Hello to everybody,

I am new to the board and desperately need help because my hair is AWFUL :-(.

I have 22.5 inches long 1aFii hair with a few strands in the front that are a bit shorter (bangs that grow out). Over the years, I used the German George Michael product line that didn’t help me with my dry and damaged hair, maybe even contributed to the existing problem (please see my journal “Mina's Hair Addiction" for further information on this). For the last months, I have been trying several other products to help my hair restore the missing moisture in it. Although some things work quite good, others are more on the disastrous side, and I’m not sure why. I desperately need some suggestions of how to take proper care of my hair. My hair is still incredibly dry (feels SOOOO bad), and the hair in general tangles badly. The growing out bangs that I have at the sides of my face are crunchy and very thin due to a breakage problem. They are a bit past schoulder length and they are split like nothing else. If I wanted these strands to be healthy, I would have to cut them off to chin length, no kidding. Also, the top layers of my hair are awfully dry, whereas the layers underneath are quite soft and healthy.

I stopped all blowfrying last year but I think a large part of the problem is due to that (I’ve down that regularly the last years, and I guess that’s one reason why the outer layers are so dry and sometimes straw-like :rolleyes: ). Moreover, I used to colour my hair with a non-permanent red dye that (which I just recently found out) contained amodimethicone (I never paid attention to the ingredients all the years), but I do not use any colour at this time as I’m not sure whether this contributed to the dryness or not – because every time I freshly coloured my hair with that hair colour that contained amodimethicone it would behave and feel really nice, but soon, when the colour started to wash out, just feel and behave really, really NASTY, i.e. extremely dry and tangled. My solution to this was to use silicon serumes quite high up the hair shaft to tame the tangles and also, but really unknowingly silicone-containing conditioners like Kerastase. I never clarified cause I didn’t know I had to when using silicone-laden products, I just used product over product to hide the dry- and brittleness (I’m pretty sure I had serious buildup then, I get buildup really quick even with “normal” conditioners).

As I am not sure whether the cone caused damage or not (maybe it did just hide the damage from all the daily washing and blowfrying and wrong hair care products?? Dunno), I went cone-free since April 2004. From then on, my hair has been nothing but dry, tangled and mostly overconditioned – no happy medium on my side here!

I have very fine hair with a medium ponytail circumference according to Fia’s typing system that borders more on the thin side (it’s only a little past 2 inches). So I have the type of fine hair that gets greasy quickly, but is also easily weighed down by heavier treatments and not nourished enough by most of the lighter treatments. This is giving me a hard time.

When my hair is wet, it looks like a spiderweb. Quite a large part of the hairs, especially the outer layers and the strands in the front, stick together like crazy (the last 3-4 inches are the worst). I have already tried clarifying several times, but this did not really help very much with the tangling – made my problem worse after the second attempt. Even after the obligatory deep treatment afterwards the hair was still quite dry and tangled. Same with the ACV rinse I tried, made my hair coarse and dry. CWC lead to instant overconditioning on second trial. Right now I am using a very mild organic shampoo to not further dry out my hair and condition afterwards. Most of the time, I used Biolage Fortifying Conditioner (unfortunately, the bottle is empty now and I cannot get it over here in Germany) or Nexxus Humectress (although quite nice, weighs down A LOT when used in a row). Didn't have much luck with conditioners other than these ones, though. But, I am still fighting the tangles and dryness *sigh*.

I do not know if I should remain cone-free due to the big tangling problem. On my shelf are sitting the cone-laden products like Redken Smooth Down Butter Treat, Kerastase Masque for Fine and Dry Hair and Kerastase Resistance Age Recharge. And I do not know if I should use them? I don’t want any more damage/increased dryness, but the mechanical damage I do to my hair cause of having to detangle a knotted mess every day is not nice either.

Please help! I appreciate your help very, very much.

Greetings,

Mina (sorry, couldn't write this shorter, hope you don't mind :rolleyes: )

Hi Welcome Mina :flower:
I would suggest you get some Mint Thyme Conditioner if you can, from Avalon Organic Botanicals. You can order it from www.avalonorganics.com (http://www.avalonorganics.com) or my new favourite from Weleda (www.weleda.com), their Rosemary Conditioner for dry hair and try it as a CO wash. Use it to cleanse your scalp in place of shampoo. Massage the scalp and use it to cleanse the lengths. I do this and it improved my frizzy f-ii' type hair no end. I leave some in when I rinse to give it a little weight without the cones.

