Jamila, Henna for African-American Hair, or Punjabi Prime

Today, I sent an email to Mehandi's customer service and as expected, they were prompt and just as helpful and informative as the website!  I wanted to share the emails with you all because I think it will help you potentially make a decision about which type of henna you might try.

My initial email:
Subject: Jamila, Henna for African-American Hair, or Punjabi Prime


Hello -

I am completely natural and this is my first time using henna.  I still have a brownish color on the ends of my hair.  I don't want a very bright red color so would you recommend Jamila, the henna for African-American Hair, or Punjabi Prime?  I read that naturals love all three!

I can't decide!

Thanks so much!

Elisa

First response:

Great question Elisa,

Punjabi prime tends to be brighter, and Jamila varies a bit from one box
to the next. I would go with the Henna for African Hair. Its consistently
a nice and not-to-bright color. You'll love it!

Second response:

I see that ***** answered you, but I will also chime in to add that, with your dark hair,  you won't get bright red in any case!  Pure henna is like wood stain - it's adds a translucent stain over the base color.  Over dark brown hair, you'll get a beautiful auburn/mahogany!

So with that said, I am going to order the henna for African-American hair.  I want to take "baby steps" before I try Jamila or Punjabi Prime.

Also I talked to my manager at work who is from India and she gave me some advice.  She advised me to stay away from mixing henna with lemon.  She highly recommends using honey and green tea.  She told me that I am giving her the itch to use henna again!

Exploring Henna

Afrobella posted about henna yesterday and Curly Nikki has a whole section on her site dedicated to her experience and love for henna!  Ever since my alopecia discovery, I wanted to give my hair a rest from the chemical dyes, so I stopped coloring my hair.  I thought I wouldn't miss having some type of color in my hair, but I was wrong (I should have known better).

So my longing for color led me to research and think more seriously about henna for quite some time now.  I think that I am going to try this out once I am officially unemployed on July 19 (doing the happy dance), just in case my hair looks crazy.  Curly Nikki's site is extremely informative and the comments from her readers are great as well.  It looks like most naturals love the henna from Mehandi.  They sell 100% pure henna and also have a very informative yet hard to navigate site (muddling your way through the site is worth it).  The free e-book is an amazing wealth of knowledge; I am still reading through it.

In terms of which henna to use, I am trying to decide between the Jamila, Ancient Sunrise Henna for African-American Hair, and Punjabi Prime (PP) varieties.  Since half of my hair is a medium/reddish brown, my fear is that I'm going to end up looking like a strawberry, so I THINK that I am leaning towards the henna specifically for African-American hair because it produces amber tones.  But I have heard great things and seen beautiful pictures of results from Jamila and PP.  Le sigh.

Besides the color, henna seems to do wonderful things to your hair!  People report that their is stronger, thicker, shinier, and at times the curl pattern is slightly relaxed (this is not permanent).  I am most excited about thickening up and relaxing my curl patter.  I will definitely blog about my experience in depth and maybe do a few videos.  Oh and don't forget, my videos for NaturallyCurly.com are up on YouTube (search by my name: Elisa Dobbins).

I was surprised to find out that some people henna several times a week.  Being that it is such a lengthy process, I can't imagine doing it that much.  But it sounds like people get hooked.  The more you do it, the more you hair benefits from the henna.

If you are a henna honey, please let me know which henna you prefer and I would love to see pictures!

Chocolate Coils + Dermatologist Visit

Since I got more of a cut, rather than a trim last weekend, I was nervous to wash my hair and wear it curly, but I was too excited to care.  In my last post, I mentioned my current issue with central scarring alopecia.  Well I am happy to report that while I was combing my deep conditioner through my hair last night, I literally only lost a few strands of hair.  Months ago, I was losing clumps of hair, and was honestly scared to wash my hair, let alone come through it.  I attribute the minimized hair loss keeping the faith, the regimen and scalp injections my dermatologist prescribed, and the great trim I got last week.

