Styling Technique/Product Review... In pictures!

This page is dedicated to my reviews of different styling techniques and products.
My normal styling routine for some time has been to co-wash with Suave Naturals Tropical Coconut. Condition with Renpure My Pretty Hair Is Parched. Comb with a wide tooth comb while hair is covered in condish. Then rinse. Still in the shower, with soaking wet hair, I rake two nickel sized amounts of Shea Moisture Curl and Style Milk (my hair is pretty long, and porous, so it sucks up condish like tomorrow). I then do a modified "supersoak" where I cup my hands and fill with water and soak my hair with it from tips to scalp. This creates my clumps. This is the link to the method on NC.com. I then rake and scrunch a good amount (like, 4 or 5 palmfuls) of homemade flax seed gel while upside down. I get out of the shower with my hair still forward and down and plop my hair into my waiting flour sack towel.  I then dry off, lotion up, get dressed... this takes about 10-15 minutes. I take the plop down (upside down) and scrunch as much water out with the towel as possible. I scrunch 3-5 palm fulls of gel into my hair, first upside down, then right side up. I insert gel covered hands in at the roots and sort of pat it into my roots. Shorter haired wavies may not have trouble with getting their roots covered, but the longer my hair is, the more trouble I have getting gel all the way to my roots. I plop again for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour then diffuse to set my gel then lest it air dry the rest of the way.

Results from my regular routine

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 Reviews

Yuck!

The Back looks better...

Wavy/S'wavy CG handbook routine. 
Low-poo scalp only. Condish from ears down. Fingercombed from underside only. No LI. Flipped upside down, flour sack towel scrunched. Scrunched in gel. Plopped 30 minutes. Diffused 60% dry. Air dried to 95%. Diffused again to 100%,
Pros: my roots dried super fast. A little bit more root lift than normal.
Cons: Pretty much everything else. Fingercombing from the underside only leaves my shorter errant hairs without a clumpy home. So automatic frizz from that. More frizz from towel scrunching with no product in. So... a crap ton of frizz.

Without a LI for my porous hair to soak up, it instead soaked up all my gel. So even though I used twice as much gel as usual, I had no crunch. At all. And it seemed to weigh my hair down, leaving it pretty flat looking (which is why I decided to diffuse again to 100%, attempting to add some volume and curl back in)
Overall, I liked that my roots dried fast. But the rest was a frizzy, flat mess.

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Front looks good

Back, not so much!

 Results from modified wavy/Swavy CG handbook routine.
 Low-poo'd scalp only. Condish from ears down. Fingercombed from top and underneath (much less frizz!) Used SN Everlasting Sunshine as a LI. Scrunched in Ecostyler to WET hair, then scrunched with flour sack and plopped for 30 minutes. Diffused to 70%.
Pros: lots of volume. Decent crunch. More root curl.
Cons: a little stringy. Some wonky curls.
Overall: decent.
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 Results from clarifying with a sulfate shampoo and from protein and deep treatments

About once a month, I clarify with a sulfate shampoo to rid my hair of hard water and any product build up. On this day, I did a coconut oil/olive oil pre-shampoo treatment. I mixed a 70/30 mix of coconut to olive oil, applied to my hair enough to look greasy but not dripping with oil. Left it on over night. In the a.m., I shampooed with Suave Naturals Tropical Coconut shampoo. I then blotted out excess water to prepare my hair for my protein treatment. I use Science-y Hairblog's gelatin protein treatment. I make a few adjustments, because my hair loves protein and can't get enough. I dissolve 2 packets of Knox unflavored gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water. I microwave it for about 30 seconds to cook it, then add 1 tsp. of honey, 1 tsp. of Epsom salts, 1 tsp. of coconut oil, a squirt of Ion Effective Care conditioning treatment, a squirt of GVP Conditioning Balm, and 1/2 tsp. of apple cider vinegar. Sometimes, if I seem over conditioned, I will leave out the conditioners. I left that on for an hour with heat (I am lazy and cheap. I wrap my head in plastic, then a towel, and lay back on my heating pad on high). I rinsed that and did a deep treatment (you may use whatever you like, but favorite is GVP Conditioning Balm mixed with honey and coconut oil). Left that on for 30 minutes with heat. I rinsed that out and scrunched a small amount of my Renpure My Pretty Hair is Parched as my LI. Then used Aloe Vera Gel (any aloe gel that does NOT contan alcohol will work. Two popular brands are Fruit of the Earth, and Lilly of the Desert. Or Aloe Vera Juice. The drinkable kind found in the laxative aisle. I know, I know, the stuff I put in my hair! HA!) as my curl enhancer. It is lightweight, and offers very light hold. Then I used Fructisse Curl Sculpting Spray gel. Plopped for 30 minutes and diffused for 6 minutes.
Pros: Light, bouncy waves. Waves have tightened up from the protein. Wonderfully soft from the DT. 
Cons: Pretty much nothing!
Overall: I love my hair after a full service "spa" day for my hair. I do this about once a month to prepare for new color. The sulfate shampoo contains EDTA which removes hard water build-up, product hild up, and helps lift any excess color hiding in the hair shaft so color takes more evenly. The protein fills in porosity to help color take evenly. And the DT makes sure hair is properly moisturized to help lessen damage.