Hiya,
How's everyone doing? Hope all is well!! This post is all about results from the inversion challenge I went on from the 2nd of November to the 9th of November!

For those wondering; The Inversion test/method entails putting your head upside down for about 4 minutes after you have massaged it with warm oils for 7days and it claims that your hair will grow 1 inch longer after 7 days as supposed to waiting 2 months to gain an inch of growth- read HERE for more details.

As I said in the post announcing that I was doing it, I was beyond intrigued when I watched video after video of ladies who had grown 1 inch of hair in 7 days and decided I must try it! I could only try it however because; I am not pregnant, I do not have a heart condition,  hernia, low or high blood pressure, recent stroke, heart or circulatory problems, glaucoma, conjunctivitis (“pink eye”), detached retina, spinal injury, swollen joints, osteoporosis, unhealed fractures or injuries, ear infection, obesity, or are otherwise unhealthy. If you have any of these conditions, I am afraid, this test is not for you.


So to the results;
To be honest I inverted my head 5 days out of the 7 days, the days I skipped I was just too exhausted or had too much on my mind to turn my head upside down and fiddle my thumbs for 4 minutes!( When you are counting, 4 minutes feels like foreverrrr)

For my oil mix, I knew I had to have black castor oil in there for my edges, coconut oil for the strengthening and conditioning, grape seed oil for the ceramides and olive oil for the ultimate seal. I mixed few drops of all these oils( you don't want to use too much oil because you will be doing this daily and too much oil will leave your hair greasy and your scalp poresclogged up) , warmed the oils for 30 seconds in the microwave, then massaged the warm oils into my scalp(while upright) from my edges, my entire scalp, nape to my tips( but the main focus should be your scalp).

Then I set my alarm to 4 minutes and tilted my head over; 

Once the alarm went off, I came up slowly, well the first day I jerked my head up when the alarm went off because I was bored stiff waiting for the 4 minutes to be up! LOL but then I had this sharp pain in my head and instantly knew that was not such a smart move because I am sure the pain was from all the blood rushing back from my head. 
When your head is up, style your hair as usual or in my case, I prepared for bed either by braiding the tips or holding the hair in a pony tail holder and wearing a satin bonnet to bed (please always cover your hair with this for bed to save your edges)

Anyways, as I stated earlier, I repeated the steps for 5 days some days I massaged my scalp while tilted...enough talking, here are the results in Pictures- The Before and After

FRONT BEFORE-18 INCHES;









SIDES AFTER 16.5/17 INCHES- IT WORKED HERE!!










BACK HAIR BEFORE- 14 INCHES





So they say pictures speak a thousand words and from the pictures above I can tell you that the inversion test is no hoax but this is what my position is from my results; the inversion method is most likely going to work most on the parts of your hair that grow the fastest. For some people it's their back hair, some it's their front hair, for me it's always been my sides and that's why I had the most growth there, I was so shocked when I measured and saw the results on my first side that I had to do the second side to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me but nope, they weren't!!! My sides and back hair are at least an inch longer!! I must add that I dusted/trimmed my hair after I took the before pictures before the challenge began because I couldn't stand my ends upon closer inspection and my front hair took the worst hit because it had too many split ends so that could have affected the results there.

In any case, your girl Dab's will be inverting ONCE A MONTH from now on!! I put that in bold for those who would think you can invert everyday of the month and grow an inch every week, it's not going to happen :( 

Why? well from my research, the reason the inversion method works is because generally, blood circulation to the scalp plus the stimulation from an oil massage promotes hair growth, now when you invert your head, all the blood is concentrated in the head and so blood circulation is at its optimum plus your body is not used to all this blood circulating there so the blood vessels will be acting in their optimum sending nutrients to your hair follicles but after a week, if you keep doing it, like every thing in life, your blood vessels will adjust to the change and the spike that occurred when you first started inverting will cease; it's almost like with weight loss when your body plateaus, so the advice is to do it for a week then stop then start again four weeks after when your blood vessels least expect-surprise them :) and it should work again...we'll see next month if they said the truth, Dab's blood vessels watch out :)

Did any of you take on the challenge? Now seeing my results, will you try it?(only if you can). Let me know below. The 6 inches of Growth challenge we have been on all year long is drawing to a close, this method might just be the answer to whoever wants to win $100 worth of imports at the end of the challenge!!!