I had an appointment with my dermatologist this morning.  Nothing good or bad to report.  I received 7 more Kenalog scalp injections.  I am scheduled to go back in June for another round.

My hair is definitely shorter, but my curl pattern is much more defined since I lost the raggedy ends and I love my new rich, chocolate brown color.  The first picture shows the length in the back; you can definitely tell it's shorter.  And hopefully in the second picture you can see the curl definition some.  I am still using the Kinky Curly product line and don't plan on straying from my current routine.

 

Fade to black (well maybe dark brown)...

So I am thinking about going back to my natural hair color in preparation for business school a.k.a. me having no income.  I'm not 100% yet because I LOVE my reddish gold color, but it may be best.  If I do, I think I will just use color rinses in dark brown until my hair grows out, which will take FOREVER! I will keep you all posted with my decision!

Still No Heat + Congrats to the Clairol Jazzing Winners!

Happy New Year!

I am glad to report that I still haven't used heat on my hair.  I am really digging the look I get from flexi-rodding wet twists.  I have been using Baby Buttercreme, but I might try that in conjunction with Curly Meringue, for a little hold.  I have worn my hair in a "mohawk", half pinned up and back, and pulled back in a curly poof.  My hair feels sooooo soft and is very manageable.  Here are 2 pictures of the pulled back look (sorry for the bad quality):

 

I am also glad to report that the 3 winners of the Clairol Jazzing Giveaway have been notified!  Thanks for participating and stay tuned for more giveaways.

Only a few days left!

Don't forget about the Clairol Jazzing giveaway!  All you have to do is fill out a super quick survey to be eligible to win!  You have until December 31, 2009 to enter!

Clairol Jazzing Giveaway!

If you want to give your color a boost without the committment, you will love Clairol Jazzing temporary/semi-permanent hair color.  I have used these colors when I wore a chemical relaxer and once I went natural and I have no complaints!


To be eligible for my very first giveaway, you have to complete a very short survey.  I will choose 3 lucky winners at random from completed surveys and you have until December 31, 2009 to finish it!  I have 3 great colors: Ebony, Spice Cognac, Bluest Black (I have used all of these colors).  I will contact the winners via email during the first week of January 2010 to get your address and I will mail out your prize!

Also check out Jazzing's Facebook contest where you can transform your look with 18 fearless temporary haircolors and share your before/after pix to win a 3-day, 2-night fierce hair makeover in NYC by celebrity hair stylist Tippi Shorter.

AND they are giving away great prizes every day, like gift cards for beauty, music and more, concert tickets for you and a friend, and digital cameras in Jazzing colors.  To be eligible, you can either enter the contest via the Facebook link OR vote for your favorite before/after pix (up to 3 times daily). 

So you have MULTIPLE opportunities to win.  Good luck!

Who says you have to go darker in the fall?

So I had to go see Nicole before she went on maternity leave.  I decided to go all out and I told her that I wanted more "umph" in the front.  I figured that I won't see her for a couple of months, so I might as well get exactly what I wanted.  She touched up my roots and added lighter highlights in the front.  I didn't need a trim this time so she blew me out and sent me on my way. 

Of course, I can't stop playing with my hair and now I miss it being straight, but then I am reminded of my dear friends sweat and humidity.  Today I woke up with poofy hair and kinky roots.  This is why I don't keep my hair straight all the time. 

I can't believe how fast my hair is growing!  I attribute my hair growth to not only being natural, but weekly deep conditioning treatments and tons of water!  Happy Turkey Day lovelies and I will be posting again soon!

Salon Visit + New Products + Pics

Well I had a wonderful weekend and I hope everyone did as well.  My appointment with Nicole at Pure Beauty was wonderful as usual.  She really knows natural hair is an expert colorist - I adore her.  I highly recommend her to anyone in the DC area who wants color (single process, highlights, etc) or a very good blow out.  Her blow drying technique is fantastic.  This time she just touched up my roots, gave me a little trim (not much at all), and blew out my hair in a cute curly look!  Check out the pictures (notice I threw in a picture of my "date night" outfit haha).

