African Threading & My Busy Life

After wearing my Fro my hair needs TLC so I planned my next two styles to be the least damaging, moisture retaining and with as minimal manipulation I can get away with.

In all that planning I didn't include the time and energy it takes to help two feral kitties adapt to house cat living.

Their antics left me needing to take my hubby to the airport while my stretched hair is drying. After pinning up the front I decided that I really like the look and will be utilizing African Threading to create additional eclectic styles.

It's Fro Time Again!!!

One of the best things about returning to my natural hair texture is the people I've met. I get a lot of compliments and asked a lot of questions when I'm out and about and the style that is sure to get a lot of talk time is my Fro.

Here is a picture of my Fro last year right before I attended the Nzuri Hair Festival here in Houston. In this picture I had been natural for a year and 4 months or thereabouts. I had such a blast when people stopped to ask for pictures and to ask questions and give out the kindest compliments. I especially enjoyed people telling me that I was encouraging them.

I'm sitting here now in my pre-Fro twists smiling at both the memories and the anticipation of going BIG with the hair at this year's festival.

Because this style makes me hot when I wear it and has the potential to incur more damage than I want to deal with I save it for the fall/winter which is the only time of year I can tolerate the heat it generates and cuts down on having to manipulate it every night to keep it relatively tangle free, stretched and moisturized.

To prep for Fro time I wash and deep condition my hair and then wear it in a stretched style of some sort. Here is my latest creation which I've taken down for the last bit of prep. Because the African threading stretches my hair out quite a bit, if I'm going to have the rounded Fro look that I like I have to get my hair to shrink up a bit without reaching maximum shrinkage. To accomplish that I mist my hair with distilled water, slather it with Shea Butter and then put it in chunky twists that are much looser at the root than the end. If I wear a Fro immediately I mist lightly, add oil and retwist every night that the hair is out. If I'm not going to rock my Fro for a few days then I'll just pin the chunky twists up and/or wear a head wrap until Fro-day. =)

Once I've rocked the Fro I always pamper my hair a lot. My main hair goal is healthy long hair so I choose styles that make that goal attainable more quickly.

I'll be posting pictures from the festival as well of my hair so make sure to check back this weekend.


I made this post because I decided to participate in a Tendril Tuesday Link Up at www.okdani.com. My first thought was to do a side-by-side comparison post during my festival feedback posts this weekend. This way has a bit more of a teaser factor which works just as well.

If you're going to the festival this weekend I'd love to hear from you. Who knows we may be able to meet up and talk hair!

My Two Year Hairversary and Why I didn't do a Straightened Hair Length Check

I  had plans to straighten my hair for my two-year "hairversary" but as the day drew closer I was less and less inclined to do it.

I had a variety of reasons but the ones the ultimately kept me from doing it are these:

• I rarely, if ever, wear my hair down so why would I step outside of my normal because of hair growth?

• Where I live the temperature and humidity are incredible in August. It just didn't make sense to invest the time and energy when I knew that reversion would be almost instantaneous.

• In sharing my story in a public venue I have vowed to be authentic and true which for me includes showing the parts of my life that I choose to share as they really are. I want people to meet me on the street and recognize me and what I stand for.  

None of my reasons mean that I don't care about my hair growth/retention but rather I don't want to show myself wearing my hair in ways that don't fit in with my lifestyle choices. I did take a picture of me taking my hair down for my next style right around my anniversary and it does show how long my hair had up until that point.








How about you? Do you feel that your on-line and/or public persona is a reflection of the real you?

This Weekend's Hair Adventures

I have been making my own deep conditioner for the last few months and while I love the fact that I'm not putting anything on my hair that I couldn't eat, it can be a bit of a pain because for the best blend all the ingredients should be at the same temperature.

Finding a deep conditioner that contains no soy is so difficult that I'd given up even looking until I came by a Shea Moisture product that doesn't have any in it along with no parabens etc. I'm pretty excited to try it out on my hair before I move on to exploring products by Morrocco Method. I love the fact that they are proudly non-gmo no soy and other things that I try to avoid like the plague.

The second new thing that I will be trying this weekend is African Threading. Unlike a lot of naturals I don't want to use it to stretch my hair, I want to create a style that will last for a few weeks without the shrinkage I experience with regular two-strand twists.

I'll be sure to post pictures and my thoughts on everything I try this weekend.

Have a groovy weekend!

P.S. Please feel free to post anything new that you'll be trying.

Just Straight Enough is Good Enough for Me

I wore my hair out for a while after straightening it for trimming. When people see the length and thickness people often me why I don't wear it "down" or "out" more often.

I really don't have a quick and easy answer for them. I spent most of my life with my hair relaxed in a variety of styles and for me being natural has become about embracing my hair as it is and within the realities of my life style.
 