Best of luck to you x

Welcome to LHC. :flowers:

I just read your journal; it sounds like after the "iron" treatment, you are back to growing out chemical damage. It's a frustrating process - many of us have grown out damage.

Obviously, your hair is fragile right now, and you need to treat it as such - very gently. Is your hair long enough to pull into a bun?

I'm not sure what to suggest in the way of treatment, since it sounds like you've tried deep treatments already. Have you tried oiling your hair?

My hair is also very fine and thin. COing makes it greasy. Heavy conditioners are too much and light ones aren't enough. I'm also trying new stuff to see what works and what doesn't. One thing that does seem to help a bit is using a very small amount of olive oil on the ends of my hair. Rub it into your hands then onto your hair. I do this at night and shower in the am. I also have broken ends around my face that are about chin length. It's from putting my hair up a lot. If I loosely put it up it breaks less. I have tried and loved Dove's new line. It's for fine hair. I get the intense mositure one and it worked great. But I got slight build up of cones. So tonight I'm off to find something to clarify it in between washings.

If cones work for you then use them, but use something in between washings to get the build-up out.

Welcome Mina! I too have 1aFii, but I also have fine to normal and some coarse hair in there. I think it might be worth a shot to try a protein rinse. All you need is a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce and dilute it. Since you think your hair is over conditioned, I would follow up the soy rinse with a light conditioner. HTH! :)

Hi Mina.

You're just about describing my hair down to the very last detail. Even with the reaction to the GM products drying it out. Fortunately I've never had to deal with the "iron treatment" - my GM stylist was trained in the US in the proper system, but I assume she buys her products from Germany since she's in Sweden.

Anyway - have a look at my journal if you wish - many of the same issues that you're having and my attempts at solving them. Also have a look at my hompage if you want to - it shows what it has looked like over the years of growing out. In short - what works for me:

- Daily washing, mild shampoo/heavier conditioners. I've been a daily washer for most of the time growing out with little to no damage on my hair. I usually use moisturizing s/c and complement those with deep conditioners and leave-ins containing protein. Clinique's moisturizing series (the lavender/lilac one), L'Anza's moisturizing, Nexxus Therappe/Humectress, TiGi Oatmeal&Honey all work well for me.

- Regular protein treatments; deep conditioners, henna, leave-ins. Biosilk Silk Therapy is a staple for detangling and leave-in. Just got Nexxus Headress and Keraphix today - haven't tried them yet but have good hopes for both.

- Silicones, my hair can't take oils (I get all the problems you describe with cone-free hair). Can't stress this one enough as this is what allows me to detangle and handle my hair without causing undue damage.

- Updos 99% of the time, usually damp buns as I wash in the morning

- Regular trims, I find that I need to take off minimal amounts every now and then to keep everything in tip top shape. I visit my GM stylist every three months. If I didn't have her I'd go for split ends trimming by my own hand.

/Fia

Thanks sooo much for the warm welcome all the helpful hints! :flowers: :flower: :cloud9:

@brunette

Mmh, I was thinking about the Weleda Rosemary Conditioner for a while now. I have read lots of good reviews about this stuff on other boards, so I think I will give it a try :-).

@Wanita

Well, I just remember a funny thing about this particular "treatment": the treatment itself was kind of two-phased, so to say (and until today, I don't know why, but I guess the whole "treatment" in itself doesn't make very much sense): first my hairdresser would apply a mixture of the German George Michael Willow Bark Conditioner and Cosma Care Colour (Cosma is the German company that produces the German George Michael line, and the colour mentioned is supposed to be a conditioning hair colour as it is a non-permanent dye and contains lots of conditioning substances like wheat protein - I had it several times applied to my hair when having an one hour treatment, my hairdresser would simply mix it with the one hour treatment and it worked very good. Really soft, lightly coloured hair afterwards! :inlove: ). After the "pre-conditioning" was done, she would rinse everything out and apply the iron mixed with peroxide (jeez, just thinking about it gives me a hard time.. :rolleyes: ). And the "funny" thing was: after the first part of the treatment my hair was soft, soft, soft and shiny! Then came the second part, and well...

Afterwards, my hair was worse than it was before that treatment, so yes, I guess I have to grow out the parts with the most damage.Oh, and yes, my hair is long enough to pull it in a bun. I am wearing it up most of the time, sometimes with French twists, sometimes a loose bun, and sometimes with a claw clip (or is it a "jaw clip"? Don't know the proper name) from FranceLuxe.

I've already tried oiling my hair with a tiny bit of EVOO - didn't work, gave me dry and crunchy hair, even though I tried in on damp hair. But I am going to try jojoba next to see if this works better.

