My hair story in pictures

I haven't really shared my story so I thought this would be a good time to do so...

2008 is as far as I could go to find any pics of my hair...

2008: My hair was thickest around 2008/2009. I was crazy about growing my hair, I did not have all the knowledge that I have now, but I kept my hair in plaits 90% of the time, and I used to mistakenly texlax my hair (I did not know this is what it was called at the time).

2009: The thickest my hair has ever been...

2010: Being a broke varsity student came with some pros, I did not have the cash to go to the salon for regular styling, this is the only time in 2010 that I remember flat-ironing/ curling my hair.

2011: A big setback happened in 2011 - I did a hairstyle that the stylist said could be done on relaxed hair and it involved using molding gel/ wax. My hair was twisted with the gel and then plaited in a ring shape around my head. When I took these twists out (about a month later), so much of my hair was tangled, it was a terrible mess. I lost all the thickness I had gained, and a lot of length too.. 

2012: Got a new stylist as I moved towns, and my hair came out bone-straight, as you can see in the picture below... My ends were also very thin and only got worse since this time.

I clearly remember leaving the salon on this day after a relaxer (pic below), my hair looked lifeless and the ends were really bad. I had lost a lot of length, compared to my 2010 pics.

2013: I did some serious stretching between January and June 2013, and it paid off. My hair had gained some thickness, but not so much length...

My hair had started to recover, and looked so much healthier at this point. This was fresh from a relaxer.

In the same month, my hair went from healthy and luscious to unhealthy and thin. I did not know how to properly take care of hair, so the progress I had made was quickly turned to nought.

2014: I moved countries in this year, and got a new stylist...again.... I think I had about 6 relaxers in 2014, thanks to the stylist who kept insisting that I should relax my hair as soon as it had growth!

I also got my hair flat-ironed every time I went to this stylist, again he insisted that as long as he used heat protectant, it was fine.

As you can see in the picture below, my hair suffered so much, especially my ends. My hair was relaxed bone-straight every relaxer day of 2014, and I am almost certain that there was overlapping when my new growth was relaxed.

In September 2014, I became desperate, and really wanted to know how I could take good care of my hair. I did not know where to start, but I knew I had to change stylists as a start...

Somehow my sister in law hit a "like" on Jen of justgrowalready.com's facebook page, and it happened to show on my home page. Curiously, I wanted to know what this was about... When I saw Jen's progress pics, I was mesmerized that our hair could grow that long in that amount of time.. I would spend nights and nights reading her posts on anything and everything about hair.. From Jen's website I found other hairbloggers that I follow such as savingourstrands.com, rehairducation.com, and many others...So thank you to Jen and all the other bloggers who have been helpful and willing to share their tips on how to grow hair!

I am now 4 months into my new hair journey, and equipped with the knowledge, determination and faith that I have , I am sure my hair will grow to healths and lengths that I never imagined, sooo:

ready, steady, grow it!!