It's my 2 Year Nappi-versary!!!!!!

May 9th 2012 after my big chop - I was still shy :)

Whoop whoop!

Exactly 2 years ago to the day, I sat down in front of my mirror, drenched my hair in conditioner, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off every single scraggly, straight, damaged strand from my head of hair. It was scary, it was liberating and it was one of the best things I'd ever done for the health of my hair.

I had been trying to grow my hair long in its relaxed state but too many years of abuse had damaged it so I decided to start from scratch and somewhere along the line, I went natural :)

I spent the first year of my journey being a product junkie extraordinaire whilst trying to find out what my hair liked and what it couldn't stand. I went through my Dominican product phase ( Silicon Mix (original) Silicon Mix (bambu) Crece Pelo, Baba De Caracol, Suela Y Canela, Salerm, Apretadora, Lacio Lacio etc)

Then the oil phase (Whale Sperm, Gro Aut, Mahabhrigaraj, Amla, Brahmi, 'Castor Oil on Steroids' i.e. boiled with garlic and onion)

 then the 'all things natural' phase ( eggs, mayonnaise, avocado, boiled potato skin water, boiled herbs e.g rosemary) lollllllllllllllll you know as I'm typing all these things out, I'm laughing out loud at the lengths I used to go to in order to get the perfect product for my hair. Mini madness I tell you.

I was able to develop a regimen that worked for me which largely consisted of shampoo wash every Sunday and an Ayurvedic deep treatment every Wednesday. I would pre poo the night before either wash days with a cocktail of oils and always finished up my wash on shampoo days with an apple cider vinegar rinse and on Ayurvedic treatment days with a rosemary herbal water rinse (boil rosemary leaves in water, let it cool and then use as a final rinse). I was able to do this twice weekly wash very comfortably because I wore wigs all through that first year - it was therefore very easy for me to get home, whip off the wig and take care of my own hair.

Back length May 2012

I discovered henna and fell in love and would use it every month - at one point I was using it every week but that kinda got a little bit too time consuming. Everyday I moisturized with a water based moisturizer and sealed with an oil - using Jamaican black castor oil on my scalp twice a week. My hair thrived, curls I didn't know I had began to form and I retained length.

In the past 7 months, I haven't had the same luxury of time which I used to and have tried to stick to a regimen of at least a weekly wash even if I can't get to do my mid week ayurvedic treatments.

While I thought I'd have made a whole lot more progress than what I have now, I'm still very happy that my hair is doing well and after my near set back a few days ago, I am going to be even gentler with my hair and plan on incorporating a lot more protective styles into my regimen this year.

I was going to do a full length check but I'm currently doing the inversion method which will end tomorrow (Saturday the 10th) so I will do a before and after comparison plus length check post some time early next week.

But as a sneek peak, this is where I currently am :

The Shrinkage is real loll

See you guys next week!