Xxx
Dabs

Hiya,
How's everyone doing!!
It been a while since I wrote a hair update! Right now my hair is in full Postpartum shedding mode;



 Shed's with no provocation and its very annoying to say the least but I have learnt to deal with it as part of the package of being a mom!!

Basically, I have been doing lots of concocted protein treatments with eggs, henna, mayonnaise, oil etc, I do those once a week usually over the weekend and then on Wednesday as if my scalp is timed, it starts to itch and I do a cowash with Aphogee keratin 2 minutes reconstructor;




or I have even found myself grabbing the Giovanni Tea tree invigorating shampoo;



This shampoo is a must have for itchy scalps; and my scalp has been quite itchy thanks to all the gym visits I have been squeezing into my weekly schedule-Momma's gotta get her shape back :)

Oh and my edges have thinned out a bit ( I have two thinner spots since birth) with the postpartum shedding, they are now not as full but I have not encouraged the thinning in anyway, my friend Jamaican Black Castor oil has been on duty every night before I sleep!


With all the hair changes I am having, I visited Recare Gentle Touch's Hair Institute-

Natures Gentle Touch Hair Institute 
209 Muri Okunola Street,
Victoria Island, Lagos,
Nigeria. 

Telephone: +234-1-4627442
Email: info@naturesgentletouchinstitute.com  

for a business meeting with their associate( I will be announcing an exciting new project I have been working on all year long in a few posts to come), after our discussion he asked me to try some of their services, I was not about to surrender my hair to a stylist there because of time and other factors, so I jumped at the opportunity to have my hair examined by their Trichologist- I was quite excited as it was a first time experience. A Trichologist basically is trained to deal with the scientific study of the health of hair and scalp for anyone wondering, so they can tell you what your hair is lacking and everything in between.



The first thing she did was give me a form to fill;



The form had questions like; Is your hair chemically treated, Is it colored, questions about diet, health; sicknesses, surgeries, hair length goals, styling preferences etc.

I filled my personal details and went ahead to fill a few questions but then the Trichologist came in and told me those places were for her to fill-oops!
We went into a consulting room and the session started...she asked the questions on the sheet, I answered then she started cleaning this mousse like gadget attached to the usb port on a laptop,



 She came over to use the gadget in my hair and then there on the laptop screen I could see my hair strands...soooo exciting



As I expected the front edges were made of thinner strands than the middle and back of my hair which had thicker strands;

MY FRONT EDGES HAVE THINNER STRANDS/DENSITY

REST OF MY HAIR HAS THICKER MORE DENSE STRANDS

She tested my hair elasticity with some of the shed hair I had in my bag (LOL)


My elasticity was very poor, she blamed it on my very poor water drinking habit-Yes I confessed that to her but I also said it could be the hormones from the postpartum shedding...anyways after my meeting with her I am determined to drink more water and take more fruits daily...in all it was an insightful session which I highly recommend especially for ladies with scalp issues or thinning spots...

 Though during the question and answer session, she snickered when I stated my hair goal of mid back length hair!! I asked her if it was an unattainable fit, she just snickered again...I also wrote in the form under hair length; front 16 inches, sides and back 14 inches( because I have checked in the past) You know what she did? She looked at my hair from roots to tips, shook her head and just cancelled what I wrote and wrote 12 inches and 10 inches ---oh well I plan to visit her when my hair is mid back length, LOL and below you will see that my hair is not 12 or 10 inches but no hard feelings, I just wish she was more thorough- no harm in having a tape measure to find out the actual length (it's the Lawyer in me speaking :)

Anyways, that went well, I grabbed their TEA TREE ANTI-DANDRUFF LEAVE IN TREATMENT to help soothe my scalp between wash days, I am yet to use it, will review when I eventually do.
I also recommend their deep conditioner;

 for anyone looking for a good cholesterol protein based deep conditioner, I have used it in the past and it did the job!

