About : My hairstory

Welcome to my hair blog! Here I'll be talking about my hair journey, natural haircare, and styles.

I post about length shots and hair growing hairstory, haircare, experiments with non-chemical dyes and heatless texture, and hairstyles. Expect a great deal of pictures! Many of my posts are just pic spam, to be honest xD Also written tutorials, product reviews, and videos. 

Important: I edit existing  posts of my blog to update them with any new hair pics and/or video tutorials when they come up.

 My hair:

My hair is 1a/1b F ii/ii according to Fia's hair typing system. It's straight with a very, very slight body wave in my side bangs (when I have them) and sometimes my ends; very fine of texture; and in the  upper 'medium' thickness category, nearing the 'thick' category (I've measured 9.8 cm / 3.85" ponytail diameter at my best hair moments; depending on sheddings, this can vary between 9.5-9.8, generally). 

What with being straight and so fine-textured, despite the relatively high ponytail circumference, my hair is not especially voluminous or full, and it compresses down to nothing when wearing updos and braids unless I add paradas and/or foam donuts (many people have told me they can't wrap their heads around me being able to put all my hair in 'such a small bun' or under a wig cap, but I guess it's just that compressible xD). 

My natural colour is a dark auburn, with copper and gold highlights. It's darker at the roots, apart from the golden hairs at my temples, and lighter and way more coppery towards the ends. With henna I can achieve a bright copper sheen in direct sunlight, and in indirect sunlight and other lightings it's generally a redder and more intense shade of auburn. I've also tried Vampire Red Manic Panic on my unbleached hair, which gave a pretty intense dark pinkish red, from bright red in the Sun to a dark burgundy in other lightings.

  I've been wanting to grow my hair since I was 5 years old, and apart from trimming the ends (and doing some slightly bigger chops to regain hemline thickness), I have not significantly cut it since. In 2011 I joined the Long Hair Community and began to take more interest in haircare - I neglected it during some years, and it was more than just benign neglect; it kept growing, but I didn't really even out the hemline and didn't disentangle correctly, so by 2010 I had lost quite a lot of thickness, which I regained in 2011 as soon as I began to take better care of my hair.

Length hairstory: I went from tailbone+ (2010) to classic (2011) to fingertip (2012), mid-thigh (2013) and then onwards towards knee. I reached knee in 2015 (140 cm for me), and maintained there for a while to see if I could thicken up my hemline. However, in 2016 I suffered quite a heavy shedding, which left my hemline looking pretty thin. Still maintained near knee to see if I could regain the lost thickness, and I did a little bit, but in September 2017 I decided to trim back to mid-thigh, which helped even out the hemline a bit more.  From September to March 2018 I grew back to knee, but I hadn't regained all the density which I had lost in my ends yet, and I was feeling a bit self-conscious about wearing it loose or in braids :/ It was a question of quality over length, and feeling good enough with my hair so that I could actually wear it down, so in March 2018 I decided to chop back to fingertip (my 2013 milestone) and maintain there at the moment, then maybe grow back to mid-thigh. I'm pretty happy with how thick and even the hemline is looking now :D (even though yeah, I cut like 20 cm off :S xD). Fortunately, my hair grows quickly, so I could get back to mid-thigh in half a year if I wanted to grow it out again :)

Apart from bigger chops (which I do sporadically to thicken out the hemline), I trim about 1"/2-2.5 cm every season, with smaller microtrims in between if my ends need them. My hair grows pretty quickly, even at this length, so I don't lose a lot of length overall with the bigger seasonal trims.  I also S&D sporadically (not so much lately, and now I've chopped off quite a bit my ends are very healthy, so yay).

See my individual 'length hairstory' posts for more pic spam and info about my hair journey!

2011-2013:

                     
2011-2015:

2016 length shots (maintaining at knee, aiming to thicken up the hemline):

As you can see, my hair at the ends looked a bit the worse for wear after that shedding...:S Definitely not a hemline I was happy about xD

2017-18 hair summary TO BE UPDATED

  - Pros of my hair: Shiny naturally, very soft, long (xD), dries very quickly (at the coldest/most humid weather, half an hour with a bit of help from the hairdryer in the roots does it for me), grows very fast, I like my natural highlights (although I still wish I could try having redder hair without bleaching it!).  I often see the fact that it's so fine and not very voluminous as more of a con (static+I personally favour volume), but that also means my hair is not too heavy and updos don't cause me headaches or discomfort. Having hair that compresses down to nothing in certain updos can also be a pro in some situations when I need my hair out of the way quickly, or when wearing wig caps xD.

  Also, I consider my hair relatively low-maintenance. Even counting the length and its very fine, tangle-prone texture, I don't spend all that much time detangling and brushing my hair every day, unless I've been wearing my hair down for quite a while. My length and ends are also nearly always soft without the need to oil or further moisturize them, which is pretty helpful (sometimes, quite sporadically, they do get a bit dry, usually when I try out heatless curl experiments, but some sweet-almond or jojoba oil soaking overnight usually does the trick).

 -Cons of my hair: Tangly, pretty delicate because of its fine texture, gets easily VERY charged with static (which is no fun :S xD), not voluminous/full enough (for my personal preferences, that is. I admire full hemlines and thick braids, but that doesn't mean that thinner/less voluminous hair is bad hair, not at all!). I also like my texture, but it's a pity that my hair doesn't hold non-heat waves/curls well, or for a long time.

   My hair routine includes:

•  Finger detangling. I'm comb-free except sporadically for a wide-tooth wooden comb when spreading product - like aloe vera or Nightblooming Panacea - on the ends. I find most plastic and hard bristle brushes to be pretty damaging, at least to my fine-textured hair. When finger detangling, it's very rare when I cause any (minor) breakage, because I'm in total control of the pressure applied to the knots and can stop before ripping through them like most brushes and combs do.

•  Brushing twice a day (sometime more, depends if 'm wearing my hair loose) with a soft baby brush. The only one that doesn't hurt my hair, and I use it to smooth and spread natural oils after finger-combing, never to detangle. I also use a Tangle Teazer and a plastic comb in order to put my hair into ponytails and updos, but just for that. I have individual posts about the brushes and combs I use.

• I wash my hair twice a week, approximately (every 3-5 days). Current shampoos (with SLS, my hair's prone to getting oily at the roots) are D'Shila Fennel shampoo (for the crazy static), Lush Seanik shampoo bar (for volume and grease control), and Yerbas Vivas Aloe Vera shampoo. I generally tend to go for strengthening shampoos aimed at fine-textured hair without much volume, with as little chemical ingredients as possible (one sulphate is a requirement, though). The D'Shila shampoos are great, some of the most natural, chemical-free shampoos I have found so far.  I never use conditioner (too much build-up for my fine-textured hair, and I don't seem to need more moisture). I blow-dry my roots (or I'll get a cold) and let the rest air-dry while finger-detangling. This takes 15-30 min overall, depending on the day and the weather. I'm working on individual posts about the shampoos and other hair products I use.

•  The natural products/leave-in treatments I use are aloe vera clear gel (daily and in vast quantities to combat static xD), tea rinses (for greasy roots + shine), Nightblooming Panacea, and Jojoba oil (sporadical use, when I need them). I've also used sweet almond oil (for the ends when dried out by heatless texture), henna, cassia, and honey and lemon treatments (and eggs, but I don't want to repeat that, the smell was horrible! xD). See individual posts for more details about my hair treatment adventures.

   Regarding hairstyles, I really like braided styles (I'm still learning some of those, though, I should practice more), and I really like analyzing and/or recreating film and historical hairstyles.