Here is a small portion of my condensed list of reasons I don't wear it straight which will probably expand to be individual blog posts at some point because like most things in life there are layers, levels and history behind each point:

1. I consider myself a "curly natural" which means that I don't wear my hair straight often.
2. I am on a fitness mission (you can follow my blog on that here) and I sweat A LOT.
3. I'm still learning to style my hair without it being chemically straightened.
4. I'm learning to love me from head to toe. 
5. Hair is much more than just something that grows from my head. It's a statement, an investment, an entrepreneurial avenue, a testimony, and so much more.

 
Here are pictures of my hair after it had been straightened and trimmed. By the time I had taken the pictures my hair had begun to shrink but things like thickness, health length are fairly recognizable.

 I'm sticking my tongue out at my daughter who is standing in front of me giving me a hard time.

I didn't put on a bra outside of my shirt to show my length but that is how long it is. I know the picture looks a bit awkward, but that has more to do with my large arms than it does hair length.

As a natural do you prefer to wear your hair in protective/low-manipulation styles or loose and free?

Back in Twists and Loving to Learn

I mentioned previously that I straighten my hair once a year in order to trim the ends so I thought I'd share a picture of my hair right after I finished. It's big and full and starting to curl and shrink at the roots because I only straightened it enough to get make sure the ends were taken care of.

As you can see my hair isn't super straight and is showing it's fluffy side. While the picture doesn't show it clearly the ends are even. I'll show more complete views in another post.

By the time I had lunch with my daughter and grandson and done a bit of shopping I had had enough of the heat from having my hair down (it was still in the low 80s where I live) I decided to stretch my hair and cool off with two pony tails that I pinned on top of my head as a style the next day.

When my hair was dry again I decided to try my hand at a french braid/twist style. I've been learning to french braid and twist my hair since going natural. I wore my hair permed for 30+ years so it's been a learning experience to be sure.

I really liked the final results.

The french braids are not at a professional level but I love knowing that I am learning to do them for myself. I pin curled the twists in groups of 3-4 for the fuller look. The bit hanging down made me feel sassy.

Let me know what you think. Also, I'd like to know what new hair care/styling techniques you may have learned as a natural.

Why a Wash-n-Go will always be a "That's a No" for me.

Once I got over the shock of my big chop one of the first things that I noticed about my hair was the amazing amount of shrinkage it had. Once it was shrunken, I could take what appeared to be very little hair and stretch it out for an inch or so.

It didn't take me long to realize that my hair loves to interlock on itself like a well-knit  cap. I could spend a lot of time and effort trying to enhance and coax the curls to come out and play, or I could learn to work with other styles to achieve my ultimate hair goal of hip-length  hair.

Fast forward two years and two months and you have what I like to call a lesson reinforcement moment when I needed to head out for a family outing, and my hair was not ready.

Once a year I straighten my hair to trim the ends. I tried trimming curly at one point and ended up needing to remove almost a 1/2 inch to correct my mistakes. For this trip I had planned to wear my hair straightened and I had already DC'd and done everything I needed to do for the straightening process when I found out that I didn't have a blow dryer (mine was on loan, and my daughters was a well.) We were leaving in a few hours, and I needed a style, so I decided to go with a wash-n-go. I didn't have any gel (thanks kids!) so I used water with aloe, Shea Butter and Coconut Oil.

Here I am almost ready to go. My hair is still fairly wet, but I wasn't going to let my hair situation keep me from enjoying my family and our time together.

Here is a side view, and you can see what I mean about shrinkage. My hair begins to shrink as soon as there is no pressure on it. The hair at my temples is not heat damaged I just have an entirely different curl pattern in those areas. My hair has 3 distinctive curl zones with two of them being closer in tightness and shrinkage than the other.

 

Looking at it from the back you can clearly see my neck even though when it's stretched/straightened it's BSL.

 Here I am getting ready for bed; I decided to go ahead and take this all the way through the Pineapple experience to show everyone what I'm talking about when I say my hair and I don't really get along with the wash-n-go process.

Here I am the next morning. As you can see everything above the scarf line has shrunk down considerably. Yes, my hair does curl at the ends but the roots have more of a z pattern.

I wanted to show that I used a head band to try to keep the curls elongated.If I had not lifted it out of my hair it would have been almost invisible because my hair will take on and keep gravity defying shapes. *Smile*

 Here is the final results of my wash-n-go and pineapple. The hair in the back shrank down to 2.25 inches, which is about 90% with most of the rest shrinking down 70% or so.

I tried pulling the hair down a bit after taking out the headband, but the results were less than ideal. I know that there are products and methods that might improve the results and enhance my curls, but I don't feel like that is the best use of my time and money.

I believe that my length retention is supported by me not manipulating my hair on a regular basis. When I create a twisted style, I plan for them to last at least one week with two to three being my preference. They need to last through work-outs, co-washes, be length retention friendly as well as non-time-consuming to maintain.

I'd like to know if any of you with similar curl patterns and/or lengths have found wash-n-go's to be successful.