I had coupons for my hair services as well as products, so I figured I would splurge a bit.  I feel in love with the Pureology hair products, during my first visit to Pure Beauty, so I picked up the Hydrate shampoo and conditioner (purple bottle) as well as Redken Butter Treat hair conditioner.  The last time I saw Nicole, she said my hair was very dry and told me to use the Butter Treat.  Well in 3 months I finished the whole bottle and she said my hair felt like it did the first time I went to her for a below out - before I had any color.  I warn you that Pureology is expensive, about $30 a bottle, so I don't think I will be able to keep this up! 

In my quest to one day be able to the "wash and go" look, I asked Nicole for some suggestions.  She assured me that there is no reason for me or anyone else not to rock this look.  So here is what she suggested:

1. Wash and condition (and deep condition) as usual.
2. Detangle with conditioner in your hair and rinse.
3. Use a generous amount of Paul Mitchell Sculpting Foam (red top - Flexible Style line) mixed with some of the Paul Mitchell Foaming Pommade (red top - Flexible Style line).
4. Distribute thoroughly through your hair.  Your hair should be saturated and covered with white foam, so don't be alarmed.
5. After you work it through, pull it through your hair.  (When I watched the other stylist do this step, it look kinda like she was shingling in an upward motion.)
6. Sit under the dryer for 5 - 10 mintues, just so the foam will disappear.
7. Shape your hair and you are done!

I recorded a video blog post on Friday night and I haven't been able to upload it yet.  So I will try again and this time tape myself trying this new "wash and go" technique.

Air Drying + Color

I hope you are enjoying your weekend!  The weather in the DC area has been amazing and hot.  Yesterday I decided to wash my hair but I wasn't in the mood to deal with the blow dryer.  So I washed with my Wen cleanser and did a deep conditioning treatment with Butter Treat (by Redken).  While the Butter Treat was sitting on my head, I mixed up a moisturizing spritz - water, glycerin and some Kemi oil.  After I rinsed out the conditioner, I sprayed my hair with some spritz and then used Organic Root Stimulator Loc & Twist Gel (love this stuff and it's inexpensive) to coil my hair.  And let me say that this took me a good hour, maybe a little bit longer.  I wasn't terribly happy with my hair when I woke up because of the dreaded shrinkage issue that I deal with, but the curls were defined and coily.  Take a look at the pictures below and ignore the random two strand twists in the front.  I had my hair pulled back all day so before I wrapped up my hair for the night, I had to do something with the semi-straight pieces in the front.

The one positive of air drying, is that my color looks great!  I am not sure if it is from my spritz, the gel, the air drying or a combination of the three.  But my highlights look great and my roots don't even look that bad.  Dare I say that I will try no heat again next week?  Maybe I'll two strand twist...

LOVE my highlights

Okay - it's official. I am giving up the box color *sniff*. Nicole is an amazing with the color, so I might as well leave it to a pro. I went back for my color appointment on Saturday and I have to admit that I was a little nervous. First, she did foil highlights all over (about 2 - 3 shades lighter than my base color), then my roots and then a glaze. My color is beautiful! I think I was born to be a redhead :o). She said the glaze should last a few months.

I didn't have time to let her straighten it because I was already late for my wine club meeting. So I wore it blown out and cowashed, used the Butter Treat conditioner and twisted it last night.

I am going to treat myself to one 'do a month from Nicole andI already scheduled my next appointment for July 2. (I tried to get into the sunlight this morning so you could see the highlights in my twists, but the picture where my hair is pulled back is the best way to see the highlights).

My 2nd trip to see Nicole @ Pure Beauty + the BEST deep conditioner

So after 7 months (yes shameful) I finally returned to the hair salon for the dreaded "trim". Nicole loved my color but thinks that my color is too drying *sniff sniff*. So I will probably be saying good bye to my beloved Textures & Tones. She suggested that I let her color my roots, put a glaze on my ends, and highlight my hair. So that's the good news - this upcoming Saturday, I hope to be more golden for the summer!!!!

