Yipppeeee, another 16 week stretch is complete! Suffice to say that I will not be stretching for this long again. I can’t handle the growth anymore and I can’t have another wash day where my hair wants to fight with me. I pretty much stuck to my regimen with this stretch and I am anxious to see how it worked out.

Protective Styling

I used wigs as a PS, I had them both on for 5 weeks in total. The first one, I cornrowed my hair for 4 weeks, my hair didn’t like this one bit because I had tangles for daaaays when I finally took them out and washed my hair. So the second time around, I decided to keep my ‘homemade’ cornrows for a week and sometimes 2 weeks and have a wash day and re-do them. This worked much better for me in terms of my hair tangling, and I will adopt this approach from here onwards.

Growth Aids

I still used my Nativa HSN vitamins, which I remembered to take nearly everyday 🙂 – the most I have missed was one day in a month, so I am super chuffed about that. These finished towards the end of April and I have decided not to re-purchase

I did the inversion method twice (February and April)

I used JBCO to massage my hairline about 3 times a week – I was pretty consistent with this one as well

Towards the end of my stretch, I also started baggying my hair overnight pretty regularly

Exercise, Diet, Water Intake

I kept up my 10km training schedule throughout February, but I only ran 3 times the whole of March, I suffered with a nasty cough which I had to take care of. I eventually managed to sort out a health issue that has been plaguing me for 6 years now. So I took the rest of the month to let me medicine work it’s magic.

I took up a vegetarian diet for the whole of April, which was not as hard as I thought it would be. I found that meal planning was my best friend! Without it I would’ve have easily slipped back and ate some meat.

My water intake has been going along very well, even on the weekends, I now meet my targets easily and sometimes overshoot them *taps myself on the back*. The temperatures are getting a bit cooler now, so I might have a bit more tea than water to get to my daily target

New Products and Techniques

I used a lot of new products in this stretch, especially since I did a massive Hanoi/Bangkok haul in January – I have since eased up on buying hair products. I try to only buy the necessary because I am on a mission to streamline my stash.

I started tea rinsing regularly and I did the odd protein layering of my edges, mape and ends using Aphogee’s Keratin 2 Minute Reconstructor

Overall

I have about 4cm of new growth which is pretty standard for me, but by week 9 I had already noticed that my growth was much more and thicker than ever before, which of course did not help my hand in hair syndrome at all. I was obsessed with touching the NG. I changed my regimen a bit and I clarified my hair every 4th week during this stretch, and I also did a protein treatment every 4th week. Doing these together every 4th week helped to keep me on a routine that was easy to remember.

For the next stretch

• I am trying out a new growth aid for my scalp massages (more about that in a blog post soon)
• I will carry on with my wig regimen using my DIY cornrows
• I will only stretch for 12 weeks. maximum 14.

A few snippets from my stretch