Up next in 10
I have been natural for 10 years and stuck at around shoulder length.
Here is how I am changing my routine to retain more length.
Tip 1 1:10
Tip 2 2:20
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this year marks a milestone in my
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natural hair journey i've been natural
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now for 10 years
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[Applause]
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but it's also a bit of a wake-up call
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because i've realized
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over 10 years i have not done that great
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of a job of retaining length
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i have a length that i'm happy with but
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i also haven't been
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working to keep that damp length if it
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makes sense so i haven't been chasing
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long hair i also haven't been
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consistently cutting my hair to kind of
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keep it at this length and i know my
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hair grows because i have gray hairs and
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i can see my great roots when they come
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in
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and i thought like when i started a
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youtube channel it was going to be this
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perfect thing how victorious i was with
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natural hair
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but i realized that sharing my onyx
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experience even the
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highs and the lows the successes and the
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failures can help somebody
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in their natural hair journey and
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ultimately that's what i want to do
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because i learned a lot
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from the internet from forums from
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youtube just about how to care for my
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natural hair so
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i just would like to be honest and share
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my highs and lows
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and here we go okay so these are the
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four things that i'm going to switch up
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in my natural hair care
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routine this year to kind of see if i
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can retain more length
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so the first thing i'm going to do is
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step away from the spray bottle
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the notion that my hair needs to be wet
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to be
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moisturized i think have actually been
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doing more
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harm than good my water my tap water is
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so
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hard um i didn't realize how hard it was
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until recently when i was
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you know messing around with some
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bathroom chemistry and
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it's hard water that means it's alkaline
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it means the ph
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is high healthy hair has a lower ph
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that's more acidic
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so i think just spraying alkaline water
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on my hair every day for the last like
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five years since i moved into this house
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probably has not been helping my hair at
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all
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so that's the first thing i'm going to
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do is i'm putting the spray bottle down
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if i need to like soften my hair to be
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able to manipulate it you know like put
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it up into a puff or maybe you know
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change up styles i'm going to
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reach for rose water and groceries
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i'm going to reach for aloe vera juice
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i'm going to reach for some curl
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refresher sprays that already
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pre-packaged or leave in conditioner i'm
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not using
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my tap water to wet my hair during the
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week anymore so that's the first thing
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that is getting tossed aside from 2021
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so the next thing that i think has been
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holding me back from
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retaining length is a nighttime routine
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i hate sleeping on satin pillowcases and
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at the end of the day i'm tired so i
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throw my jammies and hop in bed
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um and like most of the time my hair is
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just
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and whatever style it was during the day
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and typically i like to wear my hair up
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in like high puffs
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so that means i have these elastic bands
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that are in my hair
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it's probably not a huge deal but just
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because the length of my hair
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whether it's back or if it's up some
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parts of the ends of my hair is
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underneath that elastic and i would
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literally leave that in for like a week
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before i kind of like
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to get down to refresh my hair or if i
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was refreshing my hair
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during the day and i only took it off
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for like 30 seconds to
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brush it all back up and put it back in
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so
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for this year 2021 see if i can retain
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more length
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i'm not sleeping in elastic bands um so
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the elastic bands
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the bobby pins all those things got to
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come out of my hair before i go to bed
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and i have went around the house
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and gathered up all my satin scarfs that
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i never used
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um the scarves the bonnets i think i
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like do-rag
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so all the satin things that um i
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haven't been using the way i should
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i'm gonna make sure that i have
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something satin on my hair when i go to
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sleep at night
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so that is the second thing i think has
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been holding me back is just not
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protecting my hair at night before i go
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to sleep and sleeping with
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uh elastic bands and clips in my hair
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okay so the third thing i think has been
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holding me back
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from retaining length is lack of a
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regular
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routine um so i think about night time
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routine but i'm just talking about like
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a wash day routine
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so before i would wash my hair probably
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every two weeks it
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really really wasn't consistent um so
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this year i'm focusing on
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consistent non-complex routines
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for the last two or three months i've
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been washing my hair every seven to ten
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days like clockwork
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um and i like it my scalp likes it i
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thought dry flaky scalp in the
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wintertime was unavoidable for me
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but my my scalp has been so flake free
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and moisturized and i think i really
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attribute that to
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washing my hair every seven to ten days
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even when i was relaxed i think i would
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get my hair washed at most
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every two weeks but seven to ten days
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just kind of increasing the amount
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i uh just increasing the amount of wash
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days i've been doing
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i feel like i see improvement in my hair
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um even detangling is easier because now
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i'm doing it every seven to ten days
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there's not as much difficulty in
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detangling so my detangling sessions are
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shorter
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consistency over complexity i don't do a
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deep conditioner every time
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and i'm okay with that um so even if i
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only got time to
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leave conditioner on for three minutes
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i've been finding that just making sure
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i consistently wash my hair
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has been helpful for me so that is the
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third thing i'm changing up this year is
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having consistent
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wash day okay so the fourth thing that i
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think has been holding me back
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is
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[Music]
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i was trying to make a video about how
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great henna was
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and the universe kept stopping me like i
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would lose my footage
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um i would start recording and get
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interrupted
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and then i did a henna treatment and i
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was like oh snap this
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is messing up my hair i'm gonna have a
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dedicated video on it
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but there's this idea in the natural
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hair community
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at least from all of the content that
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i've taken in that
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as long as you buy 100 pure natural
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henna that you
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can't mess up your hair and that's not
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true there is a science
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and there is thousands of years of
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tradition that dictate how you should
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use henna
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um i try to make henna convenient and
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it's not convenient it's time consuming
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and it's messy
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um so when i tried to make henna
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convenient i started jacking up
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my hair that is one of the reasons i
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haven't been recording videos lately
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it's because i felt like
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who am i to tell people what to do with
6:24
it here i've been handling my hair
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for 10 years i throw out some guru on it
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and um
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the universe humbled me but i decided to
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keep
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going keep moving forward with my
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channel because
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we need more authentic content in the
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natural hair community people need to
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share their authentic experience
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so again i'm gonna have a dedicated
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video coming up on how
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i started him apart properly i started
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using him properly in the very beginning
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and how i kind of started tweaking it
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and tweaked it too much to the point
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where it wasn't good for my hair anymore
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and i spent a lot of time researching it
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reaching out to companies
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searching forums to figure out what i
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did wrong
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but yeah there's a right way and the
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wrong way to use
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even a hundred percent body odd quality
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henna
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and i will have a video on that um yeah
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so drop a comment down below
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on some of the things that you feel
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might be keeping you from retaining life
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or if you can relate
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to anything i've shared in this video
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again thanks for watching
7:23
and if you enjoyed this video subscribe
7:24
to my channel i'm trying to normalize
7:26
and happy haircare thanks for watching
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