What Are Your Hair Goals?

Today I'm coming through really quick to talk about hair goals. Do you have any hair goals? Just like anything else in life I have goals for my hair. I'm not a perfectionist or anything but my number one goal for my hair was to perfect my regimen. This comes with trial and error trying different products. Which ends up finding products your hair doesn't like. This brings me to my number 2 of my short term goal, learning my hair. There's a few products that my hair completely hates. Such as Shea butter, Shea Moisture's Coconut & Hibiscus Curl Enhancing Smoothie just to say a few. That product is weird to me because my hair loves both coconut and hibiscus lol.

  Third on my short term goals was to reach Arm Pit Length(APL), then Bra Strap Length(BSL) and Mid Back Length(MBL). Though I was eager to reach these three goals. MBL took me the longest, for some reason it seemed like everything changed on my hair. Like something over night. Products changed for my hair, my texture even changed towards the back. The front of my hair seemed like it was Spring all year long. I had so much new growth. It was a good thing because it seemed as though it was thinning slightly. Then my edges mostly around my temples started looking a little scarce. Then for 3 long years it seemed like I could not retain my length passed BSL. Wheew!! It was a lot but luckily I didn't lose hair like crazy or ending up with even shorter hair.

 Pretty much this article is so that you will if you haven't already write down your hair goals. Stick to them and make sure you stay motivated and take great care of your hair to reach those goals that you have set. Well that's all for now see you later...............


Short Term Goals:
1. Perfecting my regimen
2. Learning my hair
3.To reach APL- Achieved May 10
4. To reach BSL- Achieved  Oct 10
5. To reach MBL- Achieved Aug 13


Long Term Goals:
1. To have healthy hair
2. Let my hair grow to its full potential
3. My hair to touch my shoulders in it's shrunken state
4. My fro to get bigger than Aevin Dugas

Hair Diary #9 Jamaican Black Castor Oil

I’m back you guys! This post won’t be that long though. I’m just coming through to tell you about a new product I bought. Now as you saw in the older posts I’ve been using castor oil. I mentioned how I wanted to try Jamaican black castor oil. Well I got it and I’ve been using that in my hair for about a month and a half now. I’m definitely starting to see the difference already. My roots have become a lot fuller in the front. For a little while the front of my hair was becoming a little scarce because of my BC especially in the temple area. My hair was breaking off in the front leaving a lot of short hairs in between my long hairs. I’m so glad it’s starting to grow longer for me so it can start matching my longer and the back of my hair again.

 I’ve been applying it all over my scalp and when I remember I massage it into my scalp as well. I would like to massage it into my scalp at least 3-5 times a week. The only thing is this stuff doesn’t smell too good lol. Like it smells like burnt wood or something. How I’m able to counteract this smell a little is the peppermint oil that I have in my daily spritzer. Overall I really like this product; I’m even using it as a sealant mixed with jojoba oil for my hair after I apply my KCKT. Afterwards I apply a little bit of my macadamia nut butter and my hair is in business.  Have you ever tried Jamaican Black Castor oil? If so what is your thoughts on this product?

                                          

Hair Diary #8 Hair after flat iron

Hello, hello, hello!  Okay before you say anything I know I should be ashamed of myself for being away for so long. I really am too. I’ve planned on coming back a few times but then I got distracted with more things. I will try to do better this time around. So on the last post I talked about how I straightened my hair for the first time. Well I let that style stay in my hair for 2 weeks. A few months before I saw some videos talking about beer rinses and how to wash your hair with a beer rinse once you’re ready to wash your straight hair. I got the non alcoholic kind the cheapest one in Walmart. I don’t really remember the name but I was feeling kind of lazy that day and sarcastically asked my boyfriend could he wash my hair lol. To my surprise he said yes and was willing to wash it for me.  I thought this was a good way he could see all I go through to wash my hair. He knows it takes me hours to my hair on wash days. So he did everything for me but put my DC in (I chose to do this one myself).  After that he washed the DC out for me, I’m so thankful for him helping me out so much wheew!! I wasn’t feeling like dealing with my hair that day.

