Hair Break Update

So....

Remember when I posted that I would be taking a REAL break from my hair? Well I tried and it was only partly successful. 

Style 1:

Wet Bunning = Super Tangles

I wet bunned for a full week with quite a bit of gel, mid week I cowashed the gel out of my hair and re-did the bunning process. At the end of the week I did my deep conditioning process and then I tried to detangle my hair. OMG, I've never seen tangles that big in my hair, at one point I actually contemplated cutting them out.  Even though it looked pretty good and it was simple, I'll NEVER be doing that again. Well, at least not for a full week.

wet buns look better to me now that I have more new growth

Style 2:

Stretched Hair Bun = Fail + Hat

I detangled my hair and then re-braided into the same detangling sections and tried to put my hair in a bun. That was a big fat JOKE. I could not get my hair into a ponytail for the life of me (I'm assuming the braids were probably not tight enough). So I saw that my ends were pretty wavy, and decided to throw on a hat. I wore a hat all week, which is no biggie with my current job : ).

Style 3:

Small braids = Mixed emotions

I took a night and a day and did some box braids without the boxes. I did not part my hair, I simply pulled small sections out and braided with a soft hold gel. I started with the back and ended up doing them too big, so I did the front in smaller sections, but I wasn't going to go back and do the bigger sections over again. The first week I did small flat twists in the front, but I didn't like it, so the second week I took them out and did box braids instead. 

It was great not having to really do anything to my hair mid week, no restyling was required whatsoever, yay. I did curl the ends to hold the braids better, but I wore buns and french braids for the most part. I only wore it down once and with a hat. I also co-washed on wednesday of the second week in tight braids, because my scalp was acting up. I liked the fact that I could get to my scalp, and I left the braids in so I got a nice braid out effect. 

I did not like the fact that so much of my scalp was visible. I thought the roots would look thick and the ends would look thin, but all of it looked thin. I have a massive head of hair, and to see it look so thin was not a pleasant experience. There was no volume no matter what I did, so even though it gave me a break I don't think I'll be doing it again. Next time I want a break like this, I will most likely do twists.

I'm currently taking them out, and I'm not experiencing much tangling at all, so that's a major plus. I think this may be due to the gel that made my hair feel super soft, and the fact that after I detangled I used a Denman D31 to smooth (more on that experience later).

you can see that the ones in the back are bigger

close-up showing the visible scalp