Hair care

Hair Don’t

 

If you are following me on Facebook (and if you haven’t why aren’t you!? I am a nutcase!), you’ll know that yesterday my hair and I were having a battle of wills. The day prior to this issue, I had co-washed and detangled my hair. They I haphazardly two strand twisted my hair, and wore my hat to class (where I had a rage filled encounter with a boy I am calling ‘Spazzy Steve’. That is a story for another day though) so I wouldn’t have to deal with my hair the next day. I wasn’t planning anything, but it was nice to get the chore out of the way.

When I pulled into the school parking lot, I received a phone call about a job interview. I agreed to meet them the next day in the later morning. I was smugly patting myself on the back yet again for getting my hair under wraps.

Yesterday morning, I woke up sort of early, and got ready for my interview. I untwisted my hair…and was instantly terrified.

The terror felt like this.. and hey! I have a gap too!

I have a story to describe what my hair looked and felt like. From 2nd grade to 4th grade, I had a Jheri Curl. Look over to the right side tool bar. You see that picture that leads to my Amazon store? Yeah, that is my requisite Olan Mills photo from the 4th grade.

Anyway, It was time for a touch-up and my mom kept me out of school for part of the day to go get my hair done. I was looking crazy. The curls were gone and my hair was just all over the place. The lady that was to do my hair (in the salon) had apparently got drunk the night before, and forgot about the little girl she had waiting. So my mom took me home, put some activator on my head, and tried to make the best of a bad situation.

When I got to school, I was putting my coat in my cubby area when my oldest friend (she’s still around to this day) came out to get a drink, did a double take at me, pointed a finger, fell down laughing, and gasped out “You look like you stuck your finger in a light socket!” Thanks Jen… I won’t mention how as a freshmen, when your mom did other people’s hair, you would steal the left over weave and try to put it in your hair (oops!).

That is pretty much what I was dealing with yesterday. I had an hour before my interview (the place was like 15 minutes away, if that) and MY HAIR WOULD NOT LET ME BE GREAT!

I eventually put it in a puff, and it was okay for the most part, but it still looked a little odd.

When I got home from the interview, I took my hair out of the puff, took the dogs out, and settled into my hovel office to start on homework. But my hair was bothering me. I touched it, and I was shedding a lot and it was dry.

Back in 2010, on my regular Facebook, I apparently had a status up that said my hair looked like Fredrick Douglass’. I woke up this morning to a repeat of that.

Somebody please tell me why Frederick Douglass looks like an old Billy Dee Williams to me!?

Another user on the Facebook page was saying that she was having issues with dryness and shedding as well. It is just really weird because I have been using the same products with no issues at all, and this just happened.

Has this ever happened to you? What did you end up doing?

As for me, I am off to research some sort of deep conditioner, but my hair still feels dry as all get out. I want something I can slap on my hair, but the conditioning cap on and just let it sit for a couple of hours while I wrestle with systems analysis and design as well as Trig.

Hair Care Organization.

I know that there are some people out there, who THRIVE on organization. The container store is the epitome of excitement for them and they can’t watch hoarders. Kudos to them. I wish I had that kind of love for it.

For me, organization is a chore. A hard one at that. A friend once pointed out to me “You like to have everything you own in view.” I’ve come to realize this is true. But when you have to work at being organized, this is totally not a good thing. Stuff just ends up in piles.

Same with my hair supplies. I would love for it to be out on my bathroom counter, but there isn’t enough room. To top it all off, I rarely do my hair at the bathroom counter. I am usually in front of my computer or plunked down in front of the television watching Toddlers and Tiaras something informative.

Clips, headbands, flowers, butters, gels, etc, it is a lot to keep track of. How do you do it? Me? I throw everything into a medium sized tote that has a lid. It makes sense to me because it is big enough to hold all of my stuff, but small enough that I can drag it where I need it. If I was going for super organized, I would band my clips together, get a smaller container for my flowers and headbands to place within the container, but…I’m not that organized. I take something out and I throw something in. It works for me!

 

So what do you do to keep organized?

Product Review- Honey and Oats Shampoo Bar

 

Good afternoon! After yesterday’s mini-rant, I am coming at you today with a product review.