So for the bad news, she trimmed a lot of my hair, so much that we decided not to straighten my hair until I get my color done or even not until I have a really special occasion. She thinks my natural hair suits me sooooo well and since my hair is on the dry side, she wants to hold off on straightening it, until she can color it and I can then get that silky straight look.

So the verdict - I will be visiting Nicole on a much more regular visit to hopefully avoid these traumatic cutting sessions. I was totally bummed on Friday and my poor bf had to listen to me whine all weekend. But yesterday, I had a breakthrough and I am really digging the shape of the cut she gave me, something I had been lacking for a while. You can definitely tell that my hair is shorter in the pictures below. I'll post pictures this week of my twist out.

Nicole also put me on to a great deep conditioner and it was only $15! My new "can't leave home without product" is.... *drumroll please* Redken Smooth Down Butter Treat. Ladies, this stuff is amazing. Some of the great ingredients include macadamia oil and candelilla wax. The directions say to leave it in for 5 to 10 minutes, but I left it in for 2 hours while I did some GMAT studying. After I rinsed it out and applied a concoction of my Aveda smooth products, BioSilk and the Fantasia IC anti-humidty serum, I blew out my hair and my, my, my is my hair super soft! So Nicole is my hair angel at the moment and she is quite an expensive one.

Update: Pics of my dry twist out today (one day later) post "trim".

Spring is here!

So you all know that I have been toying with the idea of going lighter. I have been torn because I continue to get so many compliments on my current hair color, but I want a change. Well after a lot of research about mixing box hair color, I am going to color my hair in a few minutes using Textures & Tones in Light Golden Brown and Honey Blonde. I have read great things about the outcome of mixing these two colors together so I am excited to see the results! I think having the Cherrywood color in my hair right now, will make the color a bit warmer. I didn't want to use just Honey Blonde because I feared that the color would end up brassy or orange. I will post pictures of the results - please pray it comes out pretty!

Update: So I colored my hair. There isn't a huge change in the color, but I think it looks a little more golden. I won't really know until I untwist it and see it in the sunlight tomorrow. The picture below is right after my blow out. Ugh! I was definitely hoping for more drastic results! Maybe a rinse in a gold color will make the color pop more. I have no idea. Night yall!

So I got bored...

... a found two reddish color rinses in my closet.  I mixed the two and ended up with an enhanced red head.  I kinda like it (not sure if you can tell from the pictures).  It was a nice temporary change, since it will all wash out in a couple washes.  I also decided to stop being lazy and I dry twisted my hair.  I have gotten pretty good at it and it STILL takes me at least an hour to do *sigh*.  I guess no one told me that natural hair was any quicker, but damn!

I did all of this only after a failed attempt at using the Wet Set Pudding to wear my hair curly.  As usual, my hair was super cute right after the product was in, but as it started to try, my curls started to shrink up more and more and needless to say I looked like a poodle.  I am dreading the hot weather and humidity because my dry twists won't last as long.  Hopefully I'll come up with another 'do before then, otherwise, I will be rockin' some shrunkin puff all summer.  UGH!

First Update of 2009!

Hey lovelies!  I am sitting here watching American Idol and with Giovanna (1 of 2 cats) laying all over me and I thought that I should give you all an update.  My hair is still growing and I am still lovin' it.  I recently touched up my color using Textures & Tones hair color in Cherrywood.  I am going about 6 to 8 weeks between coloring and I haven't noticed any kind of drying.  I did some research last week because I was curious about what hair color naturals were using and diggin.  And as I suspected most naturals love Textures & Tones and a some like Feria.  A lot of people were saying that Feria dried out their hair and some said that Textures & Tones didn't lift their natural hair color enough.  I am going to stick with the Cherrywood color and maybe go lighter this summer (with the help of a stylist); maybe some highlights.  I haven't had any issues with Textures & Tones so I might as well stick with it.

