Hi everyone! I've been lurking the forums for a few months now as I've embarked on my length retention journey. And before the year ends, I decided to subscribe to share my breakthrough and present a potential challenge for anyone looking to try something that worked really well for me this year!
For context, this was my hair this March. I used to shave my head bald, stopped at the end of 2022, and did not take care of my hair in the time thereafter. Crochet styles (and cutting my hair in the takedown, which is why I have uneven lengths), box braids, wigs, you name it. This was my starting point. I'll be using that front right braid as the point of comparison:
At this point, I had no idea what I was doing with my hair. All this spring, I was washing it every two weeks, applying oils to my scalp, a water-based leave-in to my strands on wash day and hoping for the best. It wasn't working.
But in June, I discovered chebe through Klassically Kept on YouTube. I tweaked her routine a bit--I washed my hair with shampoo (no conditioner :x but I learned my lesson!) every 12 days, applied my chebe (the process was a VERY thorough rinse (like, until my hair started to shrink again so I was sure water was getting through the leftover butter), then an application of 1 thin layer of melted shea butter/chebe powder mix, then 1 thin layer of chebe powder on its own) every 3 days. For the entire 2 months that I did this, my hair never got to the brittle state I was accustomed to having by the time wash day came around. Detangling was a breeze, my breakage ball at the end of wash day was dime sized. My hair wasn't at its best yet (still needed a haircut), but it was considerably better
Unfortunately, I don't have any pics from when I began chebe, but this was the progress I'd made by early August:
Pardon my coloring skills, but hopefully you can see that my braid sits right above my eyelid. Around the end of August, I stumbled across Mrs. Mississippi on YouTube and realized that it may not have been the chebe necessarily that helped me to retain so much length. And that maybe, just maybe, I could continue to see hair growth without making a powdery mess of my bathroom every 3 days :S
So I moved on to good ol' grease.
From Sept through mid-October, I washed my hair every 2-4 days (still no conditioner lol) and only applied grease. Here's my hair in September, both braided and loose. It's a wet braid so it's a bit more stretched than the previous pics, but alas:
Then, at the very end of October, I finally realized how much of a disservice I had done to my hair by not conditioning... lol. I was starting to see SSK and detangling was becoming more difficult. So I took some shears to my hair and cut off everything that felt compromised. I'm not sure how much I took off because I just cut based on how each small section felt, but I'd estimate it was around 3"in the worst affected areas of my head.
Since then, I've been washing (AND deep conditioning) my hair every 2-3 days faithfully. I shampoo in my braids, rinse, apply deep conditioner to my braids, detangle each braided section outside of the shower then twist it, go back in the shower to rinse in twists, then apply grease to each section and braid it up. Sounds like a lot, but it only takes me around 1.25-1.5 hours including my regular shower routine, and a big part of that is because I finger detangle in very small sections.
I don't have pics immediately after the cut, but here's my progress so far, measured by my left front braid this time. November 9 (above my eye) to Dec 1 (below my eye):
And after all of that, I think I finally cracked the code, for my hair at least. In my understanding (influenced heavily by Mrs. Mississippi, Afrikan Hair God, and Klassically Kept's findings!), the water your hair absorbs during wash day is going to evaporate in a few days, no matter what kind of product you apply to your hair. Moisturizers slow the rate of the water's evaporation, but they don't stop the evaporation all together. That's why my hair was breaking so badly pre-June, no matter what ~miracle product~ I applied.
If you've made it this far, what do you think? How has wash frequency impacted your journey? I'm wondering if there's any interest in starting a challenge for 2026 where the mission is to never let your hair get dry (so washing multiple times a week) and using minimal products. Let me know!
For context, this was my hair this March. I used to shave my head bald, stopped at the end of 2022, and did not take care of my hair in the time thereafter. Crochet styles (and cutting my hair in the takedown, which is why I have uneven lengths), box braids, wigs, you name it. This was my starting point. I'll be using that front right braid as the point of comparison:
At this point, I had no idea what I was doing with my hair. All this spring, I was washing it every two weeks, applying oils to my scalp, a water-based leave-in to my strands on wash day and hoping for the best. It wasn't working.
But in June, I discovered chebe through Klassically Kept on YouTube. I tweaked her routine a bit--I washed my hair with shampoo (no conditioner :x but I learned my lesson!) every 12 days, applied my chebe (the process was a VERY thorough rinse (like, until my hair started to shrink again so I was sure water was getting through the leftover butter), then an application of 1 thin layer of melted shea butter/chebe powder mix, then 1 thin layer of chebe powder on its own) every 3 days. For the entire 2 months that I did this, my hair never got to the brittle state I was accustomed to having by the time wash day came around. Detangling was a breeze, my breakage ball at the end of wash day was dime sized. My hair wasn't at its best yet (still needed a haircut), but it was considerably better
Unfortunately, I don't have any pics from when I began chebe, but this was the progress I'd made by early August:
Pardon my coloring skills, but hopefully you can see that my braid sits right above my eyelid. Around the end of August, I stumbled across Mrs. Mississippi on YouTube and realized that it may not have been the chebe necessarily that helped me to retain so much length. And that maybe, just maybe, I could continue to see hair growth without making a powdery mess of my bathroom every 3 days :S
So I moved on to good ol' grease.
From Sept through mid-October, I washed my hair every 2-4 days (still no conditioner lol) and only applied grease. Here's my hair in September, both braided and loose. It's a wet braid so it's a bit more stretched than the previous pics, but alas:
Then, at the very end of October, I finally realized how much of a disservice I had done to my hair by not conditioning... lol. I was starting to see SSK and detangling was becoming more difficult. So I took some shears to my hair and cut off everything that felt compromised. I'm not sure how much I took off because I just cut based on how each small section felt, but I'd estimate it was around 3"in the worst affected areas of my head.
Since then, I've been washing (AND deep conditioning) my hair every 2-3 days faithfully. I shampoo in my braids, rinse, apply deep conditioner to my braids, detangle each braided section outside of the shower then twist it, go back in the shower to rinse in twists, then apply grease to each section and braid it up. Sounds like a lot, but it only takes me around 1.25-1.5 hours including my regular shower routine, and a big part of that is because I finger detangle in very small sections.
I don't have pics immediately after the cut, but here's my progress so far, measured by my left front braid this time. November 9 (above my eye) to Dec 1 (below my eye):
And after all of that, I think I finally cracked the code, for my hair at least. In my understanding (influenced heavily by Mrs. Mississippi, Afrikan Hair God, and Klassically Kept's findings!), the water your hair absorbs during wash day is going to evaporate in a few days, no matter what kind of product you apply to your hair. Moisturizers slow the rate of the water's evaporation, but they don't stop the evaporation all together. That's why my hair was breaking so badly pre-June, no matter what ~miracle product~ I applied.
If you've made it this far, what do you think? How has wash frequency impacted your journey? I'm wondering if there's any interest in starting a challenge for 2026 where the mission is to never let your hair get dry (so washing multiple times a week) and using minimal products. Let me know!
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