So after the horrific realization that Deloris was on holiday last weekend and that I would have to go another week with all this new growth.  I finally switched up my hairstyling and embraced the curls, which is really the thing to do when you have lots of new growth.  I think being miserable about my hair when I have lots of new growth is down to my slowness to transition from the freshly relaxed hairstyles to the loadsa’ regrowth hairstyles.

So the last two nights I have been roller-setting my whole head not just the ends with the satin rollers and am rocking an up and to the side do,  I feel very Janelle Monae.

There’s something about having lots of new growth that forces you to be creative with your hairstyling options and simply stop trying to make the straight her worn down look decent. And actually some would argue I look better with my hair worn up!

So on Friday I was toying with the idea of relaxing the next morning, but I wanted a lie-in and it rained all day on Saturday so I didn’t feel like leaving the house, so in the end I rationalised that I would just wash and blow-dry it to loosen the tight coils at the roots.  The alarming thing was from Friday to Sunday morning the blow-dried roots from my last wash fully tightened – I think working out at the gym on Saturday and Sunday probably didn’t help matters.  There was so much shrinkage I was actually tempted to relax it myself, but had less than an hour to get dressed after I got back from the gym and had to get ready to go to Ghanaval on Sunday.

So I opted for a wash, condition and blow-dry instead to loosen out my roots,  it definitely helped, but as my hair didn’t properly dry and I didn’t add in enough moisture it frizzed up a little bit throughout the course of the evening.

It did make me wish that I had not been so lazy and that I should have gone and got it relaxed on Saturday.  Although I feel better for knowing that I made it an extra week closer to my standard 10 weeks.

I think this Saturday should be D-day although I have developed a new found fondness for my satin rollers.  I put them in only at the ends of my hair last night before going to bed and wore it down this morning.  I like that it has a more permanent wave than when I try to bevel my ends with the hair straighteners, it is of course a much healthier option too, and it’s a good way to balance out my puffy roots.

Even though my roots are out of control I still feel like I should wait the extra 2 weeks so that my trims and relaxer schedule is maintained at no sooner than every 10 weeks – although part of me wonders whether 10 weeks is regular enough for both of those…

7 weeks post relaxer and currently feeling like I’m at least 9 weeks post – I’ve come to the conclusion the last relaxer didn’t fully straighten my hair and now there is additional growth on top of that, which means I feel like I am further along the usual timeline than I actually am.  Waiting the 9 days to September seems hard enough right now let alone waiting until September14th which was my schedule due date 10 weeks post.

When it gets to this stage I can’t help myself from pulling, tugging, and rubbing my coily roots especially to the back left of my head when I am resting my elbows on the desk at work.  The downside is it makes me slightly reluctant to exercise because of the extra puffy roots I’ll have at the end.

Meanwhile I want to stretch my wash cycle from every week to every two weeks to reduce my having to use the blow dryer, since it’s not the healthiest option, although without the blow-dryer the contrast between the two textures would be stark and it would cause breakage when combing, so I have to get the balance right.  I just need to hold out till 8.5 weeks post for my next wash, then I’ll be able to relax at week 9.  One week early isn’t too bad given that I feel like sponge head bob! Although the additional length I gained from the last relaxer means that there is still some ‘hangtime’ in spite of all the shrinkage.

I think stretching can be detrimental if it means there is too much hair to relax in a short space of time given how quickly my scalp starts to burn. I also think this may be the down-side to the new pain-free relaxer process (relaxing in 5 sections and rinsing each out before moving to relax the next section).