Results: NO HEAT DAMAGE, YAY!!!  I wasn’t feeling it that day and forgot to take pictures of my hair lol. So after my hair was completely washed and was clean I applied my KCKT(Kinky Curly Knot Today) leave in conditioner to my hair and literally put in like 8 twists in my hair. Two twists in each of the four sections. That was it no moisturizer or oil, I told you guys I was feeling lazy that day lol. I wrapped my hair up and went to sleep, with good intentions to put a better style in the next day. I didn't they stayed in for a few days and I wore a beret  to cover the big parts and look stylish at the same time. After a few days I took those twists out spritz my hair a little just slightly damp and applied my Macadamia nut butter and put my hair in mini twists.

lazy big twists 

my mini twists 

I wore those twists for 2 weeks and co- washed them after the first week trying something new. I don’t normally wash my hair while it’s in mini twists but I didn’t hurt anything. Co washing them did make them look really refreshed. I didn’t have my macadamia nut butter on me so I used some of a friends beautiful textures moisture butter. Ummm…. I didn’t really care for it much, but then again I don’t know if it was completely bad for my hair because I just applied it on top of my twists. I think I still should have had better results but needless to say it didn’t keep my hair moisturized long. So I don’t think I will waste my money on that product. Good to know because I was considering buying it lol. I applied my Macadamia nut butter again and my hair was finally happy and moisturized again. Have you guys ever tried the Beautiful Textures moisture butter before? What was your take on it? Well this is all folks…. Until next time! J

Hair Diary #7 Flat Ironed Hair

Hello, hello….. So as I explained in my last post I straightened my hair for the first time. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe because so many years of watching other naturals straighten theirs on YouTube. Or simply because I did the roller set first, which made it easy because I already had parts sectioned(I used about 35-40 rollers).  Next time whenever that will be I think I’m going to do a flexi rod set first. My main reason for that is because my roller sets pretty much suck lol and my flexi rod sets come out looking GAWgeous!! Lol. They’re also smaller sections which will be even easier and I don’t have to worry about the roots not being smoothed.

Why did I roller set my hair instead of blow drying my hair you ask? Well I’m not too big on heat with my hair. I want to keep my hair as healthy as I can. Blow drying is a direct heat and all the tugging with the brush or the comb on the flat iron can be a little hard and can cause some breakage and excess shedding if you’re not careful. Roller setting is the healthier alternative it’s not direct heat and you wouldn’t have to worry about the heat damage.  Even though heat damage isn’t a problem with roller setting I still applied a little heat protectant all over my head before rolling just as a precaution.

Now with that being said about heat, once I took the rollers out and sectioned my hair in four big sections to work with.  As I pull sections within the four sections I applied a little more heat protectant (Grapeseed oil). You’re probably thinking that’s a lot huh? Well I would rather be cautious then sad at the end because I have to start all over.  I then passed the flat iron through the sections I only used 1 or 2 passes. Some sections in the back I passed the flat iron through twice but the whole front of my hair only got one pass through. I also used the lowest heat setting possible. When I tell you I’m cautious I am so serious lol. I don’t need a bunch of passes on each section or a lot of heat anyways because I never really cared for bone straight hair on me.

During: Back Finished  I don't know why I had a black shirt on while I was doing this lol

Finished whole head and stretching it to it's full length: (Excuse my face I was tired and you can see by these pictures my hair wasn't bone straight)

I put my hair in a low and loose bun and went to sleep. The next day I took it out the bun put my hair in pin curls for body which is how I normally wear my hair to sleep. I didn't ever learn how to wrap my hair lol Don't judge me! If you don't know what pin curls are here is a video that I did the last time my hair was straight.                                                                 

So I took them out out and this is what I had 

 Can you believe I didn't even comb the curls out yet and it was so pretty. So what do you guys think? Well ladies and gents if their is some reading until next time......