@KristinMH

I am thinking about using some light cones again. At least, with them my hair didnt' tangle so much as it does now - so less mechanical damage here.

@Larz

An occasional protein rinse sounds like a good idea. Will try this.

@Fia

I had a look at your pages. Let me first say: you have GORGEOUS hair :smile: ! So shiny and silky. When I was 17, my untreated hair used to be like yours, except the colour (I do have kind of a dark blonde natural hair colour).

You wrote about daily washing and that it didn't affect the health of your hair in a negative way. I guess your hair likes the regular moisture from the water. I am thinking about washing more often (currently only every 3-5 days because I was afraid to dry out my hair even more, and I do look GREASY then, it's not a pleasure at all for me to wait more then two days between washings). I just recently got the impression that my hair gets even more dry the longer I wait between washings. Is that possible?

Just wondered about the Biosilk. I've read the good reviews about it, but I am not sure if it is available in Germany?

You mentioned that you do use Nexxus products, the Therappe shampoo and the Humectress conditioner. Well, I did too, but stopped when I noticed that after the second use of both together my hair was, though quite soft, without any volume and my scalp greasy directly after washing. As your hair is quite like mine, I am curious to know if these products don't cause any weigh down/greasiness on your hair? Oh, and do you leave the Therappe three minutes on your hair and scalp, like the instructions on the bottle say? I always did that, maybe that caused the overconditioning?

One last question, maybe you could answer this one for me: do you know the ingredients of the L'anza moisturizing conditioner? If so, could you please post them? I am quite interested in the L'anza products :-).


Greetings to all,

Mina

Hi Mina, you already got lots of good advice, so let me just tell you that we have the same hair type and nationality! :flowers:

Hi, Mina, and welcome to LHC. I am another 1aFii, but fortunately have never had the problems you and Fia have. I know very little about all the products, but I would definitely suggest that you treat yourself internally, too. I think you might benefit from a regimen of flaxseed oil and evening primrose oil, taken daily. Our diets typically are very heavy in certain fatty acids and nearly deficient in others. The flaxseed and evening primrose will correct those imbalances from the inside. I personally use 1000 mg of each every day and find that they really make a diffence for me.

I hope you find some help, dear. I know you are terribly frustrated and long for pretty hair. Good luck and I will be thinking of you.

Welcome to LHC!

Everyone gave good advice. I just wanted to add a few ideas.

Aveda is a good product line. Do they carry Aveda in Germany?

You might want to try daily conditioner only washes for a while to return moisture to your hair and then use a gentle shampoo once a week with a good mositurizing conditioner.

Gently comb hair with a wide-tooth comb to detangle. Give up brushes. They are too harsh on fine hair. You can use a dressing comb with fine teeth to gently smooth the hair in places after the wide-tooth comb has removed all tangles.

Hi again.

First of all - thanks for the sweet comment about my hair. I like it a lot better long than the short hair I had during all those years until I decided to grow it out.

Yes, my hair likes moisture from water. I too find that the longer I go between washes, the drier my hair gets - especially the ends. At times I've not washed with shampoo every day, but always a wet down and sometimes condition. My hair and scalp needs water to stay happy and nice.

Biosilk is very good. The bottles look like this (http://www.farouk.com/bsST1st.htm). I usually find it at hairdressers/stylists, I've never seen it in regular stores. It's widely accessibly over the net too - drugstore.com (http://www.drugstore.com/search/search.asp?searchtype=1&trx=28198&trxp1=60&srchtree=1&search=biosilk), eBay (http://search.ebay.com/biosilk-silk-therapy_W0QQsokeywordredirectZ1QQfromZR8) and probably lots of other places too.

Therappe and Humectress are possibly my favorites right now, and no, I don't see any weigh down or greasiness from them. On the other hand - I never have volume, no matter how hard I try, so I even prefer making it sleeker, shinier and smoother to play up that part of my hair. A little weigh down is almost helpful in that respect. I leave the shampoo on for a little while - maybe three minutes, maybe a little less. I apply conditioner, comb it through and then bun with a scrunchie while I wash the rest of me to allow it enough time to do its work. Then rinse most of it out, leaving a little part in. Today I used the Headress leave-in after that - can't give any results yet as the hair is up in my usual bun - but the top part looks and feels fine so far.

I'm at work right now, so I'll have to get back to you with the L'Anza ingredients later tonight.

I also second RedButterfly's suggestion of only using a comb. I find that I don't need a brush with daily washing, and brushes feel harsher on my hair than combs.

