Just a quick hair update: I am now in my 12th week of stretching my relaxer and am continuing to stretch to the last week of October 2011. I have never stretched my relaxer past 11 weeks (without putting it in braids, etc.), but I have found that it has become easier to stretch my relaxer this year. Why? Well, when I first started stretching my relaxer last year, I stretched it a little bit past 8 weeks. Then I stretched it a little past 10 weeks. I kept increasing the amount of time I stretched based on what my hair could take without going through any adverse consequences (e.g., breaking). My hair has been able to stretch even longer now, and I can still wear my hair down (with the whole "swing" action and all). The only difference is that my roots have some curl to it, which draws up some of my length. Is that a problem for me? Not at all. In fact, if you are stretching your relaxer, you need to embrace curlier roots and not be obsessed with making them as straight as humanly possible with a flat iron. If anything, nurture your roots by giving yourself scalp massages during the stretching process a few days a week. I also highly recommend not wearing your hair down too often. I vary my hair routine between wearing it down and pinning it up throughout the week. 

My hair (as you can see in the pic to the left, taken a few days ago) is a little closer to bra strap. I'm not sure if it would touch bra strap if I relaxed my hair today (if it did, great! if not, that's cool too). I did another at-home protein treatment yesterday (check out my hair journal post on doing an at-home protein treatment), so my hair feels really strong and nourished today. 

That's pretty much it for now. More updates are on the way!

-Kris