Hey Maicurlies,

As I write this I am bouncing around in my seat! So as the title says, I am going to be doing a protective style and castor oil challenge from September 21st – November 2nd with a few lovely ladies on the Napturally Curly (forum). This is my first proper challenge and I am uber excited!

I have previously mentioned that I am a member on Napturally Curly which is run by the beautiful Naturallista Lisa (I have linked both her Site and YouTube Channel for your reference). After going through her site, following her on YouTube (of course), join the forum! Even if you are not interested in taking part in the challenge there are a lot of fantastic women on there to share ideas, learn from one another and just discuss EVERYTHING (none hair related too!)

If you do want to join the challenge it is never too late. You can also opt to just join one part of the challenge, all up to you!

So back to the challenge, we have a forum member who has always been on top of all the challenges agreed upon by the group. I am not sure if she would mind me mentioning her name here as she also reads my blog so I will just say Thank You hun (you know who you are :D) She deserves a shout-out for all the effort she puts into organizing the challenges, providing us with style inspiration and motivating words!

In case you are curious about the guidelines for the challenge here they are:

Protective Styling Challenge

1. You will wear your hair in a Protective Style for no less than 2 days of each week of the challenge. (Some of us are installing twists, braids using weaves, wigs etc).
2. Please post pics of your hair throughout the duration of the challenge, it would be great to see not just all of the styles you come up with but also any and all length that you gain, improvement to the health of your hair and even see how your styling progresses and your aesthetic changes.
3. Each week you will answer several questions about your progress or setbacks from the previous week and so forth.

Castor Oil Challenge

1. You will use choose how many days (between 3-7 days each week) and the way you will use your Castor Oil. You are free to choose the type of Castor Oil and how you will apply it to your scalp and or hair. (Some of us are diluting the castor oil a little with another oil)
2. Don’t beat yourself up if you forget to use your oil each of the days you originally set for yourself, if this isn’t something that you normally do then you are creating a new habit.
3. Just as we will check in on a weekly basis for the Protective Style Challenge we will do the same for this challenge.

My Challenge tactic:

First off I am going to trim my hair between today (19th) and the 21st September. I want to start off “fresh” so a trim is in order. I will be taking off more hair at the back since this is were I have the most uneven length difference to the rest of my hair and then lightly dusting the rest to get rid of SSK’s.

• I will be doing low manipulation/protective styles but not in the sense of using extensions, additional hair, wigs or weaves. Things like twist and tucks, buns, jumbo twists, medium two strand twists with my hair tucked away will be the styles I’ll use.
• I plan on trying to keep my hair in styles for at least 3 days (touch-up my roots when needed) and will take my hair down to re-moisturize and then put it away again.
• I will wash my hair once a week (as normal) which will include DC’s.
• I also plan to do henna glosses at least 3 times during the challenge.
• I will be using a mix of castor oil and infused rose oil (in a couple of weeks my combination of Ayurvedic infused oil will be complete and I will be using that). Castor oil is just too heavy for me so I will dilute it 70% castor to 30% other oil.
• I will apply the oil 3 times a week to my roots/scalp, hair line and a tiny bit on the ends of my hair.

The purpose of me taking part in the challenge is to help thicken up my hair and for overall healthy hair. I want to retain length (if I see growth that is of course a plus) but my goal is to help boost my hair line which is quite fragile and has always been thin, even as a child. (I will write a little more about my hair line in another post). I also need more practice at simple low manipulation styles so this will be a great opportunity.

I will be taking photos during the course of the challenge of my hair styles and will also do a measurement check after I have trimmed my hair to compare to the end results in November.

I am so excited to get started and hopefully see positive results!

Are you currently doing or planning to do a protective style or castor oil challenge? If so what are you doing, I would love to hear from you!

Thanks

Maicurls