My Hair Tid Bits

I have a thick head of hair. Whoda Thunk? Not that my hair was on the thin side when it was permed, it was full, but I don’t think it could be classified as thick. That’s exciting. Could I be on my way to disrespectfully BIG hair???

My actual hair strands are super fine though, but they are densely packed on my head making it thick. I guess I can see why my Grannie permed my hair in the first place. It wasn’t exactly common when I was little to saturate hair with water and conditioner before a good detangling session. And to get through this right here? Without water?? Yea… No go. I wouldn’t dare try it.

I’ve also see that the my edges are a tad spacey on the left side of my head. I believe it’s from when I was wrapping my straight hair before bed. For those who don’t know, wrapping your hair is when you comb/brush your hair around your head kind of like a beehive in order to preserve the straightness of the hair. I religiously wrapped my hair every night.  I would wrap my hair from the left side swooping to the right and around my head. Thinking back, I remember my edges on that side being sore; like at the actual follicle level. I was causing stress in that area because I was going against the grain (brushing it upward) constantly thus, irritating the follicles. It was especially sore right after I got a retouch because my scalp had been stripped of all oils so it was super dry and my hair was not immediately pliable. But as my head accumulated sebum and I oiled my scalp, the soreness eventually subsided and didn’t hurt again until the next retouch. This was a cycle. I hadn’t noticed the damage until now. I’m surprised at how I have any edges at all between me wrapping my hair and me rocking my everyday ponytail.

Any who, back to my natural hair. Here is the run down–

About my hair and how I care for it:

• I don’t have “a curl” <— I get this question ALL the time. I assume they’re talking about a Jheri Curl… I’ve only had a perm to straighten my hair and I’ve had them continuously since I was around 5-7 years old. I got retouches every 3-4 months. I’ve been chemical independent since summer 2011 and I big chopped Febuary 15, 2012!
• I have microscopically thin individual strands with a small amount of medium strands scattered throughout. I have a lot of these individual strands though, making my hair thick.
• I do not manipulate my hair at all while dry! If want to use my fingers to make a part, or bobby pin a piece here or there, I mist my hair with water. I definitely don’t detangle (finger or otherwise) if it’s not sopping wet and slathered with conditioner.
• I re-wash and go mostly everyday. If I skip a day, I revitalize the bedhead look by squirting my hair with my nifty spray bottle-o-water, then I might follow up with Shea Moisture Curl and Shine Mist. I rarely go no more than 2 days without completely redoing my hair.
• I find that I cannot use rinse out conditioners as leave in’s as they lather/froth and, most time, leave a white cast in my hair after it dries (which can take 8-10 hours!). I use conditioners/creams/puddings especially specified to be used as a leave in with the exception of some deep conditioners, such as CJ Curl Rehab.
• Avoid glycerin as the Florida climate I live in doesn’t allow for it. The dew points are 70 and above right now!
• I’m not protein sensitive – I don’t avoid them in the regular amounts in regular products. I don’t do protein treatments, though.
• I have not used silicones in my routine, though I can see the benefits others have with them. I haven’t had any issues retaining moisture, so I don’t need it as a sealer. Detangling is pretty easy using a slippery conditioner, so I don’t need it as a detangler. Also, I only shampoo every other week, so they could cause build up or block moisture until I thoroughly cleanse my hair again.
• Extremely afraid of heat and heat damage. I’ve had straight hair all my life and at this time I have no desire to straighten or see any lengh.

Challenges:

1. Issue: Spacey left sided edges Intervention: Apply jojoba oil on edges at night to create a barrier between the band on my bonnet and my hair: It could cause more damage because it sits and rubs right on my edges. Also, no pulled back styles (I have a TWA… Not that hard!).
2. Issue: Prevent whiteness from leave in’s Intervention: Avoid frothy rinse out conditioners. Use a creamier, slightly heavier leave in, like ones specifically made to be left in.
3. Issue: Reverse whiteness post product application Intervention: *insert Homer – Doh! here* I’m not sure how to go about doing that yet.

That’s all I have for now. I will add/delete/check off/modify as things change.

Let’s Jam in Alabama!

So I’ve just cleaned up at Curl Mart and I definitely didn’t plan on buying any more products this month, but I went away for the weekend (supposedly on my way to Atlanta, but made an impromptu stop in Alabama don’t ask because I don’t know either) and ran across Let’s Jam Custard randomly at Walgreens!! I’ve been in and out of Walgreens, CVS’s, Targets, and Walmarts home in Florida looking for this product since I first heard about it from Jesse of Mahogany Curls back in April. This product has been soo elusive.  I eventually gave up and came to the conclusion that Florida has a ban on it. I couldn’t even find it on the black market. So when I saw it during my usual-walk-through-of-the-product-aisle-even-though-all-I-came-for-is-an-emergency-water-squirt-bottle, I cleaned the shelf! Who knows when I’ll run across it again. I walked out with 3 containers of Let’s Jam Custard. Alabama’s Walgreens is where it’s at!