Today’s review comes from the Etsy store Bobeam- Natural Products by Laquita. This is what she says about her shop:

Bobeam's specialty is shampoo bars made with all natural ingredients and they can be used on all hair types, including locs. The shampoo bars contain no SLS or SLES, detergents, surfactants, or sulfates. They are all-natural, 100% vegetable soap, non-comedogenic, hypo-allergenic and biodegradable. Feel free to check my ingredients on www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/
Bobeam from the Ghanaian language Twi means 'the way it was created' and it characterizes all of the shop items - they are all handmade.

The product I am reviewing is the Honey and Oats Shampoo Bar

Taken from her Etsy store

This is what her shop says about this bar:

Pamper your hair with honey and oatmeal :o) This 4oz shampoo bar is made with oatmeal and honey, and will leave your hair super soft!
It's packed with honey and smells good enough to eat!
Oatmeal - There are several DIY oatmeal hair shampoo/rinses for your hair - here’s a way to use oatmeal without the mess or trial of rinsing it out of your hair.
There are traces of tiny grains of oatmeal in the bar which gently exfoliates your scalp and rinses away clean.
Honey adds shine and is a humectant, which means it holds moisture. It is a natural antiseptic full of antioxidants. It also provides softness and shine.
It is packed with vitamins and minerals such as magnesium, potassium, calcium, sulphur, iron, zinc and vitamins B1, B2, B3, which aid in hair growth.
*Shampoo bars can be used as body soaps as well*
*Shampoo bars are unscented unless specified*

Packaging: This bar came in plain cardboard colored packaging. It was also wrapped in saran wrap, which I greatly appreciated.

First impression: No scent (On her site it tells you that unless it is stated, everything is unscented), which, I am not sure how I feel about this. I love pretty smells, but I understand the draw for people that are allergic to such things. I really like how this bar looks. It is layered with a solid layer, then an opaque layer.

First use: When I use solid shampoos (only kind I pretty much use now), I break off a piece and using a downward motion, I rub the shampoo on my hair. I would say this bar has a medium lather. I also used it instead of my normal body wash.

First use thoughts: My hair felt clean, and didn’t feel stripped. It cleared my hair of any buildup I had (and I had a lot; thanks a lot Cantu Shea Butter! *coughs*), and my hair felt good afterwards. It doesn’t really add any additional moisture to my hair, but retains what I have.  My body felt good as well. My body (as well as my hair) dries out really easily, and this didn’t strip any moisture and make me feel as if I have scleroderma like some washes do.

Continued use thoughts: I like this shampoo, I like it so much, I threw out the bottle of stuff that I purchased a while ago (Skala I think it’s called). This works much better for me. Sometimes when I am rinsing my hair, shampoo gets in my mouth. With the Skala when it got in my mouth, it was this nasty chemical taste. Horrid. I don’t get that with this shampoo bar. Yay!

One thing I would want to see with this bar is maybe some sort of scent. That is just me though, I know there are people out there that would appreciate the fact that this has no scent to it.

Other than that, this is a good product. It lasts a long time, a little bit goes a long way, and it is good for both your body and hair.

Hair styling attempt

Anyone that truly knows me in real life, knows that I should generally leave hair styling to the professionals. If it ain’t simple, it ain’t me. I am very creative, but when it comes to my hair sometimes, I. JUST. CAN’T. WIN.

But damn it all if I was going to let this stop me! No!  I was going to give it a go!

I started by watching this video:

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She is amazing with hair.

I figured “Hey! I know how to flat twist! I know how to two strand twist. Simple pimple right!?”

Um. No.

First off, my hair is not as long nor as thick as hers. So while her style was all thick and gorgeous, mine was thin.. and you could see parts of my scalp, making me look like I had bald spots. No bueno. The second thing I had issues with were these:

Yeah.. the bobby pins. They were awful. Whose hair is that thing going to hold!? They all came like that. Loose and just, not good. In my defense, I did not know this when I purchased them. Scunci just had two bundles of bobby pins in the package. They had a rubber band around each bundle, so you couldn’t tell that these things were simply useless pieces of metal .

