Week 1 - lots of trial and error

My first few weeks trial and curl "progress".  Day 1 vs. Day 7.

 

• Day 1 (Wednesday): Conditioned in shower with H2O Sea Mineral conditioner, plopped, added Curls Creme Brule with praying hands, scrunched 

• Day 2 (Thursday): tried "final" shampoo (but probably not right shampoo because it was sulfate-free), plopped, scrunched - don't remember if I tried gel?  I had ordered some products from Target to try.  Felt hair looked HORRIBLE, flat, lifeless.  I think I also tried to diffuse with a cool setting.

• Day 3 (Friday): conditioned upside down, applied gel (Herbal Essences) in shower, plopped for about 10 minutes.  Scrunched to encourage curl and then again diffused on a cool setting until partially dry.
• Day 4 (Saturday): WINDY and COLD AS HECK DAY - was outside all morning at my daughters track meet.  Washed again, in an attempt at a final wash using a shampoo w/ sulfates to try to rid of any residual silicone in my hair.  Then conditioned, plopped and applied Aveda Be Curly creme (I had a small sample).  Hair was flat, frizzy, and felt sticky.
• Day 5 (Sunday): Ok, reading more on curly girl method, watching lots of YouTube videos, and back to heavily conditioning in shower, keeping hair as soaked/wet as possible then plopping and today I decided to let it go and not add any product (gel or curl creme).  Hair looked ok - but the shape of my hair is weighing my curls down. 
• Here is where I took a HUGE risk and now can't go back (at least for a while) from my curly girl efforts.  I cut my hair . . .
• Following some info I found online and in Lorraine Massey's Curly Girl handbook about the Deva Cut shape, approach to trimming layers of dry curls to allow the underside to be seen and top layers of curls to not be weighed down.  I cut my "bang" area in a "U" shape around my face and then trimmed around my head random curl clumps to allow the curl to bounce up.  We'll see how it looks in the coming days . . .
• Day 6 (Monday):  Washed and conditioned, tried not to rinse all conditioner out and used hands as a cup to allow cool shower water to rinse hair.  Applied Curls Creme Brule with praying hands, plopped for about 10 minutes, and then scrunched with t-shirt.  Felt, hair was looking ok, still working on "scrunching out the crunch" to make hair look softer and not so "wet" but curls bouncing and new self-imposed cut seems to have provided some lift.
• Day 7 (Tuesday): refresh day - did not recondition.  In shower I used my self made "curl activator" to re-dampen my hair and scrunched in the shower (did not rinse!) and then scrunched more out of the shower with cotton t shirt.  I'm VERY satisfied with my results today!
• My self-made curl activator, which was inspired by another curly girls recommendation I read online, is a spray bottle with 12 pumps of my conditioner, 3 small squirts of gel, and water.  Shake before use and spray on dry hair to re-fresh.
• Sleep routine: I bought some satin scrunchies at Target and tried the pineapple method of sleeping with hair loosely collected at top of head.  Think I'll continue this method for the time being, seemed to work well on my hair specifically between days 6 and 7.