I’m playing with my Oyin’s Hair Dew this week, but I cannot wait to get my hand in the Custard. Stay tuned for the update!

My Curl Mart Came!

Stay tuned for pix/reviews!

Deep Conditioning and Detangling My TWA

How I deep condition my hair. I used Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose Conditioner.

Deep Conditioning Miss Fire

I’ve been dry DC every week with Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose Conditioner (AO) once a week since I’ve cut my hair. Love it. No problems. This time around though, I tried a different conditioner. I had heard some hype about Shea Moisture Raw Shea Butter Deep Treatment Masque and since I pick up unnecessary items at Target anyway, I went and bought it. The ingredients are stellar;

• Contains de-ionized water, Shea butter, Argan oil, vegetable glycerin, emulsifying wax, sea kelp extract, Panthenol, essential oil blend, avocado oil, Lonicera Caprifolium (honeysuckle) flower and Lonicera Japonica (Japanese honeysuckle) flower extract, Tocopherol (vitamin E), Hyssopus Officinalis Extract, Salvia Officinalis (sage) leaf and Equisetum Arvense Extract, soybean oil and Daucus Carota Sativa (carrot) seed oil.

I put it on my dry hair, as I would the AO, before bed. I use my hands to distribute the conditioner by smooshing and rubbing it in my hair, not running my fingers through. I like that it comes in a jar because I use a lot of condish to cover my hair and it’s much easier to scoop. Oh… when I say cover, I don’t mean I saturated my hair to the point you can squeeze or scrape out much excess once I finish; it’s just slightly moist with product.

Anyway, I wrapped my hair up in my old perm satin scarf and went to bed. When I got up and rinsed it the next morning and I almost died! I don’t know what happened, but YUCK! My hair felt soggy! It was so limp and soft like mushy overcooked noodles. It was horrid.

Mind you, the individual strands of hair on my head are fine, not coarse by a long shot. After rinsing, my wet hair felt like I was running my hand through a massive spider web. <– think about how that would feel… I’ll wait. Yea, I know right. I was scared that I had permanently damaged my hair.

So with a little googling, I found out my hair had the signs and symptoms of being overconditioned! I didn’t know you could have too much moisture! This was news to me. I searched and searched and come to find out it’s reversible. I just needed a dose of protein.

A massive amount of blogs and websites suggested ApHogee Protein Treatment. I didn’t have that on hand and not only that, it seemed way strong! Other sites claimed protein foodies would help. I had some eggs, so I mixed it up with some extra virgin olive oil and prayed.

I poured it over my wet hair in the sink, trying to saturate all the strands. It was a mess! Yellow yolk dripping everywhere. I put on a clear processing cap and it started to drip down my face and neck so I tucked some toilet paper under the elastic band (good thing I buy the good stuff), but it eventually saturated it and dripped down my neck some more. Who knows how much was actually left in my hair at this point, but I rinsed it out after about 30 mins because I was beyond grossed out. (Also, I didn’t use heat, of course, because I didn’t want scramble eggs in my hair.)

After the rinse, I didn’t feel instant improvement. I lightly shampooed with Shea Moisture Curl and Shine Shampoo to ensure I got the yolk yuck out. I was a little if-y about the next step. I was apprehensive about putting conditioner back my hair. Isn’t that what got me in this state in the first place? I bit the bullet and followed up with Tressemme Naturals. I figured I could always try the ApHogee Protein Treatment if all else failed.

After the whole little “treatment” , applying the conditioner, rinsing it out, then leaving in Shea Moisture’s Curl and Style Milk, it didn’t feel any more soft which was good, but it still didn’t have much life or body. I was grateful that it didn’t still feel like wet cobwebs though, just more like limp ramen noodles. When it had air dried, it was still not right. There was no spring in the curls and my hair felt thin and I had a lot of stray hairs sticking out between limp semi formed curls.

I, then, decided I would wait it out. Maybe it would even it’s self out over time. So I didn’t rewash and go for 3 days. I just sprayed it lightly with water every morning just to get the bedhead out. My angle was to starve my hair of moisture hoping for it to be less moisturized. I mean, I can alway recondition it. It got frizzier and frizzier. I finally decided to rewet it in the shower the 4th day and did my usual wash and go routine and my hair felt good!! Dehydrating (as I called it) breathed new life into my hair. It was back to its thick springy self and I was so happy that I didn’t have to do a hardcore protein treatment because, honestly, they scare me to death. The horror stories I read about them leaving hair brittle to the point of it breaking, like for real snapping in two, because the protein was too much so then people remoisturize to  them throwing the balance of moisture -vs- protein even more out of whack

This fiasco left me perplexed. What did I do wrong? Did I leave it in too long? I DC with AO in the same fashion without any problems. The ingredients in this Shea Moisture DC looks good, so what happened? Needless to say, I won’t be using this product anymore.