Hair Diary #6 Hair Consultation

So it's been about a week and a half since my last post so I thought I would come check in with you guys and tell you what's been going on lately. So this week I set up an appointment for a consultation with a natural hair stylist.  I went to my appointment and the lady was so nice. I was still wearing my bun from the last post and she takes it out and is like "WHOA!!! you have a lot of hair" lol. I thought she was going to just stop or barely look at my hair because of that, but nope. She felt my hair, looked at my ends, looked for build up etc. Then she tells me that my hair is in great shape. I was glad to hear that as I was hoping their wasn't something I was missing. Then she starts asking me questions about what I use in my hair and what I use as a DC because my hair felt very moisturized as she takes the little bit of it from off her hands and starts to rub on her arms like lotion lol.


From their we talked more about my regimen and she told me a little bit of hers. She said she was suprised how healthy my hair was from only doing it myself with no help and that I gained a lot of length in such a little bit of time. I then told her a little of my natural hair story and how I'm pushing for even longer hair. Is it just me or during the first year or two of your natural hair journey did your hair grow crazy fast? Mine did and even though it's still growing it has slowed down a little. I'm starting to think it was because of my Mirena but I don't know. I still will retain my goal of having WL (Waist length) hair.

Anyways now back to the story so during the rest of my consultation we started talking and it seemed as though we had been friends for a long time that's funny how something just as simple as hair can do that. So to all of you out there that are having problems with your hair or are just curious to know how your hair is doing try setting up a consultation appointment with a natural hair stylist. There really is nothing you can lose from this experience because it's free but you can gain a lot about the state your hair is in or if you're on the right track with your hair. So try it out and see how you like it, I would advise it to be a natural hair stylist as some others may have a biased opinion.

P.S. Before I forget their is also something else I forgot to mention I'm going to straighten my hair for the FIRST time ever......I paid somebody to do it for me when I was relaxed just because I knew nothing about hair whatsoever at the time. So this is a warning so PLEASE DON'T JUDGE ME (Chris Brown) If it comes out looking a horrible mess because i'm trying. I don't really get practice at this because I hardly ever use heat, but i'm sitting under the dryer now as I type. So stay tuned for my next post which will be in the next few days to see the results. Until next time.......

Hair Diary #5

Okay you guys so this post is like a week late BUT it’s always better late than never lol. Okay so last week Dec. 13^th was my wash day. I’ve decided on going back to weekly washes and will only do every 2 week washes if I’m like very very busy. I just realized hey I can’t do that because my black tea rinses need to be weekly for a while to help with the shedding. So yea I ended up going back to my weekly wash days.

So last week I made another homemade DC just trying new things I guess you could say. I mixed in a bowl some yogurt, honey, VO5 strawberry & cream moisture milk conditioner, small amount of smoothing mangosteen yogurt vitamin conditioner (finishing it up), olive oil cholesterol, amla powder, avocado oil, almond oil and castor oil and applied it on dry hair. Once the DC was completely saturated on my hair I held my head over the tub and poured the black tea rinse on my hair concentrating mostly on my scalp then to the rest of my hair.

This is what it looked like :  

After this process I put the shower cap over my head and a regular grocery bag. I watched a movie, got on YouTube, facebook etc and fell asleep lol. I no intentions on falling asleep this time but it happened oh well EXTRA moisture for me ha-ha. So in the morning I washed my hair out. It left my hair feeling really silky and strong at the same time. While it was still pretty much dripping wet I applied my leave in conditioner to my hair KCKT (Kinky Curly Knot Today) which I need to buy more because I’m very low. Then added a small amount of my favorite butter which is Macadamia nut butter to my hair and put it in twists. After I finished the twists I got some castor oil out applied it to my scalp and every twist.

Later on that day when I took my twist-out  out it was so pretty and very moisturized and my curls were seriously popping like so crazy. I have a few things in mind to do with the castor oil. In the upcoming months I’ll be trying a few things with it. Today is my wash day again and my curls are still intact and haven’t started to frizz yet I’m so loving it. If you haven’t already tried out some castor oil on your hair and let me know how it does for your hair. I used Home Health but any will work if its natural/organic ex: Jamaican Black Castor Oil. Until next time..!! J 

Hair Diary # 4

Hello everyone!!! I just thought I would post something really quick about my hair today. So for almost two months now on Facebook and Twitter I've been debating on which day I would  release my fro. Well today was the day, I noticed the weather looked really good and I just felt like doing it. So first thing when I woke up in the morning I took down my four big twists. I spritz my hair with a little bit of water and a little oil I mixed with the water. In addition to that i added a little bit of coconut oil to all four sections and started picking away. Just that simple but you should have a little patience so you don't start ripping your hair out. Especially when its time to comb those curls out.

