a quick hair history

i was going through a few pictures and realized i've been trying quite a few things with my hair since december that i haven't had a chance to share just yet. i know i've been lacking with the pictures so hopefully this post will "make up" for that. :) 

i still haven't charged my camera, so these's are pictures from my webcam. but more on that a little bit later

so this was one of my best twistouts EVARRR. my hair was big and perfectly defined and of course i can't remember what i did. :/ i do know my hair was stretched and i think i used saravun's broccoli butter and eco styler gel (the green one).

you can see in the first picture one twist hangs a little (a lot) lower than the others. i retwisted that one twist maybe five times and my hair (especially around the perimeter of my hair) pulls straight very easily.

this was a braidout (done with eco styler with the ends set on sponge rollers) my best friend then pinned up. it was so cute, i wish i took more pictures at more angles. she french rolled the back and we had to continually "edit" the sides with tons of bobby pins lol. i loved it!

after this i blow-dried my hair for the braidout you guys saw in my previous post about it. :)

then i went back into braids like i usually do, although i didn't last for nearly as long as i wanted to. d'ah well. :P

 this is a twistout gone slightly wrong done with donna marie's buttercream. i wanted a cream-based styler because i thought it would work better with stretched hair, but the humectants in this just gave me a huge frizz ball!

this is when i started working on trying to craft the perfect afro. i think this was a braidout, which never works out well for me unless it's on blow-dried hair. 

it was looking at these pictures that i decided i would need to go get my hair shaped. as you can see, i look absolutely ridiculous.

i wore my hair in twists for a week before taking them out friday for an ah-maaaazing twistout! gosh, it was gorgeous. it may not have been the chunky twistout-look i was going for but damn if my hair wasn't gorgeous.

that's before that terrible trim. >:'( 

i never got around to taking pictures of what Sharen did to my head, unfortunately.

so what does my hair look like now?

i'm gonna be protective styling for a loooong time

because a stylist messed up my hair. :(

okay, not really (or at least not my whole head) but i'm trying not to sensationalize here. it's why i waited a while before blogging about the experience. i wasn't even sure HOW i wanted to talk about it, but i suppose it's best to at the beginning.

two weeks ago, i made an appointment with Sharen at Grand Parlor Barbershop and Salon for a trim/shaping. i called her up and the conversation went great. i explained to her exactly what i was looking for - shape. i've been trying to get my fro into the perfect circle for a while now and finally decided that maybe i needed to give in and get a trim. she sounded super nice over the phone and we briefly discussed my hair and what i wanted to do. i told her that i would send her an email with links to videos that showed exactly what i was looking for. i explained a little bit more about my hair and that i wasn't looking to loose any of my length. 

well last saturday was my appointment and i was so excited. i was just a few snips away from my perfect fro. my hair was in a twistout (a super cute one, at that) and i was ready for her to work her magic. we talked a little bit more about what i wanted; about how my hair hangs, if she got my email and was able to see the videos (to which she replied yes) and proceeded with the trim.

after the first few snips, i asked if i could see what she was doing, to which she replied "i'm not taking a lot off at all." 

y'all.

she took of HALF MY LENGTH in the back. how is half of my length not a lot? i was peeved but was in a rush so i didn't say anything at the moment. all i knew was that i didn't like it. it wasn't until i got home to inspect the damage that i realized what she did. she took off a few inches on the right side and middle of my hair, meaning the left side of my hair in the back is just as long as i walked in, so you can really imagine the disparity between the two. and to make things worse, my hair STILL doesn't look anything like how i wanted it to.

i was soooo upset :( i wasn't sure what was going to do, or even what i could do. i even toyed with the idea of cutting the rest of my hair down. after calming down, i decided i would just try to protective style for the next few months, and trim my hair myself each month. i plan to take a 1/2 inch off each month, since that's the rate at which our hair grows. i'm keeping up with my vitamins and i'm applying a growth serum every few days just to encourage some circulation. i'm not even sure if i believe in growth serums but i was so upset at the time i just hit buy without calming down first.

while Sharen herself was very sweet and professional, her trimming skills leave a LOT to be desired. :/ this is wash week for me so i'll take pictures so i can show exactly what she did. furthermore, i sent her an email that sunday night expressing how unhappy i was and i have yet to receive a reply so yeah, there's also that. i don't owe her anything, much less any kind of loyalty, especially after she didn't reply to my email. 


i was debating not even saying much because i've seen pictures of her work and she's an excellent stylist and i want her to have as just as much business as she can handle but i just had to blog about it, if only to get it out of my system. if i could sing Hiwot's praises in a salon review, then i'm gonna do it for every stylist afterwards. i hope she googles herself and finds this blog.

so there's a quick update, so sorry it had to be such a sad one! other than that, izzy's doing just fine, just in need of a good washing.