I want to revisit my thoughts regarding Wen.  My aunt literally handed me a bag full of it (she loves QVC) so of course I wasn't going to turn it down.  I have the Fig, Tea Tree and Sweet Almond formulas.  I forgot how much I love the Fig formula!  It really does wonders with ethnic hair.  I may have to suck it up and start forking over the $30 again.  I will definitely keep using the Hair One version of Wen in a pinch, but I might have to give Wen another go.  I just wish I could buy it at a store, because having to pay shipping and handling on top of the $30 is a bit much.

Let's see what else - I am still dry twisting my hair because I love how it looks about 4 days or so.  The picture in this post is 2 days after I did my last dry twist out (please excuse how messy it is - I just took out my bobby pins).

I was thinking about getting my hair straigtened this week for my birthday, but I don't feel like having all that heat on my hair especially since I just colored it. 

So nothing really new is going on with me or my hair.  I haven't gotten the urge yet to try something new and/or drastic, but I have been reading my fave hair blogs and frequenting the forums to see if I read anything that sounds interesting.

And then there was... brown?

Hello all of my beautiful and nappy (or soon to be nappy) folks!  As I am sitting here getting ready to watch the much anticipated presidential debate, I thought I would whip up an update post.  Well as yall have probably figured out (if you didn't already know this about me), I am random and may change at the drop of a dime.  So after a couple months of the red, I opted for a dark brown rinse to tone down the red.  Why?  Because I felt like it.  Hell, I was PMSing - nuff said.  So in the sunlight my hair still has a lot of red shining through, but in normal light, my hair is a nice deep brown.

I'm digging the dark brown.

I haven't had any issues with my hair being dry.  I am still cowashing it about once a week, maybe twice a week.  As the cold weather comes along, I may have to opt for some heavy duty conditioners as my hair tends to get dryer in the fall and winter months.

I am sure that I am due for a trim soon, so I'm going to start thinking about that sooner rather than later.  But all in all I really can't complain.

Roots already!

So after 3 weeks I already have roots. Granted no one else can see them, but I know they are there! I tried to take a picture, but I couldn't even get a good picture of my roots, so maybe I'm trippin! Days like this I am glad to be natural. Since my hair is so big, no one can really see what is going on with my roots! But before I get it straightened in the fall I'll have to take care of that. Ugh! Color is definitely high maintenance - so anyone thinking about taking the color plunge please be ready for some extra work. This weekend I am thinking about putting in a rinse just to liven up the color. Red is the hardest color to keep from fading, so until I color it again, rinses will have to do! Jazzing has two colors called Spiced Cognac and Red Hot. I've used Red Hot before and it's definitely red hot, so we'll see. I need something to brighten it back up. As always I will post pictures this weekend.

I love being a RED HEAD! NEW COLOR ALERT!!!

I found my signature color (I think)! My roots were looking crazy since my hair grows super fast and I'm about to go to Mexico (YIPPEEE), so I decided to freshen up my color. So I really liked my color but I wanted to go for a richer light red color. So I opted not to use Textures & Tones in Bronze again (nothing wrong with product), because the color didn't lift my natural hair color enough. So I went to Sally's Beauty Supply and decided to get creative and mix some colors. I decided to get two colors by Clairol Professional Premium Creme colors in Light Reddest Brown (4RR) and Light Red-Neutral Blonde (8RN). I used the matching Clairol Creme Developer in Level 30. I washed my hair with a tea tree shampoo and then applied the color with a brush and let it processed for 30 minutes. I then applied a deep conditioner, put in the Knot Today leave in/detangler and blew out my hair and VOILA! I LOVE the color. It's perfect for Mexico and even the transition into the fall and winter months. Next time I will probably only use a level 20 developer because my roots are super bright. The only down side to this color is that I feel like my hair was a bit drier compared to when I used Textures & Tones. Enjoy the pictures!