Accepting yourself completely
We made it to Friday! Yay!
If you are on Facebook, you would have seen that I posted a couple of photos of my hair.
This being one of them. It is my webcam on my computer, that is why it is kind of craptacular. Anyway, I was headed to the Glee concert last night and trying to do something with my hair. Normally (as in EVERY DAY) I put in a headband and a flower. Sometimes I make a poof, but still have the flower as well. In this photo I have on the flower, but no headband.
As I was figuring out my hair last night, I realized that I always feel kind of stupid without my headband and flower. I feel like everyone is looking at me. This caused me to wonder: am I being ashamed of my hair?
I didn’t want that.
I slowly took the flower out my hair, and fluffed up my twists. I looked really good. One thing I might do in the future is add gel to my twists when they are twisted up. Some of the instantly spread out. and it looked uber cute with them twisted up like that.
See? Totally cute. Except I have that Johnson forehead, that should be a fivehead. *snort*
Oh, and Glee was so much fun! I am really really loud and screamed my head off.. as a result, I got a barf bag from a cheerio. LOL. At one point it got really quiet in the place and I screamed out “I LOVE YOU PUCK!” He could so hear it.
To the two girls that I met in like while I was getting popcorn and you were getting Beer. YOU ARE AMAZING! I hope you live in Indianapolis and we can meet up sometime and drink and drool over Puck! LOL.
Clearing things up.
Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope you had a great Memorial Day. I had a decent time, but as I get older, I start thinking more and more about troops. Do you realize we are coming up on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11? I was 19 when all of this went down. I remember staring at the news, wondering how this would change things. I bawled when the news came on yesterday. They were talking of soldiers going to their friend’s funerals. It was sad. Then I read the news and had a o.O moment. You know how the Westboro Baptist Church are a bunch of douche canoes? Well, the KKK came out to counter protest them. Then Westboro got all righteous on the KKK saying that God doesn’t hate people that are different colors.. only the gay ones. Is it too much to hope that they blow each other up?
My hair this week has been weird. Lately it has felt like the product that I apply has been sitting on top of it, rather than absorbing in. The result is my hair feeling dry, but when I touch my hair my hands are all greasy. Ew.
So last night, when I got into the shower, I sprayed my hair down with apple cider vinegar. The apple cider vinegar then got in my eye, which I had to howl for my husband to come take the bottle, because I couldn’t see where to put it. As he walked away I heard him mumble “so many food products in her hair.” LOL. After that debacle, I shampooed and conditioned my hair as normal.
When I got out of the shower, I dried my hair slightly and applied my Belle Butters (which I am running incredibly low on *Sniffle*). I twisted my hair in huge chunky twists and wrapped with a scarf. Since I have just gotten up, I haven’t taken my twists down, but I will keep you apprised of this development.
This weekend, Yelp.com held an event in my area. The Indy 500 was going on (did you guys know that because I live in Indianapolis, they don’t televise the race? Grumblings were had from my husband and his family. I could care less.) so Yelp did The Yelp 500. It was really neat. There was all sorts of different foods to try from different companies. There were supposed to be camels, but not a one in sight! There was music, that wasn’t really my cup of tea, and a very angry and vulgar clown. He was just screaming out “TITS!!” and all sorts of other nonsense. There was a woman with a beautiful natural hair style. She was a photographer for the even though, and I didn’t want to get in her way. There was an old school photo booth as well. Jeff and I got our pictures taken! You can kind of tell I wasn’t really ready.
The rest of them came out okay for the most part though LOL.
Well, I have some chores to do, some puppies that want to go out, and I have a date.. WITH THE GYM!
Lethargy does not become me.
For those of you that do not know, I have sleep apnea. I don’t breathe very well when I sleep. I stop breathing in my sleep. My brain kick starts my breathing back though. Before I was diagnosed, my sleep was terrible. When I had my tests done the doctor looked at the results in amazement and asked if I drove. “No,” I replied “I don’t have my licence yet.” “Thank God.” he said. Apparently at the rate I stopped breathing 8 hours of sleep a night equated to 15 minutes of quality sleep for me. Everyone was in shock. They all thought I was lazy because I would sleep for 16 hours a day, get up, go to the bathroom, get something to eat, and go back to sleep for another 12 hours. I couldn’t really do anything. I got sick constantly, I gained a TON of weight. I was just not in a good place.
After I was diagnosed, I got fitted for a breathing machine. A man came to my mothers house (this was 10 years ago) who looked like Niles Crane from the show Fraizer.
He was..interesting. He was also one of the first guys to ever make me feel pretty. “You have such big gorgeous brown eyes, you should get contacts!” If I was lighter I would have turned beet red. My mom was looking at him with murder in her eyes.
Eventually I got fitted for this machine. It took some getting used to. However, the first nights sleep I had was the best sleep I’d had in a long long time. So much so, that the next day I stayed up for 24 hours. I was alert and fully competent. It was amazing.
As I write this, I am feeling those sluggish undertones that I used to feel pre-machine. I am exhausted, unfocused, and generally blah. My equipment (mask, tube, filter, and water cannister) needs to be switched out. The company (who I will not name on this blog) who used to be my medical supply people SUCK. They don’t bill correctly, I can’t get a straight answer from them, and I get a complete runaround. I am trying to switch to a new medical supplier, but I need the documentation that the old company has. I have called them 3 times. 3 times they have told me they will send the information to my physician. No bueno. Finally I have gone around them. I contacted the hospital I had my last sleep study done at, and supposedly they have sent the information to my physician (All my information is in Kokomo, and they will not send your information to you without a medical records request and I am not making a trip to Kokomo for just one reason. Total waste of gas). So now I am trying to get a hold of my Doctor. Madness.