*sigh*

But I persevered. These are the results:

Yeah.. not the greatest.

Things that I have learned from this:

  • I’m going to have to learn how to adjust hair styles to my hair. The flat twists on the side needed to be bigger and there needs to be a smaller amount of them.
  • I NEED BETTER BOBBY PINS
  • I need to figure out how to get my hair sleeker.
  • I need to figure out how to part better (I was parting the best that I could, and then my hand cramped up and I was like, forget this.)
  • More than likely, it could have been better if my hair was stretched beforehand. So maybe I will band it next time, because I will be trying this again!

You live, you learn.

Tell me about your hair mishaps! Have you tried a hair style you saw somewhere and just completely missed the mark?

Hair Typing = Confusing.

 

So here is what I know about hair typing. The number system was created by Andre Walker. He is the guy that does Oprah’s hair. I also know that Andre Walker is a bit of a douchebag and thinks that Curly/Kinky hair should be altered somehow. Insert eye roll here.

I know my hair is in the 4 category. This is when things start to get tricky for me. Most of my hair is what you would consider a 4A pattern. It has the s coil shape, they all sort of clump together, and when well moisturized, you can see the pattern fairly well.

The back of my head… is an entirely different story

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I am not sure if you can see it well enough, but my hair back there? Yeah, there is not really a curl pattern. It currently looks as if there is one, but that is because I have had my hair in two strand twists recently. If left to its devices, it is a frizzy/poofy mess. It is not usually a problem, because I normally have a headband in my hair. However, if my hair hasn’t been recently two strand twisted or it isn’t in a headband. I look like I sort of have a mullet.

I read about the 4b pattern. It says that it has a Z pattern and a cotton-like feel. Well, it feels soft and cottony as long as it has been moisturized, but there is absolutely no pattern to it. I don’t get caught up in hair typing simply because of this, but I have no clue what in the world to think.

Do you have hair on your head that baffles you?

Fros on the 4th/Checking in

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. In case you did not know, it was also afro day. We didn’t do anything fancy at all. I packed up a picnic dinner and the plan was to go to White River State Park to watch the fireworks. Well, we got down to White River, and parking was blocked off, So we drove a little further, and went to the zoo. The zoo was a good place to see the fireworks, as long as you were in the right spot. We were seated behind the glasshouse, so we only saw half of them. Plus, it took us longer to get out of the zoo than it did to actually see the fireworks! Next year we need a better plan.

Mmm, ice cream!

 

As far as my hair goes, it is not feeling all crunchy and dry like it was before the henna treatment. I am seriously slacking though. I need to do a conditioning treatment and detangle my mop. What about you? Have you been slacking with the hair care? Lately, if I have anywhere to go I just spray on my Free Your Mane Reviving spray and fluff a bit and go. I will bite the bullet here soon and detangle and whatnot. I’ve been slacking in all areas  since last week for some reason. I need to get back to everything.

Hope you guys have a great rest of the week!

Henna- My experience

Editors Note: I really tried to finish this yesterday. I was doing the editing of this blog while I was in class. But there was some interesting topics being presented, so I abandoned finishing this up until today. Enjoy!

So I finally got around to doing a henna treatment. I apologize in advance for the spotty filming Smile with tongue out

 

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Yeah

 

What I Would Do Differently:

1. We have two bathrooms in our house. The main/guest bathroom is tiled. Our master bathroom is set up weird. The sink is outside the bathroom, and doesn’t have a door or anything. The toilet and the shower are within the bedroom, but are separate from the sink. The area where the toilet and shower is has a door, and is tiled. The area where the sink is does not have a door and is carpeted. I laid down an old sheet, and did my henna treatment in there. I think next time  I will just use the main/guest bathroom.

2. While I did do some searching on ingredients and products and stuff, I think I will be more thorough in my reading up on products

3. I will actually go out and purchase plain old green tea. I don’t know if it made a difference that I used honey lemon and pomegranate green tea.

