Hair Journey Stage 1- The assessment

Through email I told many of you that I would begin discussing the journey to healthy hair on the blog so today is Day1.
When I was young girl I did not have long hair, my unrelaxed hair was often in chunky little braids. My mother washed my hair regularly and slathered DAX grease on my scalp. Although I knew my hair was growing it was difficult to really see growth until I would get my hair pressed, which was not very often. Fast forward to my early teenage years and I received a perm from a stylist who was pretty good at taking care of my relaxed hair. During that period I wasn't doing anything too special with my hair, just basic wraps. My hair was growing a little so I was pretty pleased however my stylist was like a nomad, moving from place to place. My family and I followed her several times to her latest hair salon until we could no longer keep up with the commute. It was then that I began going to a new woman, a pimple popping scissor happy stylist. If you dared to get into her seat with a pimple you better believe she was going to put down the hair supplies, adjust herself on her stool, angle your head and proceed to try to pop any pimple she found. Disgusting I know, but she eventually got it straight when I explained that I did not want a facial, just the hair care. However, that did not stop her from answering the phone or tending to other clients as she left the relaxer sizzling on my head!!!
Anyway my hair never really seemed to grow during this period in my life. I was told that trims were needed to make my hair grow....it didn’t quite make sense to me but gee whiz that’s what every stylist claimed so it had to be true right? *Cece later moved to get married and I was off to find another stylist’s chair to call home. This time I found a woman who really cared about hair, in fact she is still my stylist. Quick side note...later in life I ran into CeCe and she said "WOW your hair has grown so much" I guess she wasn’t use to seeing me without the trademark Dutch boy haircut she had left me with for so many years.

I later tried a hair care system from a popular woman online who claims to help you grow your hair to new lengths by following her techniques. While following the program I did not like all of the products, one seemed to do nothing while another seemed too heavy for my hair. I must say that I didn’t follow the system to a "T" which may be why I experienced extreme breakage on one section of my head. I was devastated and knew that I had to find a way to get my hair to a good and healthy state so I began reading articles, book, and surfing the net in search of reasonable answers to my hair questions.

To begin the hair journey lets start be doing the following:

1)Read as much as you can about proper hair care. Not everything that you find will work for you and there are still many false statements floating around but it is at least good to see what is out there. Also as you begin working more and more with your own hair you will see what works best for you.

2) Assess your own hair to see if it is damaged in any way by asking yourself:
Do I have many split ends ? (if you click on the text "split ends", it will take you to the K.I.S.S. blog where Tracyee recently posted a picture of a variety of split ends. The link to K.I.S.S. can also be found in my blogroll.)
Are you experiencing breakage? When I comb my hair am I seeing many broken strands?
Do I have any hair issues that I would like to resolve in the near future.
For now, let’s keep this as simple as possible, so in stage 1 access your hair to figure out what problems may exist.
We will continue this hair journey together until we cover this earth with healthy hair, starting with one strand at a time.

Do you have any hair horror stories?
*The name of this stylist has been changed.