Not good.

I think for the next while, I’m going to stick with twists that are either smaller, tighter, or both.

What does this all mean? That today when I trim my ends, I might have to do something do a trim instead of a micro-trim. I’m not happy about that, but I’ll consider it a lesson learned.