Deep condition in public without looking crazy

So I was washing my hair and was just about to put in my deep conditioner when I got a text from a friend inviting me out to lunch in an hour.  Ahhh!!!! Was my 1st thought, my second thought was, Ain't nobody got time to fully deep condition, then try to tame my mane (which is what my hair really looks like with all this new growth) and get dressed to go in an hour!

Think think think!  So I thought, if I can deep condition while I'm out and then just wash it out when I get home from lunch that'd be perfect!  Maybe I can wear an open knit hat (because a closed knit hat in the summer is odd) with a shower cap under it and no one will notice.  Furthermore, I can't wear the hat pulled down on my forehead to fully cover all my hair (cuz I'd look weird), I'll need to wear it back some, slouchy style.  So hopefully the conditioner will be clear so no one can tell that that is what's on my exposed hair (which means I can't pile the conditioner on as much as usual).  These were all my thoughts in trying to make public deep conditioning work.

Here was the outcome...

As you can see, I managed to wipe off the white bits of conditioner on the exposed hair, and since the shower cap was clear, it wasn't super obvious unless you tried very hard to see it.  The bottom picture has a flash which is why you can see the shinyness of the cap underneath, but even still, that doesn't look crazy at all. 

So actually I think this is a pretty good idea in warm weather (because in cold weather your hair would freeze).  You are getting things done or having fun while conditioning your hair, and if it's hot outside, that's just like sitting under the dryer with your conditioner!  Good thing I made this hat in many colors, and I will be making more because they are a necessity, especially while transition to natural hair.

Protective transitioning style, cornrow braids

Quick post to show the braids I had in order to protect my hair as well as not have to deal with it.  It's basically 3 rows of braids with pieces of weave in it for length.

I used mostly black and some purple Kanekelon hair, my mom did the braiding.  The first time she braided my hair like this she did only two rows of braids, but I figured with 3 there would be more hair so if I wore it down it wouldn't look as sparse.

This took about 4-6 hours to do, only because I'm tender headed so I mad my mom be extra gentle which meant going really slow and constantly using tons of detangler (which I will review later) and the time it took organizing the weave for use.  I'm sure this could likely be done in 2 hours on hair without the weave.

I left them in for 2 weeks.

 

I usually wore it in a bun.

 

You can see the purple "streaks" in my bun nicely.

 

Bad picture of it styled with the top row pinned together and the back two rows left down.  I had tried using curlers on them but the curls fell almost immediately :-(

 Wore them in a french braid too.

Bantu Knot Out on Transitioning Hair

I tried a bantu knot out after watching about 12 jillion videos on them.  I washed and deep conditioned my hair, then applied a leave in liquid, jojoba oil, and let's jam creme gel.

I twisted up 6 knots around my head.

As you can see, my roots are a crae crae!

I slept with my satin scarf on my head, and let the knots air dry overnight.

Voila! It worked-ish.

Lopsided much?

2 knots weren't fully dry (my hair don't like drying under a scarf or in knots), so 1 side's longer than the other because of the droop of being wet.

Other than that, I liked the curls! I wasn't expecting such a super curly turnout with only 6 knots, but it was good.  So now I know to use 6 knots for smaller medium curls, and to alot for the extra long drying time, or do it dry.

I tried 3 knots on day 3 to try to revive the curls, it didn't quit work as you can see below.

Maybe it would have worked better if had combed my hair.  Clearly my hair looks like a craptastic birds nest.


***5 MONTHS, AND COUNTING***

Decision made. I'm going natural!!!

I recently made a sudden decision to stop relaxing my hair.  The reasons are a bit ridiculous so bear with me:

1. I'm to lazy to keep my relaxers up (new growth galore, always).
2. It's annoying to go through all those steps to have healthy hair, but it still doesn't stop damage.
3. Seeing all these natural girls' hair grow, because it breaks less, gives me hope.
4. All the hairstyles I wear with relaxed hair can still be worn with natural hair.
5. Curly hair is my fav (bigger ones) and with natural hair, you can "twist out" for larger curls.
6. I rarely wear my hair straight (flat ironed) as is, so why keep relaxing?

So I've been scouring the internet for transitioning advice and others at my stage and don't find many.  Most are 1-3 years old and the people are full on natural by now, so I am starting my own transitioning/natural African American hair blog.  I've calculated that my last relaxer was around Christmas 2012, during my break from school and work so between December 24-January 1.  It was likely closer to January because I know I didn't relax on Christmas.  So it will be easy for me to keep track since this was the beginning of 2013, WHOO HOO!!!

Last perm: January 2013 (about), 5 months into transitioning.

Past Straight hair (taken summer 2012):

Current hair (taken April 2013):

Future transformation:

Just kidding, this is an (badly) altered pic from the awesomely informative article, 8 Ways to Combat Dry Ends. I'm hoping for more defined curls but hey, I'll take her hair too, at least it looks full and healthy.

As you can see, when I got my hair freshly permed and cut (got bangs and layers) in the summer of 2012, my hair was pretty healthy and nice.  Currently it's crap-tastic!  This past extra super dry dry winter killed my hair!!  Since my hair was in such good shape over the summer, I figured I should continue what I was doing to continue to have healthy hair.  Too bad what I actually needed was an even more moisturizing hair routine for the winter.  Unfortunately I didn't know of the l.o.c. method until recently.  So most of my hair has broken off.  Now, since I no longer want to relax my hair, keeping it healthy should hopefully be much easier than it was while relaxed.

I have no real goal natural hair type because that is out of my control.  My main goal for this transition is to have steady hair growth and better hair health.  I will be researching hair health galore and hopefully my new knowledge will enable me to keep my hair in the summer and winter.  Stay tuned and we shall see...

***5 MONTHS, AND COUNTING***