Beautiful

I have stumbled across some wonderful things today regarding black hair. On 8/24/09 my father would have been 63 years young - Lord knows how much I miss him. So when I stumbled upon the photo gallery of a father braiding his daughter's hair it really touched my heart. Even more beautiful is that the father is white and his adopted daughter is Ethiopian. I have a found memory of my dad trying to roll my hair on pink rollers when I was younger. I have no idea where my mother was, but she wasn't around lol. Needless to say, it was a mess, but he tried.

Enjoy - http://projects.ajc.com/gallery/view/living/braids/10.html

No Meat and Hair Growth (or lack there of)

So I am trying to avoid meat but I am still eating fish.  I have been doing some research about vegetarianism and hair growth.  A lot of vegetarians complain of hair loss or slow hair growth.  I read an article that claims hair loss and slow hair growth isn't due to a lack of meat (or fish) in one's diet, rather usually a sudden change in weight.  If you are eating properly and still getting proteins from other sources (i.e. eggs, beans, etc), you shouldn't notice hair loss.  So I must eat my beans on a regular basis!  I have worked too hard to grow my natural hair!

Many vegetarians and vegans have a B-12 deficiency.  I've never eaten a lot of meat and I just recently started taking a B-12 supplement every day along with my multi-vitamin and Biotin supplement and I have noticed an increase in my energy levels.  I am not saying that I don't get tired, but I don't feel as run down as I have been feeling lately.

I will definitely be keeping an eye on how my hair holds up to my eating habits.  I would love to hear from naturals who are vegetarians, semi-vegetarians and vegans.

"Textured Tresses" by Diane Da Costa

As many of you know, I have really become intrigued by my natural hair and hair care in general and I think that I am going to start doing more research. I decided to order the book Textured Tresses by Diane Da Costa - a celebrity stylist. I just stumbled across a Q & A she participated in on the Black Voices website back in 2007 and I can tell that she definitely knows her stuff. She also recommended the following books:

NO LYE by Tulani Kinard
Good Hair by Lonnice Brittenum Bonner
Kinky Kreations by Jena Renee Williams

Has anyone read these books?

I'll be sure to post about any new discoveries I read about in her book. Hopefully I'll have it in a couple of days.

More Dry Twist Out Pictures + Spotlights

I hope everyone enjoyed their Turkey Day feasts! I know I enjoyed mine a bit too much and have swiftly gotten back into my normal gym routine! Well I wanted to post some more pictures of the dry twist out. This 'do is still from the first dry twist out I did on November 22 (I redid my hair on the Friday after Thanksgiving)! This style is so easy but it looks like I did something really time consuming and difficult. At night I just retwist and sometimes add some more Baby Buttercreme depending on how dry my hair feels. When I wake up, I pin it up and pick out the twists for volume.

Also, I am going to start spotlighting real natural women every. I am not sure of the schedule, but just stay tuned. I think it is important for women who are natural, transitioning or thinking about going natural, to see how real, every day women rock their styles. If you are interested in being featured, please contact me and I will give you more details.

Lovin' the dry twist out!

Let me say that I am lovin' this hair style and I am glad to add it to my hair repertoire. So I washed my hair with the Hair One cleanser and left it in as my leave in conditioner for about an hour. After I washed it out, I put a bit more of the cleanser in as a leave in and blew my hair out. I really focused on little sections so I could get it as straight as possible. Below is a picture of my blow out.

Next as took sections of my hair and smoothed on a little Baby Buttercreme and two strand twisted my whole head. Miss Jessie recommended using Curly Buttercreme, but the smell of that stuff makes me naseau. Below is a picture of my dry 2 strand twists. Please focus on the hair and now how bad I look lol.
So I sat under the dryer for about 45 minutes and was a little skeptical, but once I started taking out the twists and playing with my hair a little, I feel in love. Below are the results of my very first dry twist out! I will definitely be rockin' this 'do for a while and hopefully with some practice I will perfect the look. What do yall think?

Natural for life?

People keep asking me if I am going to be natural for life. It takes me a while to answer and the best I can say is that "I hope so". I mean, what am I supposed to say? I would love to think that I will never stray from being natural. I can safely say that I'll never get a relaxer ever again in life. My hair really can't take it - it thins, breaks off, they are expensive, etc. A texturizer? Maybe. Who really knows. As much as I like to color my hair and try new styles, being natural is really the best thing for me... at least for right now. I can't imagine doing the BC all over again. I don't know if your girl has it in her lol.

