How much time is too much?

I've got to ask, since the subject of the amount of time I spend on my hair has been popping up quite often. I know I'm not being obsessive but I'll tell you how my routine goes and you tell me.

So I've been reading tons of posts about the benefits of protective styling and all the hair challenges flying around, I decided to make a few changes to my routine. I started off going to the hairdresser to make my twists and the plan was to keep them in for two weeks at a time, but I find at the end of the week my twists look frizzy and are begging for a re-doing. I stretched the first twists I got to two weeks, but I had plenty of knots on the tip of my hair when I took them down and it made my head look small.

The next week I got a cornrow + twist in front from the hair dressers again but I took them out after a week because again it got very frizzy. That weekend I opted to twist my self and instead of medium size twists I made minis, it took me 7 hours spread over two days to achieve this, but on the Friday of the same week I took the twists down again and wore a puff and pompadour for the rest of the week, that's where the troubles begin.

When I sleep with my hair in a pillow or scarf I get bed head in the morning and I really don't like my hair caking up at night and spending extra time in the morning to get it back in style. To work around this I make 8-9 braids/twists at night and undo them in to morning for a braid out or puff. The twists/braids take me about 20 minutes to make and about 7-10minutes to undo in the morning. so last thing at night and first thing in the morning :-)

So in total I'll say about 30 minutes a day,  over the week it adds up to 3.5 hours which is ok by me.
But I know it looks like all I do is have my hand in my hair all the time. But what to I do? It comes with the territory of being natural but it also comes across as slightly obsessive.

What do you think ladies?
How can I improve on my routine?
Have you been accused of spending too much time on your hair?
How much time is too much?

Sneak Peak

I've been fighting a bad cold but I'm taking a break to put up sime pictures of my hair, so we can see how I've been doing!

I had mini twists I made myself last Friday/Saturday but for some crazy reason I decided to take them down, don't ask me why, the plan was to keep them in for two weeks. Anyway this is my puff today:

And these were the twists before:

Oh I remember why I took them down, I was trying to do this pin-up look with my hair

Looks like I need plenty of practice to nail this one, it doesn't look quite right.

Products

This week I added some leave in to my routine, I was after a light weight conditioner I could spray on my hair along with my oil and water mix in my spray bottle. I ended of buying 3 (PJ)  in the spirit of seeing which one works best for me. I got Pantene pro-v aqua light, Loreal elvive full restore and  Loreal elvive re-nutrition night serum. I don't fall for all that soft and shiny crap advertised anymore, I judge by how a product makes my hair feel.

Both leave-in conditioners from Loreal had a similar effect on my hair, they really added moisture to my hair and were very suitable for reviving dry hair in the morining, and the moisture lasts all day. The main difference between these products is that the full restore contains wheat protien and castor oil while the serum has evening primrose oil and royal jelly extract, I think in future I can use one or the other and achieve the same results.

I haven't used the Pantene pro-v yet, but it smells good looks light weight hopefully it will be just as good.

I've lost count of how many oils I've got in my spray bottle and I've made it worse this week by adding flaxseed, wheatgrem and lavender extract. One thing I've noticed is that after this addition the oil and water seems to blend a lot better and stays mixed for a significant amount of time after shaking.

So the mix started off as shea moisture reconstructive elixir, then some oil form curls got added in to refill, then some olive oil, jojoba, tea tree, sweet almond, beargamount.........and it keeps growing.

In the last few weeks my new routine has helped my hair improve, I'm not officially doing any hair challenge but I'll keep twisting, learning, sharing and practicing the healthy hair habits I'm learning from the natural hair community.

Feel free to comment and share your tips with me.