 

My Final Thoughts:

Henna did not make a huge difference for me. Yeah, my hair was softer afterwards, but not any other softer as if I would have done a deep condition. My curl pattern is the same, and there is no change really to anything. The persistent drying that I was dealing with has seemed to clear up a little, but that might have been the same if I would have just done a deep conditioning. I have no color change. Though last night, I had a dream that my curls looked like MsDena610 from YouTube with blondish tips. Ask me about my dreams sometime, I dream crazy!

Anyway, I will probably try this again, taking into consideration the things that I want to do different. If I don’t notice anything spectacular the second time around (Because I do have half a bag of henna left), I probably won’t do it again.

Do you have any treatments that you have been wanting to try? What has been stopping you?

The next thing I want to try is Rassul Clay.

Of Dry hair and henna

 

 

So I finally did a henna treatment. I did it yesterday. I took pictures and everything, So sometime this week there will be a slideshow/video of my adventures on that.

Is anyone else really lethargic when they come back from vacation, or is this just me? I thought you were supposed to be energized and rejuvenated! Ready to tackle whatever. All I want to do is sleep.

While I was on vacation, I did discover that I can flat twist! It takes me a while though because my hair is so thick and I have difficulty parting it. Any advice?

After the train, and everything else, my hair was a hot mess. It was dry, and shaped kind of like  a cone. I am really hoping the henna treatment helped. I twisted my hair afterwards, but the twists do feel nice.

This is incredibly short, but I will leave you with the best pic from my trip. Me meeting one of the guys from the big gay ice cream truck!

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Hair on a trip.

 

 

Most people when they travel take one of two modes of transportation; car or plane. While gas prices are steadily going down (at least in my part of the world), they are still pretty high, making an extended car trip possibly as expensive as a plane ticket.

Our solution? The train. You win some and you lose some with the train. The last time we were on, I had a massive headache due to the fact that there were really stinky hippies. Our train last time also was like 5 hours late due to the fact that there was a mudslide in the Pacific Northwest. AKA: Nowhere near where we were, and nowhere near where we were going. Every little thing just went wrong that trip.

We are currently on a train. It is actually going rather well this time, and this leaves me optimistic. We’ve had no issues, except for a rather annoying squeaky voiced child that “loves everyone!”

The last time I was on a train, it was winter time, and my hair was in two strand twists stuffed under a scarf, stuffed under a knitted cap. The knitted cap is no longer an option in the mid west summer (the idea of it in this heat makes me gag a bit). Also, in the interest of not looking like the crazy ass ghetto black lady, I do not have a scarf on my hair. The result? I still look like the crazy ass ghetto black lady.. My hair is just out and looking a wee bit wild. I wanted to learn how to French braid my hair before this excursion, and that just didn’t happen.  On long trips how do you protect your hair without looking crazy as hell? There are enough crazies on this trip (Mullet anyone?) I don’t need to add to the atmosphere.

Vidal ain’t got nothing on him.

 

Around September of last year I attempted my first (and last) braidout. My husband helped to braid my hair, and after showing him one time how to braid, he proceeded to braid better than I could. I should have known it wasn’t a fluke.

Saturday I decided that I needed to go to the bowels of hell (aka Wal-Mart) get get some headbands. I tend to lose mine. He was hungry so we decided to eat while we were out.

My hair was twisted up, and I needed to untwist it. He wasn’t doing anything but watching a bad 1980’s movie, so I enlisted his help. “This will go much faster and get us out of the house sooner if you help.” He asked me what to do. I told him to just untwist them. “Do I untwist them all the way?” I was kind of confused by his question, but told him yes. He sat there and quietly and gently untwisted the back of my hair while I did the front. I got finished before him and just sat there and waited. “I’m finished.” I went to the mirror to go check. Dear God in heaven. He untwisted each twist, and spread the hair evenly over my head so that my afro was freaking adorable!

My husband is a 28 (almost 29) white male who never touched a head of hair on an African American woman before me. I just look at him sometimes, amazed at what he does. He just tells me “I’m just good with my hands.” I keep telling him that if he ever gets sick of being a network engineer, he should go to school to be a beautician. He just rolls his eyes at me and goes back to his movie while I get dressed.

I love this man.

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My hair after he got finished with it!