I will learn to love my gray hair...I will learn to like my gray hair

....I will learn to tolerate my gray hair.

That's about all I can commit to right now. I don't have an aversion to gray hair..I just want to gray gracefully. Not this random patchy graying that I'm doing.

I've had a patch of gray in the top of my head that I've had since I was around 15...I'm cool with it because it's the silvery gray. It's the random brassy gray that's popping up in strands here and there that are driving me nuts.

I've got that stubborn "you won't suppress me with with dye no matter how harsh the chemical is" gray. So it never covers well. A few years ago, I went with hi-lites to hide them since they won't color with the dye. (I'm lucky I even have any hair left. My hair is just way to fine to be stripped and punished that way). But I did it all in the name of hiding the gray.

When I decided to go natural, I also decided to no longer color my hair with a commercial product. Henna was the way to go. So I patiently waited out the process of growing out my relaxed, even though I wanted to henna badly. Other nappies advised me to wait so that I didn't run the risk of drying out the relaxed hair, having it start breaking and then cause damage to my new nappy newgrowth.

After the BC, I saw that gray and knew, I would go mad just looking at it...so henna, here I come. {Sigh} Beautiful reddish brown undertones to the rest of my hair...but the gray was screaming a bright brassy bronze, bordering on orange....UGH! I knew at this point, I would be hitting the commercial products again.

I waited 4 months to color, sneering at the gray hair the whole time. I decided to go with Dark-n-Lovely's Red Hot Rhythm. Loved it! With lots of moisturizing and deep conditioning, I didn't have any breakage and still don't. However I ran into a new dilemma....do I continue to color...and how do I do it with out eventually drying out the hair that had been previously colored? Which leads to another question...am I truly natural if I have chemically altered my hair color? Still pondering that one.

After reading many stories of fellow nappies having to cut off years of growth due to dryness caused by coloring with commercial dyes....I have decided not to color with harsh dyes again. Now I don't know if I can truly live with this gray hair. I'm doing more research on Henna. I may have not purchased the best quality product the first time around (got it from and Indian grocery store in my area...and I admit, I didn't check out the brand and whatnot, I just assumed it was a pure henna).

I don't know if I can successfully apply the henna over the currently dyed hair. Not sure what kind of differences I am going to see in terms of hair color between the new growth and the previously dyed hair. I am slowly trimming the previously dyed hair while i try to make my decision about the henna.

Again, I have not had any damage, no dryness what-so-ever...I just don't want to end up frustrated a year from now trying to decide if I need to just cut out the hair that has been dried like straw from repeated colorings.

My current mantra: I will learn to tolerate my gray hair.

Hi my name is Dez...and I am a conditoner junkie...for real.

That dang-blasted KMart has done it again. Keeping me caught up in the conditioner addition. I didn't get a Sunday paper, so I thought I'd breeze through to see if my favorite Herbal Essence conditioners were on sale.

HOLY SMOKES....the Suave Pro products were 3 for $5! Now,this is the only store I've seen the Healthy Curls conditioner. Every other store only has the spritz and mousse...no place markers for the conditioner as though the don't even carry it. But KMart...at least the one near me does.

So what's a junkie to do? You know the routine, I snatch up bottles. I got all 11 bottles there. (Now this is not my usually glazed over "conditioner-on-sale" induced high I usually get...I snatched up all those bottle because I mean I cannot find them at any other store here. Plus I'm not sure if Suave is phasing the product out or not. There's also the shop-lifting my Mom does on my products when she visits...ok I usually give them to her, but she's Mom...like I have any other choice.)

Ok back to where I was. You should have seen the cashier. She was a sista too, but she just couldn't believe I was buying all this conditioner. She thought I was a hair dresser buying it for a shop. She was thrown for a loop when I told her it was all for me. If she had been a police office, she probably would have given me a sobriety test. :)

Hey...your hair is longer than I thought...why don't your straighten it to show how long it is.

Aw...Hell naw! I had to contain myself when a friend was pulling at my coils and commenting on how much my hair has grown. I had to kindly remove her hand from my hair and I managed to do it without slapping it away.

NO, I AM NOT GOING TO STRAIGHTEN MY HAIR JUST TO SHOW YOU HOW LONG IT IS! I know how long my hair is, don't really care if you know how long it is...feel me. And yeah, I pretty much yelled at her. She just really doesn't get it. She is the "what's your hair type gal" from an earlier post. {SIGH} My patience with her is completely gone. I try not to participate in hair conversations with her, but sometimes she happens to be around when someone else is asking my about my hair, routine, why I went natural...or some other question. And of course she feels the need to put her 1.5 cents in. Despite the number of times, I've told her I am not straightening my hair because I don't want to cause any heat damage and most importantly...because I just don't want to. But she comes back around to suggesting I straighten my hair for a change.

So this is how this latest mess happened. I was hanging out with a few friends and one of the guys brought his cousin whom, I'd never met. He looked at my hair and said I love your hair and asked if he could touch it. Now this guy is cute...young around 21 or 22, but cute and since he's legal...I let him go for it. Um....I probably should have charged him, the way he was moaning about how soft and good it feels...coulda got a new pair of shoes out of that one ;) Anywhoo, a discussion starts about why I decided to go natural, what I use on my hair, why I've decided not to color again...yada, yada, yada...all the while, my cute new little friend keeps his hands in my hair.

Well, the "work-my-nerves" friend reaches over and stretches one of my coils as fair as it would go. And as usual, something stupid flys out of her mouth: Hey...your hair is longer than I thought...why don't your straighten it to show people how long it is. One of my other friends looks at her and rolls her eyes...we've been down this road many a time before. (I'm the only natural one in this group and they respect my right to be natural without altering my texture as I respect their rights to be relaxed. I only discuss my hair if asked about it.) At this point I remove her hand and remind her again my stance on straightening my hair. Geeze, not sure what this chic's problem is, but I'm taking off the kids gloves and she's about to get her feelings hurt.

Little cutie, bless his heart stops and asks, "why would she need to straighten this beautiful hair...I wish more sisters would get more in touch with their natural hair." And he goes back to playing in my hair. Ohhhh....if he wasn't so young....well, let's just leave it at that.