Just a quick post to document my length progress over the last three and a half months. 
I straightened my hair for my work summer party and it looks like my hair has gotten longer! It's now covering the whole of my neck.
I would like to be full collarbone length (CBL) by Christmas - do you think this is a reasonable goal?
I'll upload another length photo in September to mark another three months. 
In the meantime, I'll continue with my bunning and S-curl regime. 
What are you doing to achieve your goals?
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Hey all! I'm a week overdue with this post, but please forgive me as I've had no laptop for a while. But I'm back now and I've successfully completed my 60 day bunning challenge!
For those that don't know, I bunned my hair every day from 1 Jan to 29 Feb, allowing myself two heat passes (which I gladly used) along the way. The aim of the challenge was to help my hair retain length, but I noticed lots of other pleasantly surprising benefits along the way!
So without further ado, the results of my challenge:

Before & after

Considering my hair grows half an inch per month, it looks like I've retained all of my growth! 
But aside from length retention, what else did I notice? Thicker hair.  I absolutely loved feeling my bun get thicker throughout the challenge. Plus, I enjoyed seeing my thick new growth form little waves. 
Moisturised hair.  My hair stayed moisturised all day. In fact, my hair got so moisturised that I even experienced my first moisture overload on this challenge! 
Convenience.  Being able to get my hair wet and not have to worry felt amazing! I didn't mind going out in the rain, and I fully enjoyed being able to co-wash, air dry and bun. Plus, bunning shaved way more time off my morning routine. So liberating.
Less breakage.  I suffered no breakage from dryness like I used to. I feel like my hair is more elastic and pliable now.
My last thoughts.  It was a long two months, I can't lie. Towards the end I did get pretty fed up with wearing buns and it took me a little while in the beginning to adjust to wearing a new style. 
Now that the challenge is over I feel like I don't know how else to wear my hair! In fact, I've found I no longer enjoy wearing my hair straight anymore - simply because I prefer the more textured look. I've found myself resort to bunning simply for its convenience. This is definitely my go-to style for when everything else fails.
A big THANK YOU to those who joined and supported me!
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It's been a year since I decided to start actively growing my hair. In that time, I've had three hair cuts but I'm still pretty happy with the length progress I've made!

Now that I'm weaning myself off the heat tools, I think next year will reap even better results for my length progress. 2016 here we come!

Sept 2014

Sept 2015 - Hemline is only uneven in pic, although I do need a trim!

I remember viewing other transitioners' pictures and blogs on Hairlista and feeling envious that they were so many months ahead of me in their transition. I couldn't comprehend going without a relaxer for a year but I knew that's what I wanted to do. The hair bloggers used to write about 'how time flies' and I used to think 'yeh, right. It's going to drag on for me'. Honestly though, time has really flown by and as you can probably see from my recent lack of blogging activity, my hair has not been on my mind the whole time. At the start, I was constantly checking my progress or researching how much 'X' amount of new growth should look like etc. Now I realise that a watched pot never boils and I should just enjoy the journey. I'm only a year post. My natural journey is only just beginning.

I haven't felt a craving to go back to getting a relaxer - probably because I transitioned the naughty way and used the straighteners to help me. Nevertheless, I am proud of myself for getting this far. Click here to read my milestone blog posts so far.

I had my hair cut on 14th January. It was beginning to look like a mullet as the layers on top were much shorter than the bottom. My (new) hairdresser cut about an inch off the bottom hemline and explained that she wouldn't cut so much from the top. This would mean I've now got more of a blunt bob which will avoid the awkward mullet stage as it grows out.

Before and after my hair cut

So, did I make my goal of being fully natural by Jan 2015?
Well, apart from a tiny section in the front, yes. I'm counting myself as natural either way!

Sectioning my hair after washing

Some things I have learned about my hair:

Avoiding heat damage: Hair is best protected from heat when it is freshly washed and conditioned. Applying heat to unwashed hair bakes in the product and dirt already in there, causing damage that could have been avoided. For my hair, I get the best protection and results when I use a serum heat protectant on damp hair, followed by a non-water based spray heat protectant just before straightening.

Satin scarf vs satin pillow:  Recently, I've been experimenting with different ways to preserve my hair overnight. I've realised that the moisture is much better retained when I wrap my hair in a silky scarf as opposed to just lying on a silky pillowcase.

I have three different textures on my head: The bottom half of my hair is silky with a loser curl pattern. The top part is much tighter in curl pattern or has no pattern at all. The crown of my head is dry, wiry and brittle. If I treat each area of my hair the same, some part will be lacking in care. Thus, I have to pay extra attention to my crown, giving it more moisture than anywhere else.

I've had problems with breakage in the crown of my head.  I check regularly for signs of breakage but it seems to be doing well for now. Click to see my crown breakage post

Single strand knots AKA fairy knots: These have appeared all of a sudden at the ends of my hair. They're tiny little knots that form (usually near the end) of a single strand. I had loads of them and I thought it might be to do with the fact I use so much heat and needed a hair cut. Apparently they come with natural territory but I'm not sure if it has anything to do with damage - or if any healthy head of hair can get them.

What are my next steps? 

I'm going to focus on growing my hair longer now. For this, I will need to:

• Find a better way to wrap my hair. I use heat frequently to bump the ends of my bob inwards. I think the secret to putting down the straighteners is in how I wrap my hair at night. It's too short to cross wrap (a successful method when my hair was longer), so I'm trying other techniques.

• Try heatless styles like braidouts. Braidouts are something I really want to do and feel comfortable with. I guess when I've worn my hair straight like this for such a long time, it can be daunting to change up my style. 

