Water fasting

I'm on day 3 of a water fast. I did water and fruit fasts in the past. With water i never exceeded 3 days, but I'm determined to do 6 days this time. I felt very energetic on day 2 an d 3, but today I feel tired and hungry. Though I don't feel like eating anything.

I haven't posted for a while on this blog. I was busy with everything. this time I want to document my waterfast for future reference.

I don't eat and drink as much or as little water as I like. The only thing I dislike about fasting is the foul breath.

In the past I fasted for spiritual reasons. I fast forweightloss this time. So far i've dropped 5 pounds in 2 days. I intend to loose 10. I just have to stick in there.

I Trimmed my Hair

Yes, I broke one of my own rules and trimmed about 2 inches off my hair. I didn't like my ends anymore. I guess they were overprocessed and uneven. They were relaxed bone straight as opposed to the rest of my hair which is bouncy and full of body. So yes, they had to be trimmed off. Last night I asked my DH to help me out and he did a great job. My hair looks way better now. I also have to say that I'm back at armpit length. This is the first time that I was at ease to trim my hair. Why? Because of the results that I have seen since using growth aids. I'm still using my MN mix faithfully and I'll be at BSL in no time.

I also want to say that I'm inspired by Ateeya, because her hair always looks lovely.

Castor Oil for Hair...........and more

I remember when we we're little, my mother used a mix of petroleum jelly and castor oil to comb my sisters' and my hair with . Was our hair thick back then. Overtime we stopped using it and eventualy forgot about it. Now that I know the benefits of this oil I've incorporated it again into my regimen. I use it for scalp massages and hot oil treatments, and because it is kind of a heavy oil I blend it with other oils which add to the benefits. Also, I add it to my MN mix.

My oil mix consists of:
- equal parts of castor oil, coconut oil, olive oil.
- amla oil
- Rosemary essential oil
- Lavendar essential oil

Benefits for Hair
I did a search on the benefits of castor oil and found this very interesting article.
Source: http://www.goherbalremedies.com/blog/

The use of castor oil is widely popular for its therapeutic effect and it is used against different ailments as an effective remedial medicine. The easy herbal remedies by castor oil are efficient, simple, and easy process which can be done at home.

Application of castor oil removes warts and it is an efficient remedy for warts problem. You need to smear 2-4 castor oil on the wart followed by gentle massage for 10-15 minutes at a stretch on wart with the oil. This herbal treatment by castor oil needs to be repeated for 2 times per day until the warts get disappeared.

If anyone is suffering from red eye, he/she can put one drop castor oil in each of the eyes and take rest for 5-10 minutes with closed eyes. This remedy will remove the redness from eyes.

Castor oil is a good blemish remover, where the blemish is occurred due to hepatic pigmentation. The pigmented area needs to be smeared by castor oil and the visible effect is seen merely after one month use of this castor oil remedy.

Castor oil is an effective remedy for break prone nails. The nails are to be smeared by castor oil coating two times per day and this treatment should be continued for 2 months for visible result out of this application.

Application of castor on scalp is an effective treatment of alopecia. The application needs to be done in the night before going to bed and in the morning the hairs should be washed with mild shampoo. This herbal remedy for hair fall needs to be continued for 2 months to get the visible result of hair re-growth.

Regular application of castor oil helps in better growth of eyebrows and eye lashes. For this remedial effect one needs to apply castor oil on eyelashes and on eyebrows regularly two times per day.

Castor oil application helps in ailment of cracked skin in heel. Application of castor oil on ankle helps in removing cellulite and dead cell layers and prevents heel from further crack. For best result you need to apply the oil on ankle and then needs to war a cotton socks at night to retain the oil on the skin surface and to let it work overnight.

In treatment of bruises, skin irruptions and ulcerations of skin application of castor oil works well. Moreover in treatment of bronchitis, cold, chest massage with this oil provides good relief for the patient. In treatment of bleeding piles the use of castor oil as an efficient herbal remedy is well known for its instant effect.

Update on my MN mix

I changed my MN Mix a little. I didn't like the peppermint smell. So I added 5ml more of each Rosemary and Lavendar Oil. The smell is better now. For my next batch I will leave the pepermint oil out. The mix is not oily but has a nice creamy consistency. I get a nice tingling sensation when I apply it to my scalp. I use it sparingly every night, before bedtime and I always massage it in. I get about two 6 oz tubes from this mix, which will last me for a while.