Then I wonder, why people are asking me this (not to be rude or anything). Is it because going natural is still seen as somewhat taboo in our society or because people don't think I can keep this up? Or maybe people think this is a phase?

Who knows...

I DID IT!

Yes, I did it. After 8 months without a perm, I cut off all my permed ends - by MYSELF! I finished taking out my braids today and said, why not? And honestly, I didn't have that much to cut off (picture to the side). Most of what I had to cut was in the front and on the sides. I just put an order in for Miss Jessie's travel size pack so hopefully I will have that soon. My plan is to wear my super cute wig I just bought (picture to the side) until I either figure out which cremes work the best to make my curls look long or until I get my lace front wig that is in the process of being made. I would say when I pull my curls tight, I have about 2 inches (longer in some spots) of natural, soft, thick hair. And for once, it's all my natural hair color which is a nice dark to medium brown. Sadly I haven't had my natural hair color in years!

So this is what I did. After taking my braids out, I pre-poo'ed, washed my hair and let a deep conditioner sit in my hair for a few hours. I then rinsed it out and cut the ends off when it was still wet/damp. Then I wet it again and used some of the Pantene curly conditioner and rinsed most of it out, but left a lil in. I then put in some of the TRESsemme curl hydration lotion and some of my Keracare leave in conditioner. Now I am letting it air dry. Instantly as I was cutting off my ends, my curls were springing back to a tighter curl!

I am too excited and a bit shocked that I took the scissors to my own head, but it's done now. I am definitely glad that I did it, because it was time and I have no regrets. Once I get the right product in my hair, I will post the "post chop" picture and the "after product" picture.

So yeah. My natural journey is now into the next phase! How exciting!

A little needed inspiration...

So I have a wonderful hair coach (I am lucky because I have several) who particularly watches over me at work. Well amidst one of my many meltdowns (believe me, I have many), Coach Terra sent me the following clip about Brock. I must stay, it was truly inspiring lol. Watch the whole thing!

Introduction

July 26, 2007 marks the date of my last relaxer (hopefully)…dare I say forever? So you ask, what made me decide to start this hair journey to become relaxer free? Well, my hair has become weak and fragile as the years go on and I don’t know why! Let’s start from the very beginning! My mother started relaxing my hair when I was in the second or third grade. You see, I don’t come from a family of women who “do” hair; we go get our hair done lol. But, growing up I used to have long, thick hair. Even all of the coloring and heat I used on my hair in college didn’t make me notice a huge difference in my hair right away. But recently I became really concerned because I use heat very sparingly, I only use semi-permanent color rinses (blue-black has been my personal fave), and I used to get my hair professional styled every two weeks, sometimes every week. For the life of me I could not figure out why my hair was acting up!

So, being the scholar that I am lol, I decided to do some research. My research began with the intention of just bringing my hair back to life—basically I was just trying to figure out what I had been doing wrong (please check out Healthy Textures –definitely a great place to start). But the more I read and spoke to friends who now wear their hair natural, I quickly saw the benefits of growing out my relaxer. I think the most appealing benefits of going natural for me are versatility and freedom. I am constantly getting bored with my hair. There are sooo many natural hair styles—twists, braids, straight, weave, etc—to choose from, I will never go bored. This may sound corny, but I can’t help but feel somewhat liberated by giving up on the chemicals (I think I will eventually highlight my hair once I am completely relaxer free). Never in a million years, would I have imagined that I would be doing this. But despite my newfound feeling of freedom, I have many doubts and questions running through my head. What will my hair look like or do once all of the relaxer is gone? Will I regret this decision? Am I committed and strong enough to do this?

Recently I have just felt crazy (thank you to everyone who has been supportive thus far). Not only am I growing out my relaxer, I am growing out my blue-black rinse. We all know that black rinses never wash out! So not only am I experiencing the difference of textures, but I have two different colors going on—medium brown and blue-black! You can only imagine what that looks like. Argh.

So to make a very long story shorter, the purpose of this blog is to document my experience mostly for myself. If other people can benefit along the way, even better! Wish me luck!