Finally I am embarking on THE INVERSION challenge from this Saturday the 2nd till Saturday the 9th WHEN WE MEET AT THE NOV. SALON DAY OUT!! After watching videos upon videos on You Tube of ladies saying that they grew 1 whole inch of hair in 1 week- I am intrigued to try this!! Ordinarily you get averagely 1 inch of growth after 2 whole months so if this works then I am sold!! I will dedicate an entire post to the results after the challenge but for now I am putting up my starting point entry pictures so you ladies see for yourself if by the 9th of Nov. after one week of inverting, I have 1 inch of growth;







FADEKEMI sent in her update on the green house effect challenge she is presently on, I will update you all on that in my next post plus I turned my old worn out wigs into Clip In extension pieces...I have a tutorial for that as well!! That's all for now, till my next post thanks for stopping by, thanks for the support!

Xxx
Dabs

Hiya,
How's everyone doing? I hope all is well at your ends, Lagos ladies I hope you are gearing up for the first ever NHCG SALON DAY OUT!! Its going to be a new exciting salon experience for everybody! Imagine salon counters with eggs, honey, bananas, avocados and then having all the BEST hair products at your disposal!! I can't wait to see the BEFORES AND AFTERS!! Please if you are free don't hesitate to come join us!!

Now to the topic at hand, I decided to relax my 10 weeks post relaxer mane yesterday night and I am here with an update! I could have waited longer( I planned to wait till December) but because I just had a baby and my hair would most definitely start its post partum shedding from October/ November ( My hair started post partum shedding 3-4 months after I had my first baby) I didn't want to add the stress of dealing with my new growth to the shedding that I will experience, the heart break will be too much, so I decided to get my roots touched up!

This decision was on whim, I didn't even have my beloved Silk elements relaxer( Its coming with the imports presently being cleared at customs) but I could not wait till next week after calculating that my next relaxer in December would fall just in time for my mum's birthday celebration and you know how I like my edges for special occasions, so I had to step out into Ebeanor Supermarket in Lekki( Lekki's Walmart :) and hoped to find a relaxer that I would like ( all relaxers generally have the same components only major difference is whether there's lye or no lye or the strength of the relaxer- see this post for more details)

Anyways, I settled for this relaxer by Hawaiian Silky;
Their Argan oil hydrating sleek no lye conditioning relaxer- The argan oil got my attention but as I suspected the relaxer composition is the same as other no lye relaxers, no argan oil in it ( sorry Dabs) it however came with a sample size of their specially formulated healing oil with argan oil in it;

Now to the process! As usual, I sectioned my hair into three sections, prepped my ends with Bio Silk conditioner (any conditioner is fine) and sealed the conditioned ends with Grape seed oil and combed through with a wide tooth comb;

 Then I brought out my Red Sprush because I wanted to be as delicate as possible with my new growth, applied the relaxer to my new growth section by section;

I was done smoothing the new growth with the sprush and a tail comb which I used once over in about 20 minutes';

I added more hair conditioner and oil to the ends for extra protection while I washed out the relaxer with warm water, shampooed and conditioned with the shampoo and conditioner provided in the pack and used cold water to rinse out everything so that my cuticles would be sealed.

I let my hair air dry as usual and then applied the healing oil they provided from root to tip; The oil is light weight and smells nice;
 Now to the result;

My roots were just the way I like them, with a bit of texture and not bone straight, this relaxer is actually decent, I did feel some itching during the process more than I do with my Silk Elements relaxer but it was nothing major and did not result in any burns. I also did not notice my hair shed out from the roots like I experienced when I used Optimum care's relaxer some time ago... In all its definitely a relaxer I would try again if I am without my Silk Elements relaxer; Naija Ladies looking for a good relaxer, try this one hopefully Ebeanor keeps stocking it!
And to all others who I have reached out to that are spreading the word in one way or the other!! I appreciate all the support!! Stay tuned for the NHCG September Import post!! Ladies who ordered during the import window, your goodies are on the way!!!

Thanks for stopping!
Xxx
Dabs