I gave up on stretching

I want to stretch my relaxers so bad, but I can't get the hang of it.

Iwanted to strech 8 weeks this time, but my new growth was so thick from using MN that I retouched at 4-5 weeks. I'm a bit dissapointed in myself. Besides the new growth, my hair was starting to get very dry. ORS RP did the strengthening, but for moisture I need something else. So I've decided to mix the ORS RP with Herbal Essence Replenishing Conditioner. I will also do more hot oil treatments and scalp massages with mixes of coconut oil, castor oil, lavendar oil, rosemary oil and amla oil. See how it will work out.

ORS Hair Fertilizer

I'm late.
I discovered this product only a week ago. I read the reviews, some good, some saw no results.
But, I'm willing to try it in my MN mix. It has goos oils in it and herbs that aid in hair growth.

Description
Nourishment for healthy hair and scalp.
Organic Root Stimulator Hair Fertilizer helps to strengthen and nourish weak and damaged hair.
Enriched with a blend of nettle, horsetail, and paprika, these ingredients have historically been known to stimulate the scalp, and add moisture to dry hair.
Organic Root Stimulator Hair Fertilizer will help to create the perfect environment for hair to grow stronger, giving you healthy beautiful hair - naturally!
Organic Root Stimulator Hair Fertilizer is ideal for those:
With sluggish hair growth or moderate hair loss due to chemical damage or weave.
Who have restored their hair with the Organic Root Stimulator Hair Restoration System and want to continue hair growth.
Who are current users of the Organic Root Stimulator Hair Restoration System.
It may be used as the last step in the system to add strength and moisture to the hair.

Ingredients
Water - Aqua , Soybean Oil - Glycine Soja , C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate , Cetearyl Alcohol , Sodium Cetearyl Sulfate , Coconut Oil - Cocos Nucifera , Petrolatum , Isopropyl Myistate , Phenyl Trimethicone , Castor Oil - Ricinus Communis , Cholesterol Panthenol , Horsetail Extract - Equisetum Arvense , Kola Nut Extract - Cola Nitida , Paprika - Capsicum Annuum , Nettle Leaves - Urtica Dioca , Diazolidinyl Urea , Methylparaben , Propylparaben , Propylene Glycol , Carbomer , Triethanolamine , Fragrance - Parfum , Citronellol , Coumadin , Eugenol , Geraniol , Hexyl Cinnamaldehyde , Hydroxycitronellal , D'Limonene , Linalool , DMDM Hydantoin , Caramel

Tweaking my MN Mix

After some research I decided to tweak my MN mix.
The reason behind it is to stretch it and to add more growth aids.

Here's the recipe:
1 6 oz jar of ORS Hair fertilizer.
4 x 0.5 oz tubes of MN
25 ml Coconut oil
25 ml castor oil
5 ml rosemary oil
5 ml lavender oil
3 drops peppermint oil, i don't want to smell minty

I will apply it daily, starting today and track my progress. I hope to gain at least 4" by August 30th

Hair Candy

My hair is in for a treat this weekend.

Here's what I'll do:

1. On friday night I wil massage my scalp with my special hair oil blend consisting of coconut oil, cayenne pepper oil, amla oil, MN and essential oils.

2. I will do a hot oil treatment on my hair with another blend of castor oil, amla oil, coconut oil and conditioner. I still have to determine which conditioner I will use. Cover my hair with saran wrap and leave it overnight.

3. In the morning I will apply Casia to my hair. It says henna on the box, but I believe it's really casia mixed with other herbs because it stains gray hair golden. No orange stain. My hair comes out sooooo soft with this. Wrap my hair again with saran wrap and do some house chores for the next four hours. I'll prepare the henna (casia) the day before with hot tea, honey and again amla oil.

4. I'll then do a cow or shampoo/conditioner mix if my hair needs it to get out all the oil.

5. Then deepcondition for 30 minutes with ORS Replenishing Pack.

6. Style my hair:

- rollerset: use setting lotion, moisturizer.

- Blow out the roots

- Doobie wrap

- Enjoy the softness and sheen on my heathy strands.

Starting Length

I just wanted to post a picture of my starting length.

My goal right now is to make bra strap length. My ultimate goal is mid back length.