Doing it this way is a little more work than if I were to blow my hair out....but.... I didn't want to add any heat to my hair just yet. I have plans to add heat to my hair maybe towards the end of this month or the begging of January. Anyways I picked and picked and spritz a little and then I patted my hair down. I can sit there and pat for a while so it can look as close to perfect as possible. Only problem is now my fro is too big for my car :(. As soon as I sat down in my car I noticed the roof of my car and my hair were getting ready for war. I pretty much couldn't turn my hair too much while I was driving or I would have to worry bout picking the top of my hair all over again. Good thing is dropped my pick in my purse before I walked out the door so I was GREAT. I will post my video I just uploaded today of hair as well as my pictures below. Until next time everyone...........Good day!!

 

Hair Diary #3 Black Tea Rinse

Hey you guys!!! How’s everything? I know it’s been a long time and sorry to keep you hanging, but now I’m back. On my previous hair diary post I told you guys I twisted my hair up and besides my Knot Today leave in conditioner the only other product I had in my hair was Coconut Oil. Below I will post a video I did the next day of my Coconut Oil only twist out results.

So the twist out lasted longer than expected. There was a death in the family and the funeral fell around my hair washing day so it didn’t happen lol. I actually wore the twist out for a full two weeks. That’s long for me because I’m the wash my hair every week type of girl. Believe it or not though I liked it, it gave me more time of a style and a break from a whole day or half a day of washing my hair every week. So lately I’ve been washing it every 2 weeks instead of weekly. I think this may only last during the colder months.

Besides that I continued to DC (regular homemade) on dry hair and still LOVING it. I’m actually quite mad I stopped to do it on wet hair. Uggh!! It is such a breeze.  I finger detangle a little bit before I apply the DC to my hair. After it is fully applied to my hair I add my black tea rinse. This by the way is making a tremendous difference to my hair shedding. I will post pictures below showing you how much shed hair I got detangling while my hair was dry and also detangling in the shower every 2 weeks.

I keep the black tea in two of these bottles so it's easy to pour out without the mess

This was the 2nd go around after the trimmed ends and this is my shed hair of  the week (L-R) Dry, In the shower

This is the 3rd go around the hair in the hair stopper is shed hair of 2wks in the shower and on the side is dry

Shed hair from the hair stopper taken out and the dry detangling

I also added another new thing into my regimen. I did it on my last wash it is called the hair smoothie. It consists of Avocado, Banana, Coconut Milk, Egg and Honey. I will be using this hair smoothie probably once a month so I will use it again when I wash my hair next week. It is like a medium protein treatment so if your hair loves and needs protein give it a go, If not this may not be for you. I will post her video where she shows how to make the smoothie and the benefits of each item included in the smoothie.

Hair Diary # 2

Hello everyone so this post will be another hair diary of whats going on with my hair right now, and what i'm doing with it. Well my main thing to do this week was for me to trim my ends. WHEW.....!!! those things needed to be seriously done lol. I think it's been over like 6 months since the last time I've done them. I know bad right? I know I told you guys that I started a 20 week protective styling challenge in May and it just ended the first week of October. What I should of done was trimmed my ends before I started. That's the smart thing to do right? Yea so I had a dumb moment.

So just by thinking about how long my ends hadn't been clipped and remember I said over 6 months. I could definitely tell it was time to get rid of those babies. Mostly because they felt horrible, pretty much hard. I was also starting to get more Ssk's (Single strand knots). I hardly ever get those things, if I do it's mostly because I had my hair in kinky twists, Senegalese twists etc for 2 months. It would basically be in the spot where my hair met up with the braiding/twisting hair. I have a video on Youtube showing how to easily take care of these I will post it below.

