Life as Stella: The Mane Event

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I have been trying to write this post for like 2 weeks. My life has been crazy. And now for the post...

Lately, I've been traveling outside my comfort zone and trying out new things... like make up. But really, I care most about my hair. I have a hereditary form of alopecia areata, so I'm accustomed to my hair randomly falling out in chunks and/or random bald patches. The hair within these patches doesn't grow back on it's own, so I have to go through steroid injections to stimulate the follicles and grow the hair back. Because I periodically lose some of my precious hair, I'm that much more attached to it. Junior year of college, I had a brilliant idea. I was going to get my hair dyed blonde. For those of you who don't know, I have dark hair. So when I say dye my hair blonde, I really mean strip the color from it. So I did. And then after undergrad I went back to dark brown-- until half-way through my first year of grad school, when I cut off all the previously processed hair and stripped away the color again. Two years ago, I decided to stop stripping and start saving my precious locks. To save myself from the yin-yang like grow out, I dyed my hair all one color-- dark brown with warm, reddish tones (close to my natural color). It was great, until the damaged, highly processed hair leached the color because it was just so damaged.

Flash forward to now, when I have totally natural, unprocessed growth for 1.5 years (yay!). The bottom few inches of my hair are significantly lighter. Color won't stay in the damaged hair- I stopped wasting my time and money trying. But I just tell people I'm growing my hair out and they seem to understand. To try and keep my ends from being anything but straw, I started squirting a coconut-oil based product focusing on the ends. When my mom found raw virgin coconut oil at Costco in giant containers (two HUGE containers for about $20), I may have squeed. Coconut oil is to me what Frank's hot sauce is to the granny in the Frank's commercial. I put it on everything.

Today, I share with you, my coconut oil deep conditioning treatment.

I start off using virgin organic coconut oil. It's not because I'm huge on organic. (I'm a chemist-y like person, I'm not afraid of chemicals. That whole, don't use it if you can't pronounce it thing... doesn't fly with me.) Honestly, it's because it was a lot of stuff for not a lot of price. So I work it through my WHOLE head (yes... even the roots), but I focus on the ends.

Once I have thoroughly saturated my hair in coconut oil, I twist my hair up in a clip. To give some extra warmth to open the cuticle, I heat a wet hand towel in the microwave and place it on top of the head. Then, I tie a plastic grocery bag around my head and finish with a clean t-shirt. I look like a goof, but it seals in the heat. I usually leave it like this for 3 hours.

Once done, I take off the layers and wash my hair really good. From what I've read, they suggest conditioning to make sure to get rid of all coconut oil. I use Organix brand hydrating teatree mint shampoo (green bottle), Organix coconut milk conditioner, and post-wash apply some Coconut milk coconut oil (this is not pure coconut oil) to the ends.

And since I'm talking about my hair stuff, I'll also talk about the beauty products I've been using. I use Too Faced Beauty Balm as my foundation, Tarte Smooth Operator finishing powder (gold leaf top), Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-hr blush in Captivating (pinkish compact), Fresh Sugar Lip Polish, and Mary Kay mascara.