/Fia

OK, back at home and found the L'Anza bottles.

L'Anza Dry Hair - Moisturizing Shampoo
Water, Sodium Cetyl Sulfate, TEA Lauryl Sulfate, Keratin Bond System (Keratin Amino Acids 150 M.W.), Stearyl Alcohol, Comfrey Root Extract, Rosemary Extract, Nettle Extract, Chamomile Extract, Citric Acid, Panthenol, Palm Kernelamide DEA, Xanthan Gum, Acetamide MEA, Fragrance, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Grapeskin Extract, Beet Extract

L'Anza Dry Hair - Detangler
Water, Steramidopropyl Dimethylamine, Cetyl Alcohol, Glycol Stearate, Dicetyldimonium Chloride, Keratin Bond System (Keratin Amino Acids 150 M.W.), Algae Extract, Comfrey Root Extract, Rosemary Extract, Chamomile Extract, Althea Extract, Cyclomethicone, Ceteth-2, Octyl Methoxycinnamate, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Fragrance, Grapeskin Extract, Annatto

/Fia

I second the Avalon Organics Mint and Thyme Conditioner!

I have very dry chemically processed hair I am growing out. My natural color is about 5 inches now, yeah!!! But the length is so, so, so damaged and brittle.

I have been using Beauty Without Cruelty, the extra moisturizing formula. I love it!!! Regardless, if my tresses feel on the dry side, I reach for the AO Mint and Thyme Conditioner. I just can not tell you how well it softens my hair and detangling is no problem. For my daughter as well. At seven she has naturally beautiful hair, but it tends to dry out as well at times. The AO Mint & Thyme works wonders and the comb outs, detangling, is simplified.

I won't push the issue if my hair seems stubborn and I can't detangle it, I reapply a conditioner or a leave-in and ...gently... detangle it. It's too fragile and takes too long to grow out to abuse it any further!

Hi Mina

Welcome To LHC http://img52.photobucket.com/albums/v158/purplebubba/smilies/sun.gif

Here's a nice comfy chair if you need one. http://img52.photobucket.com/albums/v158/purplebubba/smilies/chairSM.gif

Glad you found us.

Here's a welcome bouquet

@}->->- @}->->- @}->->- -<-<-{@ -<-<-{@ -<-<-{@

I'm Robert / PurpleBubba from Michigan. I've been visiting & participating at hair care boards for about 4 years.

Here's a fresh batch of my Miracle Happy Hair Pills
:cookie: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie:
Please treat these as a prescription. The normal dose is one per day, two if you are having a really bad day. These are not just normal cookies. They are super concentrated so that one cookie is about 90% sure to help you get your smile back. If you run out you can find refills in my journal or you can request them.

I don't have any advice at the moment but I was wondering if you've tried anything yet?

It's nice to have you here, I hope you have some success with your progress. :)

Welcome Mina

I for one rotate my cone products. I use a detangler with cones regularly then rotate my S&Cs. I also clarify my hair once a week with Suave Clarifying shampoo.
I think you should do what you think your hair likes best.

HTH
Angel Hugs and Love

Welcome to the boards! :flower: It seems that you got some great advice. I was just going to add to the advice to moisturize your hair. Maybe your hair is also reacting to too much protien and not enough moisture. Balancing out the two is not easy. I have a problem with too much protien but I have finally got it down as too how much of each is needed.

Mina, welcome to LHC! :flower: Looks like you're being steered in the right direction judging by the previous posts. You'll get all sorts of great information from a wonderful community.

Sorry for not replying earlier to all the posts, I have been so busy the last two weeks, just didn't have the time to post :rolleyes: .

Let me first say it again: you guys and gals are so nice and caring for other people's hairy prolems, it's just overwhelming :cloud9: !

Okay, a little update on me and my hair:

Didn't have much luck the last week. Two hair disasters with Nivea Shampoo and one personal one was enough for me to get somehow frustated. Regarding the personal stuff: got out of bed last Friday morning like every other day and ta-da! somehow managed it to tear a muscle fiber in my left quad - don't ask me how this could happen, because I just don't know. Maybe I am getting old... :rolleyes: Went immediately to a doctor who told me it isn't that bad and it will heal quickly. Well, it seems that he's right, thank God.

Hairy problems lately: here's a compilation of what I've discovered about my hair the last two weeks:

1. My hair doesn't like leave-ins, except the high-cone-content ones - these are the only ones that don't leave my hair in a stringy-looking, slick mess.