I should have reached bra strap length a long time ago, but I had a few trims along the way. I've been at my current length for almost a year! I guess I have to take better care of my ends. I used to wear my hair down every day and I payed the price for is. Now I wear a bun daily and I will keep it that way until I've reached my goal.

Another thing that might have contributed to the setbacks is relaxing too often, every 5 - 6 weeks. I did that because I had a problem dealing with the new growth. I am 4a/b and my new growth is no joke. Henna helps with relaxing the texture of the new growth. Conditioner only washes have helped a lot, though I don't have the time to do them every day.

My MN Mix

So I have been using Miconazole Nitrate as a growth aid for about 3 weeks now for the second time. The first time I wasn't consistant, though it gave me good growth.

During the first weeks I got terrible headaches. I must say, that i used it straight out of the tube. I then mixed it with some stuff and came up with a recipe that doesn't cause any headaches.

Here' s the recipe:

1 tube of Miconazole Nitrate Cream (30g-the brand I use is pictured above)

about 30g of Organic Root stimulator Olive Moisturizer (in the bottle)

15 ml water.

I mix this up and apply it every night before bed and massage it in. The growth I get is more than I'm used to. I hope this will help me achieve my mbl goal sooner.

The only downside is that I can't enjoy my freshly relaxed hair very long, but I guess I'll just have to sacrifice on thing for the other.

Miconazole Nitrate

Cayenne and Coconut Oil

The first growth concoction I ever made was Cayenne oil. I dried the hot red peppers in the sun and infused them in either olive oil or coconut oil. I used to apply it daily, but my hair got very oily. As to the growth, I got a little more than my normal growth. I will incorporate this again in my regimen and use it once a week as a pre poo. I like the tingling sensation it gives. I even mixed it in the pass with my deep condintioner and sat with it under a warm dryer which made the tingling more intense.

Finaly Found Amla Oil

I finaly found some amla oil. I couldn't find Dabur Amla Oil anywhere. But when I went for groceries last night, a nice indian lady showed me their amla shampoo. She was eager to let me in on the benefits of their Amla shampoo. She even let me touch her hair and feel how soft it is. Well, maybe I'll try the shampoo some other time, but for now I will have to try the amla oil first. The brand they have is Marhaba. I bought the one with coconut oil. I'll use it this weekend as a hot oil treatment. Hopefully I will reap the benefits that other ladies claim when using it.

Experimenting with Stretching

Yes, I said experimenting because I haven't been succesful yet. I wont say my hair hates stretching, but I will have to find ways to cope with all the new growth for sure since I'm using growth aids. I wear a bun to work these days. My kind of protective styling. In the past I wore my hair down every day, but I've seen the benefits of bunning: retaining more length. The problem is, my buns don't look verry neat with all the puffiness and new growth sticking out. Right now I'm 2 weeks post. I usually retouch at 6 weeks post. I'll try and stretch for 8 weeks and hopefully add another week along the way. I'll Cowash as much as I can during that time and try to moisturize and baby my ends properly. But if the breaking and shedding is too much I will definately grab a box of relaxer.

Regimen to reach MBL.

As said before I have a few inches to go to make BSL.
These are the steps i will take to make MBL in 6 months.

1. Grease my scalp with my MN Mix. The mix contains 30g Miconazole Nitrate Cream, about the same amount of ORS Olive Oil Moisturizer and 15 ml water. I put that in a bottle and apply it every night. I have used this mix for almost two weeks now, after my last relaxer and the new growth looks like 4 weeks post relaxer. I also see a lot of 'new hair' growing.

2. COW midweek with Suave milk and honey , Suave tropical coconut or VO5 strawberies and cream.

3. On Saturdays I'll either deep condition with Motions CPR or do a Casia or Henna Treatment followed by ORS Replenishing Pak. I'll do HOT's on friday night with amla oil and apply my own concoction of coconut oil and cayenne overnight.

4. Moisturize twice a day with ORS Olive Oil Moisturizer.

5. No trims, until I reach my goal.

That's it. I try to keep it as simple as possible. Hope I retain all the length that I get during these 6 months.

I'll take some start pictures and post them soon.

Journey to Mid Back Length

This is the start of my journey to MBL.
I've been into hair since 2003. And I've jumped on many bandwagons. However, I came to the conclusion that keeping a simple routine (K.I.S.S.) is the most effective way for me to reach my goals. My current hair length is armpit length (APL). My goal is to reach MBL by November 1, 2009, that's 6 months from now. So let the journey begin.