I'm going to step away from hair products for a moment to talk about hair removal.  Now everyone knows the most common way to remove hair, which is by shaving.  Other common forms are waxing and depilatories, such as Nair or Veet.

My experience with waxing:
When I was little, I was told by a close friend that I had huge eyebrows and a mustache.  Well, being 13 and impressionable, I asked my mom to get a wax and see how I liked it.  She agreed because waxing actually helps to thin out hair by pulling it from the root.  This pulling causes the hair to grow fine, instead of the coarse hair grown from shaving.  Now I have smaller, more managable eyebrows because of it.  I was scared to do waxing on any other part of me though.  Now I save money and just pluck them myself, because after so many waxes when I was little, it doesn't hurt to pluck out a few hairs every couple of days.

My experience with shaving:
I started shaving in middle school.  Being a brunette, my hair is extremely dark.  It also happens to be thicker hair than most Caucasian girls in America.  My hair grows in coarse from shaving, because it only removes the hair above the epidermis, and not below.  SO the blunt ends of the cut hair grow out of the epidermis, and they are thicker than plucked hair.  This left me with hair under the skin, making my skin darker than it actually is, because of the brown hair under it.  Another problem I had with shaving is that my hair grows FAST.  I would shave in the morning and it would be back by night. 

My experience with depilatories:
Depilatories are chemicals that eat away at the hair until it is fine enough to easily rub and the hair will break and be wiped away.  Well with me, my coarse hair wasn't easily removed with Nair or Veet.  I would have to go after the recommended 10 minutes, and my skin would be irritated and I would STILL have to shave off the hair to get it to come off. 

When I was about to go to senior prom, I wanted to remove my arm hair, because it is a bit thick and brown, and noticeable.  Well it didn't come off after 10 minutes, but half was gone and half was still attached, so I had to shave.  Well my skin was so irritated and it was such a stressful time in my life, I broke out in HIVES.  The combination just ruined my skin, and I had bright red arms with a dark green dress.  I looked like Christmas. 


SO:
With all these failed methods, what can I do to remove hair, have it grow back slower, without burning myself, irritating my skin, and save money?

EPILATION

Epilators look like electric rasers, but instead of cutting the hair at the skin, it plucks the hair from the root with many many little tweezers. 

I own an Emjoi Soft Caress.  It can be powered up with a charger and taken out and about, portable.  Or it can be plugged into the wall and used that way. 

I tested it out on my big toes first, they have coarse black hair on them and I wanted to test out a small patch.  It felt like I was plucking my hair from my toes.  Not horrible, but a little shocking and weird feeling.

Now, this was not the same when I tried it on my underarms.  IT HURT!  So for the first few times I've used it, I go for as long as I can, and take a break.  I don't take out all the hair in one go.  I just wear a long sleeved shirt for a few days until it's all gone.  Now with shaving, usually I'd have LOTS of hair by now, it's 3 days after my last epilation and I have NO hair under my arms.  It is really exciting to see no hair there after so long. 

I'm now trying it on my legs, and IT HURTS.  But I don't do it all in one go, so it's not horrible.  I'm doing it over a span of a week, once in the morning and once at night.  So far, I have a lot of hair so it's a small dent, but it's a dent all the same. 

So far, even though it's PAINFUL, I'm loving my epilator.  It will save me money on rasers if it lasts a few years, and I don't have to shave and irritate my skin with rasers all the time.

Now I will say that my skin is sore, and red bumps are bound to come up, but I epilated my underarms yesterday and I have no irritation today.

I LOVE MY EPILATOR
 
So yesterday I tried something new and DIDN'T use curljunkie's aloe fix.  This is a surprise for me because of my love for curl enhancing gels.  But I wanted to experiment and gave it a go without the AF.

I started with just some Suave Coconut condish for a condition and a small co-wash.  I didn't want to over-moisturize my hair knowing I was about to use a really conditioning styler.  I rinsed out upside down and stepped out of the shower.  While my hair was dripping wet, I raked in curljunkie's Coffee Cocoa Curl Creme, the original formula.  Supersoaked, squeezed out any excess water with a Devatowel, then scrunched in more CCCC and BRHG.  Diffused part way, then clipped up and left the clips in till completely dry.

The back of my head is never as good as the front because I have a hard time supersoaking the back, but I'm trying to work on that.  But the front was amazing, bouncy, big curls all in the front.  What used to be my bangs was a GIANT sausage curl, which I thought was funny.  It lasted all day too, even through the humidity of Michigan.  I did have coarse curls popping out the top, and they looked like frizz, but I'm getting used to the fact that I may never be able to settle those guys down. 
 
So today was the day to try my old favorite.  Honey Butta leave-in and aloe fix.  This combo worked wonders for me during the winter, however, not so much this summer so far.


I started with a shampoo with Curl Assurance Gentle Shampoo, then some Curl fix, then some Smoothing Conditioner, all by CurlJunkie.  I got out dripping wet, raked in my Honey Butta, super soaked, then scrunched in the aloe fix.  This used to give me frizz free curls:

Picture
This is not so for the summer.  I'm not sure if it was because of the Curlfix protein, but my coarse hair on the top of my head tried to escape my head.  It could also be the extra moisture from the Honey Butta that may have overconditioned my coarse hair and made it fly away, but it was out and about and ready to party.  I will try this again another day and not use the protein condish, but I'm going to hold off until a day when I'm not coordinating a wedding.
 
So my combo today is Curl Junkie's Coffee Cocoa Curl Cream and Curl Junkie's Aloe Fix, topped off with a dime sized amount of Biosilk Rock Hard Gelee.  


I co-washed with Curl Junkie's Deep Fix Cleansing Conditioner and left it in through my shower.  Got out and raked CCCC through my hair while it was dripping wet.  Super soaked the CCCC and then scrunched in a little more at my ends.  After squeezing out some excess water, I take a large glob of AF and scrunch a section with it.  I go all the way around my head with this, and then put a little more CCCC at my ends to keep them together.  Then I take a dime-nickel of BRHG and scrunch my ends to really keep them together.  Diffuse 50-60% and then clip up my roots.

 
It isn't easy being CG, but it's so much fun trying out new products!


These are the chronicles of my hair experiments.


But first, a hair bio.


My hair is a mixture of textures, fine to coarse.  The coarse hair is mostly on the top of my head and the hair gets finer the closer you get to my nape.  This mixture causes some issues for me, because a product will work for one texture and not the other.  It is a struggle to find the right combo of protein and moisture.  


When I first started CG last year my hair was a 2b at the most.  Now, my hair can get to a 2c/3a when using the right products.  


Let's get the PJ ball rolling!