Okay so last year around maybe October-ish or even September. I went on YouTube and watched a lady's video on how to tell if your hair is damaged or not. Now I haven't ever had a situation with damaged hair but I figured you know what I'll give this a try just to see, because I'm on a healthy hair care journey and I want to keep it that way. On her video she shows how you take a strand of your (clean) hair, either from your head or shed hair on your comb or whatever and place it into a (glass) cup almost filled to the top with water.
In the video she says if your hair sinks it is damaged. Later on I figured out she didn't give complete information, because after a while your hair may sink. I didn't think of that at the time though. So when I took a few strands of my hair (not all at once) and placed it in the water. By the time I returned back to the cup my hair was at the bottom. I really didn't know what to do when I saw this. She mentioned that it meant your hair could be weak or it's time for you to get a protein treatment.
So I thought to myself "Dang! I've been natural for 4 years now and I don't ever remember doing protein treatments like that." Maybe just a few times and I actually didn't know they were protein at the time. So I looked up homemade protein treatments and my cousin did avocado hair masks. So I was like okay I will start there. So I get everything I need and I literally did a protein treatment on my hair every week that I washed my hair. It was my deep conditioner for the week.
After about 4- 6 weeks I did the test all over again. This time around my hair didn't sink I left for about 5 mins and it didn't sink so I was like I'll wait for an hour. I came back and my baby was still floating lol. I was so excited I said I will keep doing my protein treatments from now on. I could feel that my hair became stronger so I continued. 2013 came around and I continued down the weekly protein treatment path.
Around March or April I noticed my hair was starting to feel hard. I didn't think anything of it I just figured it's getting stronger. Since it only felt hard after the protein treatment I just shunned it away because it became a little softer after my hair dried. I continued again, until May came around and my hair remained feeling hard even after it dried and just blah!! Felt like a big mess sitting on my head. I just wasn't feeling it so I kept it in twists or covered.
I did some research on protein overload and protein sensitivity. I went to websites like Curly Nikki http://www.curlynikki.com/search?q=protein+sensitive for "protein sensitivity" and http://blackgirllonghair.com/2012/01/10-reasons-your-hair-isnt-soft/ for "10 Reasons Your Hair isn't soft." I kept researching more sites but I can't remember right now. These sites have a good amount of information on them so I won't really go into detail unless you have some questions for me.
After going to these sites I came to the conclusion that my hair IS NOT protein sensitive but I did have protein overload. I realized that my hair produces a normal amount of protein already. My hair has Average porosity (Normal Hair). The protein overload was affecting my hair's porosity which made it High porosity (Overly Porous). This caused my hair not to hold on to moisture and become dry and brittle. Even though I moisturized my hair once a week because that's all it takes for my hair. I did not switch that up during the very frequent protein treatments. I should have been moisturizing a few more times just to combat the protein overload. Curly Nikki has a few good articles on hair porosity, here's the link: http://www.curlynikki.com/search?q=hair+porosity .
So I completely stopped everything protein to my hair for a little while and focused on moisturizing and sealing my hair. Just to be safe sometimes I will add a little extra moisture during the week. That's just a precaution though. As soon as I stopped the protein for a while my hair went back to its nice soft self :). Additionally moisturizing my hair with water and glycerin. I already had some conditioners that are protein free (I'm a conditioner junkie) so once I co-washed my hair, my hair fell in love. It grasped onto that conditioner and water like it was a long lost lover or something lol. It's funny because I just bought that conditioner maybe 2 weeks before. It's definitely going to be a staple of mine now. Pictures below (Herbal Escapes Pomegranate & Grapeseed Extract and Tea Therapy Vanilla Mint Tea
They're cheapies as well VO5 baby!! Now I'm already and fan and lover of the Tea therapy but I ran out and just haven't bought more but the newbie to the team is this Pomegranate. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Now back on the protein treatments. I still do them but now I know I'm good with just using it once every 6-8 weeks and I'm good. I hope this helps anybody that's hair is acting different and they don't know why. Life has now returned back to my hair and I'm all smiles :) Until next time...........
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