An Example of Nourishing My Body, Soul and Hair from the Inside

At the very beginning of my natural hair journey my health began to take a turn for the worse. While there was a plethora of symptoms it took time and testing to get to one of the major issues. This issue has led to other issues which include carb sensitivity. Because of this I've had to experiment to figure out how many carbs my body needs to reach my health goals which of course include my hair.

If you're interested in a more in-depth explanation of my issues and my plans to overcome them please feel free to follow my progress on my fitness blog Beautiful Sweat.

Tonight I'm sharing a fabulous soup that I found in my Cook'n Low Carb cook book by DVO. I can't praise this software enough nor the company that keeps evolving it's product to meet today's demands.

Although I don't normally follow recipe's exactly in this instance I tried to do so, although I did add an extra 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese because I was using regular cheddar instead of sharp. I used a pale ale as my "beer" and I must say this soup was yummy.

When I make this again I will double the recipe, add a bit more Worcestershire sauce (homemade) and top it with a crunchy cheese chip of some kind, probably something sharp. My husband has requested sourdough biscuits as well, which I'll try to avoid.

If you try this recipe, please post and let me know what you think.

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?

Participating in NaBloPoMo

I don't remember how I found the link about NaBloPoMo but once I read up on it I realized it was something that I wanted to be a part of. I enjoy writing and although I just started blogging about my natural hair experience I have a lot to say.

Making time to blog every day will help me re-focus on my writing, which has suffered greatly since my thyroidectomy in mid 2011. Between complications, new issues and medication changes I have been on a fairly stressful journey that is just now getting to a place where I have real hope that the worst is behind us.

I can't wait to read the blogs of other participants as well. As time passes I have come to appreciate the life journey's of other people even more. Tiny peeks into realities other than my own offer insight, wisdom, laughter, learning, pain and hope and makes me think of the world outside of my life.

I skimped on putting the banner in each of my posts and just placed it on the side although for aesthetics sake I should probably re-size things for a better fit. <--I'm probably just going to leave it.

I'm also participating in NanoWriMo I guess I'll wrap this post up since I've already given my reasons for participating and I need to hit my word count goal for the day.

If you're participating in either challenge, let me know so that I can cheer you on.

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.

A Survey and Something to Think About for Trendspotters

 I read about this survey over at Loving Dee Naturally.

The author sponsoring the survey has written one of my favorite books about textured hair care, "The Science of Black Hair."  The approach is balanced in that it doesn't demonize relaxers or overly glorify hair that is not chemically altered. It shows causes and effects of common hair care practices.

As I read the survey I spotted some things that have been on my mind lately regarding hair care in the black community. I'd love to know how many of you see what I see.

Take the survey and come back to my blog and let's talk trends, money and our sense of self.
 
The survey link can be found on this page.

Have a Groovy Day!

Protective Styling and What I'm Learning

This is my latest creation and I have to say that I'm pretty darn proud of it. For those of you who don't know, I spent most of my life wearing relaxers and I've only worn braids a few times.

After deciding to return to natural my biggest challenge by far has been learning to style my hair myself. I'm still learning to part and section correctly and I've yet to master corn rowing or french braiding.

My hair is very tightly coiled, thick and dense. Because of it's thickness and density, I prefer to style it in styles where the hair is not on my neck. I also don't like heat stretching my hair so most of my styles are created on hair that has been either banded or dried in braids.

I love styles that are attention getting as well so when I see something eye catching I try to duplicate it the best that I can. The idea for the front "waves" came from a photo by @sharonthestylist on Instagram.

Most of my hair styles also have my ends tucked in in some fashion which has allowed for great retention. In almost two years I've only trimmed my hair once. I cut of 1/2 inch when I allowed single strand knots to become an issue. I switched to using a home made Shea butter mixture on top of my oil and have almost completely eliminated SSK's.

I'll probably always wear twisted styles of some sort because of how they work so well in my lifestyle.

What are some of your favorite protective styles and from where do you draw your inspiration?