Deana Zhollis

I learned that I needed to make sure not to get to oil happy. Too much oil would affect my twist-outs. I also learned that I need my hair a bit damp before I twisted it--dry twists didn't cut it. They didn't hold and they didn't curl when I untwisted them. So, I would use the spray of oil and water for each section of the hair I would twists.

Also I learned that however my wash and conditioning went for the weekend, that would affect my twists for the rest of the week. I can sometimes get them back up and running by Wednesday if the problem was too much oil, but not as good as I would have liked. So, the weekend was the key starting point--clean hair, good conditioned hair, and the right amount of oil.

Then month 5 came along....

In the 5th month of my transition, I found out that the Twist-Outs were no longer working.

Remember the days when people had jerry curls and those who didn't get them retouched, had all this nappy, naps at their roots? That's how my twist-outs were. I couldn't get the curls close enough to my head. One solution was to add more twist-outs and have them at the top and bottom of my head. I didn't have that much time at night, and they just didn't look right.

Then I remembered a YouTube video where a woman had really nice curls, but she had Flat Twists, starting from the front of her head and placed them in rows to the back of her head. I don't have that type of skills to keep twists going from the front to the back, so I decided to have them go down the sides of my head instead.

The roots still showed, but they looked much better than the twist-outs. Below are my flat twists with flexi rods to hold the permed ends together. And the second picture is the results. I do these now without using a comb. I just use the Tail-Comg to make a part and I use my fingers and hands to do the rest. By this time, the wide-tooth comb felt as if it was pulling, and I remembered not to handle my hair too much while transitioning, so I stopped coming and just use my fingers.

Here's a picture of what my 5th month's of natural hair growth looks like...

And when my Twists just don't come out at all, or the weather decides to do a tango on my head, I do a two-stand flat-twists on the sides at work at my desk.

So, there you go. That's my Month 5 picture for new growth hair. Month 7 looks just like this. Not much changed. Mainly because of the darn fairy knots I think that I had to deal with.

Until next time :)