Day Eleven: 50/50

After yesterday's horrid result, I attempted to fix the greasy mess of hair that resulted from the food mask. I did a bit more reading yesterday and found out that some people prefer lemon juice to ACV. Since I've had good results from the lemon water rinse on Day 1 (and tried it successfully years ago), I decided that lemon juice was going to be the remedy for last night's wash.

I started with a bottle of diluted lemon juice and completely rinsed my hair, hoping it would wash out the leftover gunk. I then did a baking soda paste scrub to my scalp and thoroughly rinsed it out. Instead of ACV, I did a tea tree oil rinse as well to combat itchy scalp (which is a side effect as your hair adjusts) and then a lemon water rinse. I'm lucky enough to have a lemon tree close by so I just chopped the leaves up and left them to sit in boiling water for a while, before using that water to rinse my hair.

I slightly caved on the conditioner front, just using a very small amount of Herbal Essences on the ends of my hair to keep them soft. After all, I'm essentially trying to get the new hair and my scalp used to this alternative method. The ends really aren't going to be affected as much, and the conditioner gave it a nice scent as I was going out.

After blow-drying, there was definitely an improvement compared to last night. My hair is still adjusting, so there's a layer of oil but as a friend commented, it's really not noticeable and still looks fine.

The most positive thing to report is that even after blowdrying, I've noticed a dramatic reduction in frizz and flyaways. This was always a problem for me, and was something I would generally fix by straightening my hair all the time (too much!). Despite the slight amount of oil, my hair had a nice bounce, wave and frizz-free look to it. Quite natural and a little bit more interesting than previously dead straight hair!

So it was really a case of half bad, half good when it came to the results. I'm willing to overlook the oily texture as, like I said yesterday, that was something I'd read about and expected. I was quite pleasantly surprised with how nice and natural my hair started to look, so I'll be interested to see what happens when the oilyness subsides. I'm hoping to be left with naturally wavy hair minus the annoying frizz, and with no need to blowdry or straighten! Fingers crossed...