Tried foxe's shea leave-in: no way. Sticky, glued-together, stringy and oily looking hairs everywhere. Had to wash it out.

2. Tried the shea leave-in as a deep treatment. Modified the recipe, used 3-4 parts conditioner (Sebastian Slinky Detangler)instead.

This one worked iniatially quite good, although it was HEAVY on my fine and thin hair. But: I got the feeling that my hair just doesn't like to be coated with such a heavy conditioner. Somehow this seems to block moisture out of the hair in the long run (maybe the oil?). Hair felt dry by the next wash a few days after, a problem that I've already encountered several times when using jojoba as an overnight pre-wash treatment. Don't know if the conditioner contributes to that dryness, because the Slinky is somewhat a weird one: sometimes it does give me great results, sometimes just horrible ones :confused: . But what I am fairly certain about is the following:

3. My hair doesn't really like oils. Tried EVOO and jojoba with crunchy results, no matter how much I used (even one tiny drop of jojoba to damp hair leaves my hair crunchy and stringy).

The jojoba seems to have the same effect as cones have for some people: coats the hair really bad even after one use and blocks out moisture.

4. My hair likes the Sebastian Moisture Base.

This one is really funny, because this product is designed for chemically treated hair and does contain a fair amount of protein which I thought to be not benefial for my dry hair. I have to say that I was pretty sure in the beginning that this one wouldn't work and that I've again spent too much money for a thing that wouldn't work well on my hair. Well, tried it twice so far and still like it. Greatest benefit is that this conditioner doesn't weigh down my hair but does a quite good (though not optimal, but better than most of the other conditioners) moisturizing job :inlove: . Will use this again and see if my hair benefits from it.

5. My hair doesn't like drugstore products.

Wanted so badly to go the cheaper route. Tried Nivea Colour Shine Shampoo because it looked gentle (contains Sodium Myreth Sulfate) and ended up clarifying with SLS-Shampoo to get all the coating off my hair that this shampoo left on it :twisted: ! And had to do this twice, because I gave the Nivea a second try and ended up again with that bad result. Somehow, there must be too many film-forming agents in this one, it was just horrible - dry hair immediately after washing, like all the moisture was sucked out by the shampoo.

I have to say that every time I tried Nivea (or other drugstore shampoos) Shampoos I ended up like this - I thought this one would be better than the others because the ingredients looked good, but well... for some reason my hair seems to only like the expensive salon brand shampoos (and conditioners) *sigh*. This results of course in much money spent for hair care which I really dislike :brickwall . Salon brand products in Germany are REALLY pricey, even more than in the U.S.. Ugh, and if you, like me, like to use American products that are imported, you often have to pay even more. For example, the small bottle of Nexxus Humectress costs about 20 US $ (at drugstore.com you get the large one for that price). So hair care is kind of a very pricey subject for me :-( .

5. MOST IMPORTANT: my hair gets easily over-conditioned. So, no CO or CWC for me. Oh yeah, and I need to find a conditioner that is heavy enough to moisturize my hair well yet not too heavy to leave it overconditioned by the second try :silly: (nearly impossible to find such a conditioner, at least for me, it seems). Maybe the Sebastian is a step in the right direction...

That's about it now. Next step: I decided to try the Seastian Cello Shampoo for dry hair, as this one is from the same line as the Moisture Base. Should work well together. I will try to keep it simple the next time, guess my hair likes this approach the most :smile: .


Greetings,

Mina

Hi Mina :)

I'm a new member too - and like you I joined partly because of overly dry hair. We have completely different hairtypes (Fia's system), yet your dryness sounds so much like mine.

The *only* thing I have done to my hair for years that is 'naughty' (ie., no blowdrying, styling products, crimping/straightening, etc) is dye it with a red semi-permanent... I have no idea whether mine contained the amodimethicone you mentioned, but perhaps it is a common link? I used dyes such as Directions, Star Gazer and Jerome Russell, as well as colour mousses :rolleyes:

I'm afraid I have no helpful advice as I haven't found a miracle product yet - if I do I'll let you know & I hope you don't mind if I have a nosey in your journal too :flower:

Hi Mina and welcome :flower:

Meg

Hi Mina, Welcome to LHC :flower:
If your hair likes cones, then use cones. my hair likes cones, so i use them. Some peoples hair do not like cones though, so that is why there are a few posts about how bad cones can be. A lot of people find that their hair is better with cones though.

Hi Mina, :waving:

Yay, another European, Willkommen! :flower:

Hello and welcome :flower: