About 2 weeks ago, I decided to bleach my hair. Just a little background, I’m 3 years natural and have had black hair for those 3 years. Prior to that I colored my hair twice a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall. I always lighten my hair in the spring and as a result I always experience breakage. In the winter I didn’t have that issue. I finally asked my stylist and she told me that basically when you dye your hair a lighter color you are stripping your hair strand of its natural chemistry in order to achieve the newer, lighter color. When you go darker, you deposit color to the hair. You are giving something to the hair strand. Made sense. After a few years of experiencing springtime breakage I decided to give up relaxers in order to keep the option of coloring my hair while being able to finally retain length.
After 3 years of diligently learning and becoming in-tuned with my hair I decided I was ready for a change. I was tired of the boring black and was ready to jazz it up. I knew I would more than likely have to go the bleaching route simply because when I dyed my hair black, I used a permanent dye. After speaking with my stylist and expressing my concerns, I felt comfortable, and decided to go ahead and take the plunge.
I loved it! This was the first time I’d had my hair straightened in months so I was excited to see the progress I’d made. After about a week of wearing it straight, I missed the ease of my natural hair. Just being able to throw it in a cute, textured ponytail, or wake-up, refresh, fluff and be out, was sincerely being missed. At this point I decided to wash my hair. I expected a little bit of limpness due to the bleaching and I got what I expected then some.
The entire perimeter of my hair was very limp and lackluster. I figured I could nurse it back to health. At least 80% back to health, I’ve done it before. So I went out and bought a really expensive deep conditioner that I typically use to save the day. IT DIDN’T WORK!!!!! wtf!!! Why didn’t this $60 conditioner work?!! It normally works!!!! Oh shit! I might be in trouble this time……..All these thoughts went through my mind as I tried to figure out what my next move was going to be. I started perusing Youtube (of course, a naturals endless source for hair care tips, tricks, and treatments).
I stumbled across The Find Guru‘s DIY protein treatment and decided to give it a try. I am not a DIY kind of gal. I prefer to just buy something already concocted vs creating that mess at home. But I was desperate and since my $60 conditioner didn’t do the job I figured what could it hurt.
I went to the grocery store, purchased all the ingredients, and commenced to following the instructions laid out by The Find Guru. (I documented my experience and results of the protein treatment. If you are interested in seeing that click here).
Afterwards I was pretty excited and committed to a routine of deep conditioning my hair at least twice a week. I went out and bought a few deep conditioners that are oldies but goodies.
In the 2 weeks since, I have been trying to stick with my intended deep conditioning regimen. Everything has been going pretty okay. My curls are back and popping and everything seems to be everything. BUT there is one thing that is causing me increasing concern. The amount of shed hair on wash day. While my hair does not feel brittle or dry at all, I notice when I wash it, the color treated sections are way more fragile! Usually I detangle in the shower with conditioner on my hair which is the way I’ve continued to detangle post color. However when I’m done I have a pretty decent amount of shed and/or broken hair.
I’m not sure if my mind is playing tricks on me. If it feels like I’m losing more hair because I expected to lose more hair or if I am actually losing more hair. To my eye, my hair doesn’t appear to be thinner or shorter but it’s curly right now. I’m not sure if my curls are camouflaging some hidden problem. I’m very nervous that this may be the case. I am very tempted to go on and straighten my hair so I can see what’s really going on. While I am not super excited to spend 2 hours blowdrying and straightening my hair, that may be what happens so I can put my mind at ease. But I don’t know, I’m torn.
*I will be doing a followup post shortly about the conditioners I bought, so stay tuned!
Major Morris 
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