• Get trims less often. It was recommended that to maintain my bob, I get trims every 6-8 weeks, but to grow it, I should get them every 10-12 weeks. If I want to go longer without getting cuts, I need to take better care of my ends.

How is your journey going? What is your next milestone? Let me know! 

View my transitioning pictures
Feeling nostalgic? Click here to see my first ever post 

So it's been a while since I've posted but there hasn't been much to report. I've continued to wash and deep condition my hair weekly. I still moisturise daily and am still struggling to stop flat ironing so frequently 

One thing I have noticed however, is my breakage has decreased. While I still do have broken areas in the middle of my head, I have found that the existing hair strands are hardly snapping off and most of the hairs that come out are shed hair. I can't say why or when this started happening but I am definitely not complaining!

When I'm detangling my wet hair, I still continue to be surprised at the hair I find in the comb. For some reason I still expect it to be straight as if it were relaxed. I now get little coils that I'm fascinated with (I'm always stretching the strand to see how long it actually is).

Each day I am coming more and more to terms with the fact that my hair is about 90% natural. I'm hoping to get my next hair cut around Christmas, and am eager to see how much relaxed hair gets cut off when I do.

Wet hair

I recently returned from my holiday in Morocco. The week started off with me caring about what my hair looked like, but after spending an hour straightening it only for the sea air to frizz it up again, I realised there is just more to life! I soon realised that my hair doesn't actually look that bad without being constantly bumped at the ends in the morning. I just brushed all my hair back, tied my scarf on at night and in the morning my hair still looked fine.

I'm hoping this mentality stays with me now that I'm back in London.  My hair thanked me while I was away and not using so much heat. It stayed soft and moisturised all week - although I'm sure the warm weather helped too. A lot of the time I wore my hair half up - half down, with the front in two french plaits:

How I wore my hair on holiday. This is the best picture I could find...

The journey continues. I can't wait to see if I'm going to make my goal by January or not!

Many reach a point on their hair journey when they get bored and fed up of their transition. For me, that point is at 7 months post.

I've started slacking on the way I handle my hair. I've been blowdrying and straightening and am experiencing the harsh effects of too much heat. I believe I've experienced more breakage around the middle of my head, and have some heat damage to the relaxed ends.

As my hair was already clean, I did a deep condition on dry hair with Kamechon conditioner (I didn't shampoo it afterwards). When I rinsed it out, my hair felt much more moisturised and soft. I chose my 'assisted air dry method' which is blow drying on cool, and applied my leave-in and shea butter before tying my hair into four small ponytails.

So far, my hair still feels moisturised and soft, which is great. I will definitely be going back to air drying or at least blow drying on cool.

My thoughts right now:

• I don't really care about my relaxed ends anymore because I know they'll be getting cut off
• I think I was a bit ambitious with my goal of 100% natural by Jan 2015. It's probably more like May 2015 - but I'll address that when it comes
• I feel like my hair is too short and would like to grow it out a bit longer while I transition 
• I've realised my hair grows at different rates in different parts of my head. 

7 months post relaxer

Congratulations to me for reaching the six months mark into my transition. Honestly, I don't miss relaxers at all and I'm enjoying the new thicker hair that is growing in. In this post, I'm going to share with you my thoughts at this point in my journey along with what I've learned so far:

My thoughts:

• I'm slightly worried about how I'm going to wear my hair when its fully natural. I know I want to do things like twist - outs but that's all very good in theory. I'm asking myself questions like 'how much will my hair shrink when I wear it natural?' and 'how often will I have to restyle it?'

• My wash  process takes much longer now, especially detangling and straightening afterwards. It used to take me half an hour to straighten my hair. It now takes me an hour minimum.

• I've been so intrigued by my shed hairs because of the amount of curl they have at the roots. Originally, I was alarmed because I thought I was losing more hair. However, I now realise it simply appears that way because more of the hair is textured. 

So I'm officially 5 months since my last relaxer. Even before I had decided to transition, I had never gone this long so I'm quite proud of myself. It's a whole new experience for me, and exciting too seeing my natural hair come in. Since my mum was the one who looked after my hair when it was natural, I've never really got to 'know' it, and so I believe transitioning instead of 'big chopping' is better for me as it's a slower process.

My thoughts so far:

• My new growth feels much rougher and drier compared to the rest of my hair. Partly, I think it's because I'm simply used to my relaxed hair, and partly I think I haven't got my moisture levels up yet (probably doesn't help that I straighten my hair often).
• The back of my head is fully natural now as that's where the shortest layers are. I'm using this area as a testing place for products and techniques. 
• I've noticed that my beloved Main n Tail Deep Moisturizing Conditioner no longer leaves my hair feeling like feathers, and now leaves it feeling hard and tangled.
• I'm thinking I should start washing my hair in big twists or sections now to avoid tangles.

Welcome to Bonjour Natural, my personal blog where I will be documenting my transition from relaxed hair to natural! Am I French? I wish.

I've been relaxing my hair for six years and I've finally had enough of the thin, lifeless, forever breaking hair that never grows past shoulder length. I've been wearing my hair in a chin length bob for 14 months and have decided to try and grow it out and go natural!

My last relaxer was 22nd Jan 2014 so it's been almost 18 weeks.

Six months ago I would have never considered going natural. However, I knew that if I wanted the long, thicker hair that I've always dreamed of, my hair was far too fragile in its relaxed state to achieve this.

My last haircut was 11 weeks ago:


Below is where I am today. I think I see progress when comparing the two sets of pictures which is encouraging. Hopefully I'll continue to see this progress - specifically with thickness as my natural hair comes in