Okay, so to get straight to the point: my hair is disgusting.

Lol, ok it's not that bad but its been through some things.  Lets start with a brief history so we can see how how I ended up here.  I'm going to try and add pictures from the earlier years to this later, but I *really* did not like cameras then...

When I was a petite miss I had suuuuuuper long pretty hair.  I'm mixed, so its not as though it were ever super silky and straight (except when I was a baby!) but was SUPER thick and curly.  Everyone would make a big deal about how long it was and how I should never cut it, etc. etc. and I always promised that I wouldn't.

Cut to middle school when my mom decided she had enough of doing my hair for me and I would have to do it myself!  Needless to say, this was not an easy transition.  I didn't have the kind of hair where you'd just wake up brush and go and you're good.  NO.  Even though it was curly it only looked nice if I wet it first, and brushed a variation of moisturizing/hold products throughout it.  I was not in the habit of wearing it out, but in ponytails (like 2 long braid ponytails) sooooooo yeah.  Couldn't do it.  Especially not fast enough to be ready for school in the morning so I decided to cut it!  It stopped somewhere around my lower back and I cut it to just below my shoulders.

This is kind of where I felt my first experience of sort of transforming myself through my hair because it was the first real hair change I think I ever had.  I might have straightened it one or two times before then, but for like a super special occasion.  Hair tools weren't that good back then (lol...and this is not even THAT long ago...maybe like 7 years?) so if I wanted to straighten my hair and have it look nice it would need to be done with a hot comb on the stove (which I was NOT doing myself!) or like at a salon.  These weren't exactly options so...yeah.

Anyway!  I liked changing my hair and I wanted to do it again!  I don't remember which came first but sometime the next year...say 7th I wound up dying it red myself (did not turn out that good but whatever) and I cut it about chin length.  I want to say this is where my hair addiction really started lol.  Over the next year or so I'd use box dyes to try and get it dark brown but it would always eventually fade to this sandy color (AND IT STILL DOES!)

Come high school, I wanted to like make myself over, so I let my hair grow back to about shoulder length and I died it black.  I used Bigen, which worked but would *always* fade to a dull brown so I said fuck it and got a box of L'oreal Blue Black.  Biggest mistake ever.  I eventually got tired of black and tried to dye my hair back brown and the only part that changed were the roots. I want to say this was around the end of 9th grade.

Around 10th grade?  All my hair.

I was convinced I wanted to get Thermal Reconditioning, so I found an AMAAAZING Japanese Salon that I still go to now for a consultation.  I showed her a picture of a nice caramel brown and said I want that.  And I learned that once you go (unnaturally) black its super tough to go back.  It was expensive and damaging, but she did it, and my hair looked fabulous~~!  I couldn't get TR if I bleached it, but I preferred to keep up the color so about twice a year every where I went back around got my hair more or less bleached to that shade of brown or slightly lighter.  I did this until high school was over. 

With my clip-ins.

I also started my flat-iron addiction (FIA).  I think I would straighten and curl my hair almost everyday for maybe half of the year?  Eventually i would get lazy and say fuck it, but I *only* felt pretty when my hair was straight.  While my hear did suffer, it wasn't totally horrible.  It was pretty dry and it stayed around my bra strap because I would always have to trim off the damaged parts. but it wasn't anything some deep conditioning couldn't help salvage.  I also discovered clip in extensions, so the extreme length I couldn't achieve naturally I would just clip in.

Now we're getting the part where I fucked up.  So I started mixing my own color because I read about how the stuff in the boxes wasn't quality, and it was actually cheaper. I only did my own hair color if I wanted to go darker. If I wanted to go lighter or dabble in bleach I always left it to the professionals.  Anyway, it was right before I left for college in NYC, and I wanted to be a chocolate brunette for the fall and because it was more New York, etc. etc. so I mixed it up and it came out a bit darker than I had wanted, but I LOVED it.  I felt SOO sexy and exotic--plus I was tan.  It was IT.  But it faded in about a month (to that same sandy brown color!!!) so I said okay, maybe if i just go one level darker it will last longer.  It turned out black.  T__T

I was going to wait until I could go back to La to my usual spot that knew how to hook it up, but I got this package deal and decided to try an NYC salon and this guy FUCKED.  ME.  UP.

Ewww!

Trial 1:  My hair looked exactly the same (black) but with piss yellow highlights on top and yellow roots from where my hair grew in.  Trial 2: The top half of my hair looked more brown, but the bottom was still pretty black, and there was the same piss yellow highlights and yellow roots.  Trial 3: Covered the piss yellow highlights so make my hair about a medium brown but the black was still in the bottom and the color just looked dull.

Disgusting...

Needless to say, this took a HUGE toll on my hair.  Not to mention the bitch cut my hair uneven so one side was 3 INCHES SHORTER THAN THE OTHER!  And its not like I went to SuperCuts or some little back alley place and paid $50.  The color was like $220 + the $60 for the package.  It was a nice ambient place, but they couldn't do shit with hair. 


When I went back home for winter break, so January of this year, I went back to my usual place, and while she fixed it, it was still yet another intense processing to get the color to an nice even caramel brown.  My hair was (and still is) SO DAMAGED.  Sheds, breaks when I run my fingers through it, its dry, lifeless, thin limp, and most of my natural waves got processed out but it still puffy.  Basically, now I'm left with a tumbleweed bush for hair. 

Don't get me wrong:  My hair looks totally salvageable but only when I straighten it.  Left natural--it's terrible.  It's really in a bad state to be in because I never want to wear it natural because it's awful.  But on the same token, my hair is only getting worse and worse and staying at this terminal stage around my shoulders. I really want to have long, healthy, strong and beautiful hair again.

January after I got it fixed.

Wut Up

Hello~ I'm Trystan and this is yet another attempt at starting and keeping up a BLOG.  I wouldn't say I have a lot of "plans" but I do want to use this to keep track of some goals (specifically my hair which I am trying to grow out after years of abuse) and some other stuff too so we'll see what will be.

LOVE,
trystan