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!

Being Thankful

I spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and tried out new techniques with my hair.
Here is my Thanksgiving look:

I tried Flat African Threading as shown on the YT channel Chocolate Hair/Vanilla Care. I enjoyed trying it out although the next time I do it I'll make sure to use a curved needle. My fingers and brain didn't always want to agree on what we were doing and a straight needle made it more painful than necessary.

Here is a close up of the front:

The back was styled using Curl Formers and although it took me a moment to get the handle of it I have to say that I enjoy wearing them more than Flexi-rods. However, I'm tender headed so I won't sleep in them again. The next time I want a "until I go to bed" curly style I'll just do my hair early in the morning and sit under the dryer.

The style lasted all day even though I didn't remove all the Curl Formers correctly or go back and make them all lie down neatly. I knew I'd have to do something different with the back the next day so I wasn't super worried about it.

The little white sparkles you see are beads that I threaded in as I was doing the flat threading. I've never attempted something like this but I will be doing it again because I like the look.

With the versatility and moisture retention of African Threading, I'm fairly sure that I'll be rocking threaded looks for all of 2014.

If you've ever mixed techniques or styling options I'd love to see what you've done. Feel free to post your creations here.