Tarra Yvette

Alright guys – it’s that time of year again where I straighten my hair. My timehop app always reminds me. I actually like straightneing my hair once a year – it gives me a chance to examine my ends and lets me switch it up. I also like seeing how much growth I’ve had.

So here is where I started at. Week old braidout.

Here’s my toolbox:

I followed my same washday routine (see Wash routine and twist and curl (video at the end)) as far as sectioning, shampooing and deep conditioning. The difference is I used shampoo on the entire length of my hair not just roots, and I did rinse all of the deep conditioner out, and didn’t add any other conditioner after.

Once I got out of the shower my hair was sectioned detangled and cleaned. I blow dried each section using my Gold n’ Hot blow dryer that I’ve had a billion years (well, I’ve broken a few and always been able to rebuy). I focus a lot on getting my hair as straight as I can with the blow dryer so I don’t have to depend on the flat iron as much.

Here’s the blow out. Yal my blow outs be HUGE yal haha. 

Real talk I could tell by how my blow out turned out that this press was finna be bomb. It had great flow and felt super clean and soft and didn’t tangle up when I ran my fingers through it. Idk why some years it’s better than others – I guess God just smiled on me today. And maybe I was a bit more patient and more thorough washing it.

As far as pressing – these videos explain it best (excuse my blabbing). Basically I use what I call (I may have stolen this term from someone idk) the “comb and chase” method. I take a small section of hair, i comb it with a fine tooth comb. Then I put the flat iron at the top of the section and the comb right after it. I comb down my hair as I pass the flat iron over it.

This method gives me a MUCH smoother press with WAY fewer passes. I’ll never go back to any other way of straightening. I try to limit to 1-2 passes on the back of my head and 1 on the front/sides (and I use larger sections. my hair in the front is a lot finer and more prone to damage). I also trim the end of each section as I go – if it looks ratchet IT’S GOTTA GO. I ain’t got time to be snagging my comb on my ends for the whole duration of this press.

Here’s some more pics of the process

And here’s the finished product:

Total time (including wash/shower time): 2 hours 15 minutes. And if you watch my instastories (@Tarra.Yvette) or we are facebook friends you know I was goofing off the entire time I was pressing because I get bored easy and need to move. If I focused I think I could have done this in well under 2 hours.

I’m also really happy with my growth over the years:

A lot of people commented saying that I looked like I did in high school. I just wanted to show this pic for comparison – my hair was actually not that long in my relaxed/high school days. We just all happened to be frying tf out of our hair so mine was the best of the worst LOL.

High school relaxed hair vs natural hair:

That’s all! Now I’ll be off about to break my dag on neck flinging this hair around for the next week or 2 🙂