Sunday 26 February 2017

Hair Journey

I remember being about 8 or 9 years old, walking home from school with my mum one day and she told me she'd booked an appointment at the hairdressers for that weekend so that I could get a special treat, something she knew I had wanted to have done for a long time. My first thoughts were "oh my god, I'm going to get princess hair", by which I meant hair extensions. What a ridiculous thought for such a young kid. Obviously, that isn't what my mum had booked me in for, instead I had my hair braided and I thought I was the coolest kid in town. That is my earliest memory of really wanting, and wishing for long hair. Endless day dreams and birthday candle wishes followed that moment, waiting for my princess hair. 

Over the next 10 years, my hair went through many transformations which caused a lot of damage. As lots of young girls do, I experimented with colours and styles and lengths. I have been back and forth from peroxide blonde to blacker than black and a fair few shades in between. My natural hair is medium-thick, frizzy and a mixture of wavy and curly. The fact that its not curly or straight has meant that I have always (and most likely always will) use a lot of heat to style it and get it looking presentable. 

At about the age of 19 I made the decision that I wanted to grow my natural hair firstly long, and secondly healthy. I'd been wearing clip in hair extensions since the age of 16 and was tired of them. I wanted my natural hair to be as perfect as possible. 6 years later, I'm almost there. It's taken a long time because I am unlucky to have very slow growing hair (although this does have the benefit of not having to pluck my brows or shave my legs as often as most girls!) and through trial-and-errors in my haircare routine. As I've mentioned, my hair type makes it difficult to ditch the heat styling appliances, so I never did. I'm sure my hair 'recovery' would have been fair speedier had I retired my straighteners, but that was never going to be an option for me unless I wanted to spend a year of my life looking like something between Tracy Beaker and Janice from Friends.  I also continued to dye my hair throughout this period, everything from professional bleaching to at-home balayage attempts and regular semi-permanent dying. Even the professional bleaching did a lot of damage to my hair, the most recent of these being only about 18 months ago. Before we get on to the things I did to help my hair, I thought I'd post some photos to see how short and how much thinner my hair got during my teenage years. 


The above photos were both taken in 2010, the blonde one whilst I was still at school and the brunette one after starting my first year of university. I thought I'd make a list of all of the things I did to help my hair as much as possible. They're not things I did religiously, or for the whole 7 years since these photos were taken, but they are things that I think helped to get my hair healthier, and are things that I continue to do now. 
  • Don't over wash your hair. For some people this means being able to easily go three or four days, for others it means every other day. Using dry shampoo has been a life saver for me here. 
  • Cut down on heat wherever possible. This is one that I would love to make more effort with, but I definitely struggle here. I try to limit the heat styling to every time I wash my hair (e.g. if I curl it after washing it, I won't restyle with heat until after I've washed it again). 
  • Moisturise! Just as your skin, your hair needs hydration. I use oils, serums, creams and mountains of conditioner on my hair. Looking back I think my hair started to make the most progress after I started making a conscious effort to keep it hydrated. This leads me nicely to my next point...
  • Water. Drink water! Keeping yourself hydrated is vital for a healthy everything including hair and skin.
  • Hair, skin  & nails supplements. I take Hair, Skin & Nails supplements on and off, and sometimes biotin too. 
  • Brushing gently. I use my trusty tangle teezer, always. I find it to be so much more gentle on my hair than other brushes, and I'm always careful to brush the knots out the bottom and move up the shaft to avoid yanking or snapping any knots. It's especially careful to be gentle when your hair is went, as it breaks easier when wet. 
  • Research. I tried to do my homework as much as possible, reading other peoples hair stories or watching stories and haircare videos on YouTube. This is something I still love to do as I am by no means an expert. 
  • Sleeping with protected hair. I was finding my hair would be so knotty and tangled in the morning and it was causing damage to get the knots out. I started putting oil in the ends of my hair and wrapping it into a protective style to sleep, either plaiting or twisting and securing with a small hair tie at the ends. I find twisting rather than plaiting helps preserve the curls too! 
These are the key points I can think of. The biggest recommendation I always see/hear is to get your hair trimmed regularly. Because my hair grows so slowly this is something I've always shied away from as it takes months to recover the length of just a teeny trim for me. I am still yet to reach the ideal length for my hair, but I am so much happier with it's overall health and thickness. Time to finish with some snaps of where my hair is at now, longer and far healthier! 


I would love for you to share any tips or your own hair stories with me!
Thanks for reading, Love K. x 

Sunday 12 February 2017

Rapid Lash


The photo above shows my lashes with and without Rapid Lash. I started using Rapid Lash around Feb/March 2016 and used it fairly consistently until around October last year. I loved the difference that it made to my lashes, but I got bored of daily use of the product for months on end and eventually stopped using it. 

The photo on the right was taken last week, having not used the lash serum for around four months, and now is the time that I am really starting to feel the difference. My lashes, are understandably, back to their natural state. Which in all honesty isn't that great. They're naturally curled, but thin and sparse. As you can see the very tips barely touch the crease of my eyelid, where as with Rapid Lash they were very comfortably extended past the crease. 

Using the product is pretty simple, I applied every evening after my skin care routine to the root of my lashes on my top lid. I'd then gently massage the product in to the roots to help get the product more evenly distributed. Product can be used on top and bottom lashes, as well as eyebrows (although they do make a separate product for eyebrows if that's what you're after). 

Boots and Superdrug stock Rapid Lash, but I recommend shopping around online as it can be considerably cheaper (previously around £18 on amazon as apposed to £40 in Boots). Amazon are currently stocking it for £29.99.  Let me know if you've got any good lash-serum recommendations, can't wait to get mine back to all fluttery and long! 

Thanks for reading, Love K. x 
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