I'm new and overwhelmed and having a pity party.

Nann54 · 09-24-2011, 10:41 AM

Hi there. I'm new and I'm overwhelmed and forgive me while I have this pity party for just a minute. My friend has been CG for a year now and her hair looks incredible! I've always just had thick frizzy hair that I have to spend hours on to get it to look decent and mostly just get lazy and throw it back in a frizzy ponytail or bun.

She convinced me that I have wavy hair and should give this a try. So I jumped right in thinking if I just follow this routine I'll be good but now that I've started reading here on the boards I feel like its going to be months of bad hair days and trial and error until I get this right. I just feel like... WHY ME?! Why can't my hair just be normal.

Here's what we did to start:

baking soda & rinse that out
suave coconut to wash
garnier triple as a leave in
ACV

then I scrunched with la looks nutra gel and plopped. the first night it looked okay - weird the next morning but I didn't do the pineapple thing correctly.

the next night I did the same thing (no baking soda though) but when I was in the shower trying to comb through the leave in and the ACV and comb it up and away from my scalp it kept tangling badly. So I kept putting in more leave in (triple garnier) to try to comb it through but it wasn't really helping. After un-plopping my hair didn't look as good as the first night and I thought I just had wayyy too much conditioner. The next morning after pineappling my hair was still damp and I could pretty much squeeze out pure white conditioner.

So I've been doing a lot of reading on the boards (the app is great!) and I THINK that I am sensitive to protein and also that I have low porosity.

My hair strand doesn't sink in water.
It squeaks when I run my fingers over it (dry hair)

I just feel really lost. I want to go to the store today and buy more stuff to correct this but I am having a hard time troubleshooting.

Should I just always use baking soda to open up my cuticle so the conditioner can get in? and then always reseal with ACV? That seems like it would be harsh, but what do I know!? Should I make sure all of my products are protein free? I think the gel already is.

I'm just having a pity party... I really thought that embracing the wave in my hair (I think I'm a 2b) would finally allow me to have 'wash and go' hair and get to wear it down and not want to shave my head. I jumped right into this and now I feel like I'm some weird example where the normal method may not work for me and I'm just going to have bad hair forever.

Sorry for being a complainer. Can anyone point me in the right direction and recommend some products that would likely work for me? Thanks.

kathymack · 09-24-2011, 02:05 PM

Both baking soda and ACV are an every so often thing. Not for every day.

It could be the baking soda that's causing you problems. My hair HATES it. It makes it hard and strawlike--how protein sensitive folks describe a protein sensitivity. My hair is fine/low porosity and never met a protein it didn't like.

My hair prefers the more natural products for the online, boutique type companies, so I can comment on the products you're using. I'd stay away from the baking soda for a while and try some more moisturizing products. After you get some moisture into your hair, you may want to try adding protein to see what that does.

debbah · 09-26-2011, 10:24 AM

I sympathize! I'm only about 3 weeks on CG, and am a bit daunted by the trial-and-error method as well. From what I have learned from this board, it can take some time (few weeks to a few months) of CG before your hair settles into its new routine and starts showing noticeable improvement. I noticed immediately when I stopped all silicone and SLS products and went to co-wash.

I'm taking a bit of a scientific approach - I'm actually trying to only vary one thing at a time in my routine, then noting how my hair reacts. That way I'm able to pinpoint what's working and what's not.

For example, I started with co-wash and condition with OC (no leave in), then followed with Angel. Didn't get the best results, so then did co-wash, condition and leave-in with OC, then followed with Angel and that worked much better. Then I tried a different styling method - rather than squeezing out water THEN applying gel, I went the "super soak" method and added gel to soaking wet hair then plopped (but still used the same products to keep those variables the same). That produced yet different results and I'll be tweaking that tomorrow by plopping on a t-shirt rather than a MF towel (got great curl def but more frizz, Kathymac recommended a t-shirt rather than MF).

I don't know if that helps, but if you try only varying one thing at a time it may seem a little less overwhelming.

Good luck!

NocurlB4babies · 11-16-2011, 11:28 AM

I'm about 4mos. into this and am still not sure what I'm doing....I made the mistake of trying something different almost everyday - not only products, but technique. So...I had more bad hair days than good. Co-washing didn't work at all for me - I did keep up that routine for several weeks and results were limp hair/ weak waves. I hope you find your groove sooner than I did. I'm just now finding a routine/ products that are working, but still have a ways to go. Goodluck!!!