 

Also normally when the months start to get colder my hair sheds more than normal so I am currently rinsing my hair with black tea to see how the results will be. So currently I am keeping track of this I've been doing it for 2 weeks now. If this does help out with shedding it will be something I keep in my regimen. I will talk more about this after it has been a month. That should be close to enough if not enough time to see a real difference.

Onto deep conditioners now I started applying my DC (deep conditioners) while my hair is dry again. A few months after I became natural I was doing this until about a year ago. I don't know why I stopped but I just did. It's not a huge difference but your hair takes a certain amount of nutrients each day. Since i'm applying the homemade DC while my hair is dry my hair is sure to suck up all of everything it needs. After about 4 or 5 hours with the DC in my hair I co-washed it out.

Then I put my hair into about 12 twists put my turban microfiber wrap on my hair to dry a little faster so when I trimmed my hair it wouldn't be soaking wet, and I fell asleep lol (not intentionally) Since I fell asleep with the turban on my hair completely dried. So the following day I spritz a little water into each section of my hair (splitting my twists into 2). Even though I am doing the CG method I used my wide tooth comb to detangle my hair some more. Since I was trimming my hair in it's natural state I wanted to make sure my hair was very detangled to get an accurate cut.

pic of hair trimmed off 

Then I put my favorite leave in conditoner Knot Today (Kinky Curly Knot Today) and coconut oil into each section and twisted them up again. I stretched them by braiding the twists back. For a few days following I will re-twist or braid to get the hair as stretched as I want. Currently my hair is braided at the moment. Until next time you guys. :)

Natural Hair Tip: Maintain Moisture in hair

Curly hair is more prone to being dry. It is easier for straight hair to maintain moisture because the moisture only has to travel straight down the hair shaft. When dealing with curly, coily and kinky hair the hairs have certain patterns like S, O, or Z’s. Having these patterns makes it hard for the moisture to flow down each strand. So if you have these types of hair you may notice that your hair will get dry easily if you don’t put anything in it, some more than others.  It is also easier to see on hair in its natural curly, coily and kinky state.

Now I’ve read statuses on facebook, twitter and have even heard some guys out loud talk about how they didn’t like natural hair because the girls hair looked and felt dry. So I’m going to help some of you newly naturals and or old naturals that are struggling with this situation. This is something that I am really big on which is keeping moisture in my hair. Luckily I don’t have the driest of hair but it can still get dry.

Water is the BEST moisturizer for your hair. It is also so very important, so important that when buying new products you should make sure that the very first ingredient on the label should is WATER. Now on to fixing the problem of having dry hair. Every morning & night you should spritz your hair with water. You can add any oils you would like to your water as long as the majority is water. This should help you with your dry hair problem.

Another option is to spritz your hair with a little bit of water before bed (make sure your hair isn't soaking wet). Put a shower cap on and tie your hair up as you would normally and go to sleep. I would advise if you are to choose this step that your hair is in a style that won’t get ruined like a wash – n –go or  a bun etc.

 If those two don’t work for you another option would be to co-wash (Conditioner only wash) in between your regular washing schedule. For an example I wash my hair every Sunday, so if I wanted more moisture on my hair I would co-wash my hair around Thursday. I hope these tips help for you. If you have any questions make sure to comment below, until next time. 

Transitioners Tip #1

Hello everyone I'm back again. This time it's to help out the relaxed women transitioning over to natural hair. My #1 tip is to stop treating your hair like it is relaxed and now treat it as though it is already fully natural. That means a little more work in taking more time with detangling.

Here is a picture of a semi long term transitioner. Since now you are treating your hair as if it is already natural. That means washing your hair with less harsh shampoos and/or conditioners. You will deal with a good amount of tangles.

A way to avoid breakage and a lot of shedding is not to start detangling where the relaxed hair starts. BAD IDEA you should still detangle from the ends of your hair sectioning your hair if you need to. Hold the hair taunt with your fingers while detangling and work your way up slowly to the natural hair.

 I advise having the hair FULLY covered in which ever conditioner you prefer. This will allow slippage of the tangles or knots and make it easier for you to glide your comb through. Hope this helps you!! Good Luck on your Transition!!!