I am grateful though that I was able to experience what overconditioned hair feels like and even more grateful to have been able to reverse it by sheer flipping luck. I don’t know what was more effective the egg and EVOO combination or the ‘dehydrating’ process or neither, but either way I needed a fail proof protein replacement plan in case this were to ever happen again. 

I searched for a protein treatment that wasn’t ApHogee Protein Treatment and I came across Curl Junkie’s Repair Me!. It’s a protein based conditioner that supposedly feels like a silky smooth conditioner with tons of slip and makes your hair super strong and soft as opposed to ApHogee Protein Treatment that can leave your hair hard after rinsing so you have to follow up with a moisturizing deep conditioner. Now with the Repair Me!, I’ve heard that people have been tempted to leave it in because it’s so moisturizing. This sounded so good so you know I bought it! I now have it safely in my arsenal and I would say I can’t wait to use it, but having overconditioned hair is not fun.

I’ll stick with my AO.

Wash and Go using L’oreal EverStyle Alcohol Free Defining Gel

I tried gel for the first time today! I used L’oreal EverStyle Alcohol Free Defining Gel based on Jess’s [from MahonganyCurls.com (HEARTZ HER)] review. I was a little nervous because if it turned out funny, there would be any time to redo it without being late for work.

Here’s the low-down. I wet my hair, cowashed with Tresemme Naturals, and kept it in while I showered. I finger detangled and rinsed the very moment before I stepped out so it would be super wet. Then, once out the shower, I put on about 3 quarter size amounts of Shea Moisture Curl and Style Milk then went straight for the gel. I used about 2 quarter size amounts of the gel. It up the slip of the SM Curl and Style Milk and my fingers glided through my hair like warm syrup down hot pancakes. Then I shook it out like a mugg-stanky. It look like it usually does, but without a lick of hair out of place. Weird.

I did my hair at 5:30 am and it was dry by 10:00 am… Unprecedented! As it dried, my hair shrank more dramatically than usual. It didn’t just shrink in length, like it always does, but in volume as well.  My hair usually goes upward and outward as it gets shorter while it dries (frizz?).

The results with the gel looked like I had super fine and thin hair and had done comb-curls. Not only that, the curls sprung up on themselves and dried like a collapsed accordion.

My hair didn’t feel crunchy, though. It was soft, yet firm. I probably can attribute that to the SM Curl and Style Milk diluting the holding properties. I’ll have to play with it more to see if it will give harder/softer results with less/more of a leave in.

I have a mix of thin and medium hair when talking about the diameter of individual strands and thick hair when it comes to density (a lot of strand per square inch).This gel made my hair look a little too err…. tamed for me. I mean, I could see my scalp between curls. In the 3 months I’ve had my TWA, I hardly ever see my scalp. I was kind of proud of that fact because that meant I’m on my way to having “disrespectfully big hair“; this gel killed that dream. To see that much of my scalp between curls made me kind of… sad. And them looking like they had been individually Shirly-Templed by mercels looked unnatural. Not the look for me. Thank goodness I can wash it out.

I usually redo my wash and go everyday, but I had hardly touched my hair and it didn’t seem to frizz at all, so tested out second day hair with the gel. I slept in my bonnet and woke with the usual bed head. I took my spray bottle-o-water to it until it was just moist (not wet) and shook it out and it came back to life. When it dried (about 2 hours later) the firmer hold had loosened up a bit and my hair looked a wee bit ummm… disheveled. It looked good. It looked like the final product of my usual wash and go. You know, fuller. I liked it and it still felt soft and moisturized.

The third day was gloomy and rainy, you know, one of those cuddle-up-with-your-boo kind of days, and since I don’t have a boo, I decided to watch sappy romantic movies instead. I didn’t want to redo my hair because I didn’t want to lay around with wet hair, so I refresh it like the day before and I sooo could have left the house with this third day hair! It was frizzier and bigger than the 1st 2 days, but not horribly so. It didn’t look like I had neglected to do anything to my hair or anything like that; it just looked like curly fro.

In conclusion, this gel did tame my hair… too much I might add. I don’t think this gel is a total bust though. I am going to experiment with the amount I use vs the amount of a leave in to see if I can find a happy medium between totally frizz out and a lifeless accordion. I did like the fact that I could have that much control of my hair… All 2.5 inches of it.