One of my more recent goals in my natural hair journey is to do a front cornrow. Kind of a side swept cornrow across the front of my head. I can braid, but not very well. I learned on a barbie doll. I came across this tutorial though: http://cornrows.co.uk/howto/howtobraidcornrowsx.html
I thought it would work. I am kind of odd. If I can visualize myself doing something, I can usually do it. using this tutorial, I can visualize myself cornrowing. So yesterday I co-washed and detangled my hair, parted it, and proceeded to try…
and try…
and try…
I was frustrated, and incredibly sleepy. I gave up and ended up sleeping most of my day away. It was horrid. I am normally an incredibly patient person, but the lethargy, lack of energy, and sheer exhaustion have made me this crabby annoyed short tempered person. I need to get this fixed, and soon.
Product Review- Cantu Shea Butter leave in conditioning cream
After a brief hiatus (in which at one point my husband had to come home for lunch from work because I was crying so hard he couldn’t understand what I was saying, because I was SURE I got a D in my math class, and I couldn’t take that class anymore, and it turns out I got a C and cam move on.) I am back with a product review for you.
I bought the Cantu Shea Butter from the weird hair place around the corner from my house. It is ran by a family. I once went in there asking if they had the crackle polishes. The woman told me no, and asked me why I would want that, as it is ugly and unkempt! I just kind of goggled at her and left. Their nail polish looks old and scary for the most part, so I guess it is a good thing they didn’t have it.
Anyway, I heard of Cantu ever since I had gone natural. I always wanted to try it, but I never really saw it when I was out and about. It wasn’t something that I sought out either. However, when I was buying flower hair accessories in the local hair shop, I saw the leave in conditioning repair cream for $4.99 and decided to pick it up.
The front of the product says the following:
stops and mends hair breakage
leaves hair soft, shiny, and manageable
formulated for severely damaged, dry, or coarse hair
Here is the first issue I have with the product; The grammar on the front of the product. There are no capital letters in the previous statements, no periods, however, we have commas. Just looking at the statements drive me batty. Meh.
The product gives you three sets of directions based on what you wanted to do with it. You could use it for daily styling, a leave in treatment, or for frizz free hair. I used it as a daily treatment for the better part of a month
As you can see, I used about half of the jar. The first thing you notice when you open up the Cantu leave in conditioner is the smell. Oh man! It smells like fruit punch. I had Jeff do a sniff test, and he enjoyed the smell too. It is a water based leave in conditioner, so it is kind of runny. I liked the fact that it seemed to revive my hair. It made it moist so that I could style it however I chose. A lot of times in the morning, I would put this on my hair and add a little of my Belle Butters and go. When I did two strand twists at night, I would slather this on, and add Belle Butters on top of it, twist my hair and cover it. In the morning it would still be slightly damp and pliable, so I would put it in a poof and go.
After a little bit, I noticed a slight problem. You see, when I do a twist out, just using Belle Butters, My twist outs can last about a week. They get bigger and bigger, and they are fully moisturized. With the Cantu stuff, It would get bigger, but my hair was incredibly dry after two days. The ends of my hair would look crispy and frizzy. It was not cute. When my hair would get like that, nothing could revive it. I would have to co-wash and start over again.
So yes, I don’t think Cantu Shea Butter leave in conditioning repair cream is right for me. It took styles that normally last up to 5-7 days, and made them last only 2-3. It made my hair feel dried out and crispy. I wouldn’t recommend this product.
Have you tried anything by Cantu? What were your results?
I have to do better!
Because I am unemployed, and I don't leave the house EVER very often, my hair care gets tossed by the wayside. I'll go a week without detangling (which is death with my hair texture), I'll try to make sure there is moisture in my hair. But even that falls by the wayside as seen in these photos I took last night.
slothiness at its finest.
Don't know if you can tell from the photo, but my hair is a HOT MESS. It's dry, it's just ugh. When I do have to go out to go to the library or get cupcakes to feed my addiction groceries, luckily the weather in Indiana is freaking crazy. It got up to almost 70 at one point last week. Today though, it is supposed to snow. We won't talk about that though. It will make my eye twitch and start to water. Anyway, it is cold enough so that I can wear a hat. So I stuff said hot mess under a hat and go.
NO MORE I SAY!!!
After taking these pictures last night, I decided to get proactive (the action, not the skin system) again. Before I went to bed, I slathered on coconut oil as a pre-poo. That is a start.
While I am talking about pre-poo, I have a question for you that deep condition overnight. Do you wear the plastic baggie caps overnight!? I can't do it. the "crinkle crinkle" sound drives me batty. As well as the feel of it. I tried to do it last week. I put on that awful cap and put my satin cap over it. Just walking around with it on makes me shudder in revulsion. Look at this face!!
Plastic caps = this
If you are like me, and can't stand it, what do you do to deep condition your hair. I would love a hutiful hair steamer, but that is like a Christmas present or something. I can't just drop money like that. I'm unemployed. We are on a budget .
The house is a disaster and the dogs (two chihuahuas) are getting into fights, so I must dash now. But before I go, I wanted to show you some music that I have been digging on lately. It is a group called Ahmir, and they remake songs. I found them on Youtube initally, and quite frankly, you have to be damn good for me to purchase your music. They are damn good. Check em out.
Here is a little taste of them:
This features Traphik AKA Timothy Delaghetto.
Espionage Cosmetics
