As many of you know, I joined the Hairlista Healthy Ends Challenge in October 2009. The goal was to strengthen my ends and retain length. Here’s what I did over the last six months:

• kinky twists
• wigs
• protective styling of my own hair

I kinda fell off during the last few weeks just because the weather was so nice and I wanted to let my hair loose. Six months is a long time to keep your hair under wraps. I understand why it’s necessary — don’t get me wrong, but it’s nice to see the fruits of your labour.

So, here are the results:

Not too shabby!

First, my hair has retained length. How do I know? Well, I can pull it into a full pony puff and I can pull it back into a twisted puff. For me, this is a big thing. One of my goals for the challenge was to be fully shoulder length when stretched. I’m close, if I’m not there — I won’t know for sure until May 1 when I get my hair professionally blown out and flat ironed.

Second, my hair feels healthier — this is a combination of a the challenge and I’ve been taking vitamins and eating better since January. I’ve been moisturizing and sealing my hair each night, so it’s not drying out like how it use to when I only moisturized on wash days.

Third, during this challenge, I’ve also started to pare down some of the products that I’ve been using. Things were getting out of hand. I had a bunch of products that weren’t seeing the light of day or only being used once. That’s a waste of money and how do I know what’s working on my hair if I’m using a new conditioner every day?

So, I’ve gotten it down to some products that I like — and I think I’m going to stick with these for a while. I am a product junkie at heart, so trust, I will be dabbling just a little.

During the challenge, I was, unfortunately, dealing with fairy knots. I hate those things and I have to stop myself from snatching them out of my hair. I read a comment on this blog that said co-washing could be the cause. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that because of my scalp issues, co-washing doesn’t always do the job. I’ve started shampooing every week and I’ll be adding co-washing back into the mix once summer comes and I need to wet my hair more frequently. So, since I’ve been shampooing, I’ve felt like I’ve come across less knots. I don’t know if that is in my mind or if it’s really reducing the number of knots that my getting. I’ll have to update you on that in the coming weeks.

Overall, it’s been a useful experience. And I’m going to continue doing my own version of the challenge throughout the spring and summer — of course, protective styling won’t be done as regularly. I will most likely wear my hair in twists or in buns (’cause now I can, ya’ll),but, like I wrote earlier, wearing my hair in protective all the time will make me miserable. What’s the point of growing your hair if you can’t show it? Maybe not every day, but maybe just on the weekends 🙂

I’m glad that I did it and I’ll continue checking Hairlista out for their challenges to see if there are any more that I can join. My hair is definitely in better shape than it was in October. Did anyone else join the challenge? What were your results?