"I have fallen back in love with my hair" - Louise Atkinson
When I met Tabitha for the first time, two years ago, I didn’t really like my hair much at all.
It was a classic mid-life mop of fast-encroaching grey, coarse and dry, frizzy and brittle. I’d resigned myself to wearing it in a short bob because it never seemed healthy enough anymore to grow beyond my shoulders. I was spending a fortune chasing away the grey and experimenting with an ever-changing array of styling products which would dry my curls into a crisp or slick them into a greasy wave. It was perpetually disappointing, but I just bundled ‘bad hair’ in with menopause and the other inconveniences of midlife.
Once upon a time I had a healthy glossy mane and I remember telling Tabitha how much I missed the days of super-thick hair with heavy bouncy curls. She told me she could restore my faith in my hair and reinstate my ‘mane’. I’m not sure I believed her, but I threw myself into the TJK regime 100%.
I ditched the harsh itchy head shampoos, and the thick conditioners, and binned the myriad styling products I’d gathered over the years. From now on I was only going to ‘cleanse’ my hair once a week, occasionally rinsing it through in between washes with the 4 in 1 conditioner, smoothing on a little clean conditioner in the shower and ‘styling’ my curls with a squirt of 4 in 1 and another of hair oil. At night, before bed, I’d put on some more of the 4 in 1 and sometimes a little oil as a ‘night cream’ to infuse while I slept. I quickly discovered I could dial up and down the moisture according to my hair’s needs (depending on sunshine, heating, humidity or cold).
The improvement was rapid. My damaged hair soaked up the conditioner and oil and rewarded me with bounce and shine whether it was just as I got out of bed in the morning or when I pulled out a ponytail tied up for the gym. The frizz disappeared and I found I could achieve ‘ready to go out’ curls with a spritz of water and a squirt of 4 in 1 and suddenly pretty much every day was a ‘good hair day’ of shiny floppy curls.
Now two years into my TJK journey, my hair is longer, thicker and happier than at any time since my 20s. I’ve got my mane once more, and Tabitha was right – I have fallen back in love with my hair.
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