My Relaxed Hair Year In Review: 2020

Oh, 2020. The year that started with great anticipation and within a couple of months became the year everyone wished never happened. For me, 2020 started with my hair being about 9 months removed from discovering that I had protein overload which caused a lot of damage to my hair.

 

Because of the damage my hair suffered, I thought it would be good to set a couple of goals for my hair.

• Goal 1 was to finalize my hair regimen
• Goal 2 was to get my hair back to its healthiest.

As you can see from my goals my plan was to spend most, if not all, of 2020 working to help my hair recover from the damage.

For the first couple of months, I was on track, or so I thought, to easily meet both of my goals. And then the pandemic hit. At first, I didn’t think it would have much impact on my hair, that wasn’t even something that I really thought too much about. I mean, I had gotten a relaxer touch-up the month prior, my hair seemed like it was on the mend, and I had been quickly figuring out what products my hair was responding well to.

Reality soon set in. Once I realized that the world would be closed for a while I decided to do a reassessment of my hair regimen and hair goals. I determined that because hair salons were closed I would be stretching my relaxer longer than I normally and with no indication for when they would re-open I decided I needed to put goal 1 (finalizing my hair regimen) to stay on track as much I could for achieving goal 2 (getting my hair back to its healthiest). To do that I

• Stopped using new hair products
• Only used hair products I knew my hair really liked
• Was more gentle with my hair because of the two textures
• Focused heavily on moisture by using moisture-based products and techniques
• Continued with taking hair vitamins
• Moved forward with my plan to roller sett instead of using direct heat to dry my hair

Thankfully, my pandemic stretch wasn’t as bad as it could have been because I was only a few weeks into my stretch when everything shut down so I wasn’t deep into my stretch. I’ve also done long relaxer stretches before in the past, I had found several products that my hair responded well to. Plus, my hairstylist reopened soon after the state government said salons could open.

Despite the delay earlier this year I ended up getting four touch-ups this year. During each touch-up learned something new about the damage my hair had. One of the main things I learned was that the bottom half of my hair was acting like it was underprocessed. That was mainly caused by the protein overload. Thankfully, my stylist came up with a plan to address this which you can see more about here 
 

Taking everything that happened with my hair in 2020, how would I grade myself against my hair goals?

• For goal one which was to finalize my relaxed hair regimen, I give myself a B plus. I did get my hair regimen in order but I was shooting to get it finalized in June. I ended up sharing my new hair regimen in July, not far off timewise, but it wasn’t fully complete as I was missing a couple types of products I had planned to include.
• For goal two get my hair back to its healthiest I give myself a B minus. Here’s why:
• I think this would have been achieved if the damage wasn’t so extensive. I think I underestimated the damage and overestimated the amount of time it takes for hair rebound
• I did follow my hair regimen throughout the year
• I did get my hair cut to deal with the breakage but it wasn’t the type of cut I was envisioning
• I consistently took hair vitamins and I think they helped the hair that grew in during 2020. That hair was healthy and has stayed that way which gives me hope.

We are now about a month a half into 2021 and I’m still working on my new hair goals. Life has been so busy for me lately I just haven’t felt or had time to sit down and think about it. Thinking about it now I think that I will carry over the goal of getting my hair back to its healthiest. I still need to think about my second goal.

To wrap this up, I think my hair did get back on track, it took the whole year for me to really feel that way though I had some moments where it seemed like I was close but it turned out not as close as I thought. My hair is smoother, shiner has more body, and is starting to look thicker (especially my buns). I’ve even been wearing my hair out more! I have high hopes that 2021 will provide even better results for my hair than 2020.

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