I suck at taking care of my hair. My approach now is just to be as hands off as possible. Low manipulation is actually the best and I find I'm retaining much more length. However, as my hair gets longer, it's tangling like crazy. I've figured out the oil rinsing trick. I finger comb my hair most of the time too. As I keep it in twists, a twist out or just in two or four big twists and pinned down, I'm not handling it much. I also only co-wash except when I'm doing an Aphogee treatment. However, thank the Maker, but I can actually afford to go to a salon now, if I want.

The only thing I really need to do is just get pampered. I'm thinking maybe a deep conditioning treatment and a trim AFTER I trust that the stylist isn't scissor happy though. Hell, maybe I can just go to them for the Aphogee treatment that I do every six weeks.

Soooooooooooooooooooo...now that I'm back in the SF Bay area, I know there are tons of black salons in the Oakland area. Does anyone know of any good natural stylists in the Oakland area? If there are some in San Francisco, that can work too, but I'm in the East Bay now and would rather not have to go all the way in the city to sit in a salon chair.

Thanks in advance for any info and recommendations.