Well, here we go.  A journal on my hair...and a bit about life I guess.

I had short hair for years.  I hated it.  It made me look boyish.  Then a couple of years ago I decided to think about having children and decided that long hair I could tie up would be easier (I think I might have been wrong about that idea).  To cut a long story short, no kids are in my future, but by the time I realized that, I had my hair to my shoulders and people said it suited me!! 

Last year I ended up in hospital for a few months, and while I could not go to a hair dresser, the boredom of being in the hosptial drove me half mad so I started conditioning my hair out of boredom on days when I was well enough to wash it ... which was every 3 to 4 days...even though I did shower each day.   I conditioned because I knew the meds I was now on would fry my hair if I did not take good care of it.  I never styled or blow dried it ...to much effort for a sick person.

After 2 months of being in hospital, nurses and fellow patients started telling me what great hair I had.  It was funny to me.  I have been totally grey since I was 21 and have used highlights and root coloring to cover it.  By this time, my hair had about 3 inches of grey showing and I felt terrible.

When I got out of hospital, I went and got my coloring fixed up and was amazed to find, with my hair now just to the base of my shoulder blades, people at the National Arts Center, restraunts I went to and even the grocery store, told me I had great hair.  Even my hairdresser wanted to know what I was doing to it to keep it so healthy and nice looking (since when I first started with her 4 years ago it was fried and I cut what little I had off).  My hairdresser is even encouraging me to grow it...as long as it stays healthy of course.

My hair is now 21 inches long....not long to most of you, I know, but a start for me.  I want to grow it about another 15 if I can.  We will see if it will take it, since it is very fine, I have to color (since my hair is a terrible steel grey color), I am on meds that affect it and I have severe psoriasis which requires tar shampoo at least once a week and other icky stuff I have to put in it.

Once of the meds I have been on has made my psoriasis much worse and they are taking me off it and replacing it, since the psoriasis has been bad enough to progress to psoriatic arthritis.  Hopefully that will help.

I have my hairdresser trim off the dead end every 8-10 weeks and touch up my color.  I love the products I use...but will not mention what they are since I have not seen anyone else mention theirs.

This site has made me think about a lot of things I never did before but that I am sure will benefit my hair.

On an off the hair topic, the commradory (sp?) I have seen on this site and the boost having hair that people like has enspired me to start losing the 40 some pounds that the medication that cause my psoriasis to get bad put on me.  And hey...who knows...from there I might quit smoking.  I would not want to set myself on fire by accident!!!!  In short...the dream of long healthy hair is encouraging me towards a healthy lifestyle altogether.

Thank you all for being out there to talk to and question.

Glad to see you've started a journal.  Many find their journals to be a great way to express themselves on anything, not just their hair.  Yes, it is OK to mention your products - everyone likes to compare what works for who and what type of hair they have.

You have started your journey towards long hair and have a reasonable goal - good luck on the rest of your journey.  I look forward to following your experiences in your journal.

While I agree that smoking is TERRIBLE for one's health, I am pleased to say that I do not allow ANY smoking in my house (even when it is minus 30 degrees celcius and I have a cold) so my furniture and my animals do not suffer.  I had this house built for me and wanted to keep it fresh.  Even in the days when I did smoke indoors, I did not smoke in the bedroom.  Now I worry about you Kiraela, that is a quick way to have a fire start and die a horrible death.  Nag that man of yours!!!

Bikerbraid, you solved a problem for me.  I was going to complain today about my animals pushing me off my silk pillows at night!!!  They think that is a great place to sleep and try fighting 2 border collies and 3 cats for pillows.  I saw you mentioned the Silk Sox for Long Locks and I have contacted the appropriate person to purchase a couple...one for sleeping and one for housecleaning!! 

On a different forum I was looking at yesterday, I posted that I was suffering from psoriasis.  I recieved a link for natural shampoos under that forum (it was the one about vinegar and ACV rinses).  I am going to look at that today and hopefully find something more user friendly than the tar shampoo I use now.  Everyone is sooo helpful here.

With the help of yet another person on this site, I have learned that I have 1b fine hair.  Who knew there was sooo much to know about hair!!  So, since everyone says telling about the products we use, here we go, these are mine.

As previously mentioned, I have to use a tar shampoo twice a week.  Even when I use this, I try not to get it on the length, just the scalp, sooo, for regular (non-tar shampoo washes) and for the length, I use AG 2WO shampoo for color treated hair.  I follow this with the AG 2WO conditioner on days when I do not use tar and follow up with AG Conditioning Mist once out of the shower (I love this stuff!!  can use it when hair is dry too).  When I use the tar shampoo (twice a week) I deep condion.  On Fridays I towel dry my hair (with a turbie twist...thank you for that idea too) then mix some AG Deep Conditioner with a bit of AG Varnish, put on my hair and wrap it in saranwrap for 5 minutes after which I rinse and leave it at that.  On Tues or Weds I do my tar thing and then turbie twist dry the hair, put on AG Ultramoist Moisture Treatment for 5 minutes in the same fashion as the Deep plus Varnish mixture.

I try not to wash my hair more than 3 times a week, but when I get hot and sweaty, I rinse my hair and just condion it with the AG 2WO Conditioner for Color Treated hair and follow with the AG Mist.

Ya, I know, it sounds complicated and seems perhaps like a lot of conditioning, but with the oral meds I take and the treatments for psoriaisis, it does not seem to be over conditioned.

Also, one of the meds I use for my psoriasis is REALLY greasy.  I used it yesterday and followed it with a vinegar rinse before I shampooed.  That was GREAT.  I only had to shampoo once instead of two or three times, which has to be better for my hair.  Thanx for the idea folks.

Now I am going to do some exploring and see what I learn today...before I start the dreaded house work.  Ugh!!

Thanx everyone, for all your help.

     I think it's absolutely wonderful that you want to donate your hair to women with cancer! Best of luck in that goal.  Just, do me (and yourself, and your hair) a favor, and do as much research as you can on where to donate. Some organizations out there *cough*locks of love*cough* sell far more than 50% of the hair they recieve on the open market, rather than make it into wigs. 
    Pantene has a charity called Beautiful lengths, which is one of the few, if not the only, charity that actually donates wigs to adult women with cancer. Locks of love only gives wigs to children with permanent hair loss from alopecia areata, scalp burns, or something similar.

I'm just trying to look out for a friend! Like I said, good luck on your hair growing!

By the way, I have read in some places that one should only condition their hair from the ears down and other places say to condition the scalp too 

Can anyone tell me which is right or does it depend on what you are using?

Thanks Sakina.  I will let you know how it goes.

Ok, the day is looking up.  Sorry about the previous whine.  I got the house half clean, went for a run, took the dogs for a walk, did my weights, went to the store and bought some ingredients to make some healthy snacks, soups and smoothies which I spent the afternoon making.  And best of all, the vinegar rinse did a fab job of fixing my greasy hair!!!  It is back to shiney and healthy looking.

I tell you what though, I hope I lose the weight faster than my hair is growing!!!   

Tomorrow has nothing fun going on in the hair department and I have to finish my cleaning.  Then the big day is on Thursday when I spend the day at the hospital and find out if I get to go back to work any time soon or not.  Oh I hope so.