I’ll update soon…

White Specks and New Leave In’s

My Darcy’s Botanicals Cocoa Bean and the Pumpkin Seed Condish will be here tomorrow! I can. not. wait. I’ve heard sooo many good things about these products… Actually about Darcy’s B period!

I hope they work out because I’ve shied away from using regular drug store rinse out (RO) conditioners, such as Tresemme Naturals (TN), as my leave in’s (LI) and now I only have one tried and true LI. Don’t get me wrong, the RO’s like TN keep my hair moisturized and don’t cause me to get build up, but they do have a bad habit of lathering in my hair. My hair is low porosity in various areas, so it takes forever to dry and until it does (6-7 hours later!), I have white lather in my hair in a those spots. And after it’s dry, I have dry lather left over. Not cute.

See the dry white specks?

I played with the products I owned and began putting Shea Moisture’s Curl and Style Milk (SMCASM) on top of the RO conditioner and had better (as in not complete) success with the “white” plus it acted as a sealer, but do you know how long it takes for this combo to dry? 10 hours!! I have all of 2.5 inches of hair! I don’t really know how long my hair is in inches. I’m trying to make a point here people. There had to be a better way. So I played with the ratios not real mathematical computation. Stay with me now and eased up on the RO before using the SMCASM. It now took 6-7 hours to dry like using a RO alone, just without as much white. Okay, now we were getting somewhere.

Then I gave gels a try (I’ve tried L’oreal Everstyle No-Alcohol Gel and recently Kiss My Face Upper Management Gel) and figured out that, in the right proportion, it also helps cut down on the white when I paired it with a RO without the SMCASM. Still not good enough.

Finally, for the past month I’ve been rinsing out all the conditioner and using SMCASM exclusively as my LI. And guess what? There is no white lather or dried white specks! On top of that, it dries in 4-5 hours! As my Grannie would say — Hotdog! I got frizz at first, so I started adding gel on top. Perfect. Only took me 3 months to figure it out.

So that brings me to Darcy’s Botanicals. I need more LI’s!! I think SMCASM is great. Then I thought: How do I really know it’s great if I don’t have anything to compare it to? Hmmm? Riddle me that…

Give me a week, I’ll let you know!

Fairy Knot…

I found my very first Single Strand Knot! I thought these were some kind of fairytale… I thought the whole natural hair community was lying to me! For the life of me I could not understand exactly how hair could wrap and loop up on itself to form these little buggers. Now I know. First hand!

I stepped out the shower after my usual wash and go routine and I started examining the hair on my hands to see if they where still connected to the bulbs (shed hair) or torn hairs (breakage) only found 1 torn whoo hoo!. And low and behold, there this infamous knot was.

Click to open in new window

(on my ring finger… Do you see it?)

I then held the bulb end between my fingers of one hand and used my fingers of my other hand to slide down from root to tip to get a feeling of how they feel so, maybe, I can recognize one when I’m manipulating my hair at any given moment. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t really feel the knot. Then how could I ever feel one of knots in the mist of a clump of hair when I’m detangling or styling, if ever it gets long enough to? And if I found one that mean it might be others… And I have no idea how to find them.

Sooo how serious is this “condition”? In my research, I’ve heard a lot about it, but I never heard anyone say SSK’s made their hair fall out, stop growing, or create more split ins. So what’s the severity of these little things?

It was on a “shed” hair, so I assume the SSK itself didn’t cause it to fall out. Or did it?

Interesting…

Curly Girl Method Fits

Hey,

I’m one month post big chop and so far on my natural journey I’ve found that the Curly Girl Method (CG Method) is agreeing with me. Not only because it’s kept my hair healthy, detangled, and defined, but because it aligns so perfectly with my overall health practices, also.

For the past few years I have been working on fortifying my body by keeping harmful chemicals out of it. I try to eat a very clean and wholesome diet complete with exercise and plenty of rest. I stay away from processed, fast food, and impurities such as artificial preservatives. Basically I eat thing that grow directly from the ground (yanno… twigs and berries) and roam the fields (not a big meat eater but I’ll tear some eggs up!) I soooo wish I could buy all my food from Whole Foods, but have you seen their prices??? This is why I think this hair care method “spoke” to me. I like that Lorraine Massey stresses botanically filled hair care products.

The CG Method excludes harsh chemicals such as sulfates, silicones, and artificial preservatives. Even in follow this method, there are so many products with alternative “less harsh” chemicals. I love Tresemme Naturals Nourishing Moisture Conditioner and Shea Moisture’s line, for example, because of their wholesome ingredients. I can pronounce everything!

In creating this blog and my YouTube channel, I hope to eventually branch out and try other wholesome hair products maybe make and try my own recipe? Yikes!.

Any who, I hope my blog is helpful and informative to you!

Love and no-hair-grease,

Rennie