the ups and downs of trader joe's nourish spa conditioner

about a year ago, i made the (unconscious) decision to switch to all- or mostly natural hair care products. not that i have anything against my beloved VO5, herbal essences or ion products, but as part of an overhaul of my diet and general lifestyle, it just made sense to convert my hair products, too. it wasn't as hard on my wallet as i thought: i find giovanni products on sale at my local whole foods pretty often, i caught a killer sale on aubrey organics, so i'm good on DC for a while, and there is always marshall's and tjmaxx when i need a liter of giovanni smooth as silk or 50:50 (a product i haven't tried.....YET). as for some of the more "trendy" lines, kinky-curly is more expensive than i am used to, but one bottle of come clean shampoo lasts me a few months, and since i don't care too much for the curling custard and knot today, i don't have to break the bank on the whole line. jane carter, shea moisture, qhemet biologics and oyin handmade are next on my list. however, the frugalista in me loves the fact that there is a cheapie line i can turn to: trader joe's nourish spa.

while i haven't tried the shampoo (y'all know how finicky my hair is with that stuff), i believe i actually talked about tj nourish spa conditioner quite some time ago....like 2 or 3 years ago. back in the day, i couldn't decide if i liked it or not, since it seemed a little too thick for a cowash conditioner, but not quite nourishing enough to use as a DC. well....though i haven't really talked about it, the conditioner has actually been a part of my regimen for a few months now.

i have heard for a loooong time that it is comparable to giovanni smooth as silk, but since i never used that specific giovanni product, it didn't matter to me. that all changed around december of last year when i found the entire giovanni line on sale for $5 at whole foods and picked up the smooth as silk conditioner instead of the direct leave-in. as some of you may know, i'm from the "i'll try anything once" school of thought, so it wasn't a huge decision to grab the SAS instead of GDLI, especially since i was trying to decide if i liked the new version of GDLI as much as the other. long story short? it was great as a DC, but ROCKED as a cowash conditioner AND a leave-in!

now i'm not gonna lie, i'm used to getting a lot more conditioner for $5 (i believe their products come in 8oz bottles) but my hair was responding so great that i said 'forget it' and kept purchasing. i was in heaven when i came across the liter pump bottle at tjmaxx for $12.99, but being that i could only find the SAS in virginia, that joy didn't last too long. while i continued to run into the two local stores every week hoping to find a stray bottle, i decided to give tj nourish spa another go. i guess it was because i fell in love with SAS, but this time my hair responded IMMEDIATELY to nourish spa -- it stays soft, moisturized and tangle-free, and i can go longer without cowashing, too. i call it my "triple threat" since i can use it as a DC, cowash and leave-in. besides, it's got the other things on my "dream hair product" list: no offensive smell, readily available, pretty good ingredients, and fantastic portability. since i (re)discovered tj nourish spa, i've gifted it to my mom, sister and recommended it to a few coworkers as well. i mean, who doesn't need a multipurpose, all natural, CHEAP conditioner/moisturizer/styling product?

not bad for $3, huh?

ingredients: purified water, organic rosemary oil, organic valencia orange citrus, organic mango, organic lemongrass, organic ginko biloba, organic echinacea, organic willow bark, organic sea kelp, organic chamomile flower, organic textured soy protein, organic lavender, organic grapefruit citrus, tocopherol (Vit E), acetamide MEA, cetyl alcohol, citric acid, methylparaben, propylparaben, botanical fragrance

read the amazon reviews here!

This darn shedding!

I have fallen off of my projected straightening schedule ALREADY....but for good reason. The blowout that I got last month took me well through the end of October, just like I expected. It wasn't difficult at all -- my regimen was super simple, being that most days I wore my hair in some sort of bun (high bun, donut bun, braided bun), updo (usually with a claw clip or good hair day pin), or braidout and I only moisturized maybe 2 times a week to avoid buildup from too much coconut or avocado oil. The hard part actually came from what should have been a simple step in my regimen: washing my hair. I rarely combed my hair all the way through from root to tip when it was straight, opting to finger comb or brush only the edges when needed. Therefore, I completely forgot about the crazy seasonal shedding I get in the fall.

The day that I washed my hair, I stepped in the shower with a large comb, a few clips, and my shampoo, but came out with a few huge hair balls! Of course I panicked, but luckily I have been taking great care to track not only my growth, but also my shedding and breakage amounts -- not to the point where i am doing obsessive things like counting strands and examining every piece of hair for that little white bulb (okay, maybe just every OTHER strand, lol), but I do know what is normal versus abnormal for me. I first noticed in the fall of 2008 as a new natural that something wasn't quite right with my hair....I remember not combing a WNG for about a week and being horrified to discover on wash day that my hair was matted. I did learn quickly that once-a-week detangling was not going to be an option if I was wearing WNGs, but I also learned that the amount of hair I shedded that week was what caused the matting. Even after starting to PS, I was still getting these huge hairballs, and all the troubleshooting in the world didn't fix it. I calmly waited it out, and noticed around December that things were back to normal. The same thing happened last fall, despite the fact that I was PSing a lot more, and no matter how many garlic treatments I did or pills I popped, it didn't stop until it was ready to. This year being the third year, I have now realized that it's just a seasonal thing that I can't really do anything about. I did do a few protein treatments to a) restore my hair from the heat use and b) ward against any possible breakage there could have been, but even with all that Megatek, I am still pulling back tons of shed hairs every time I touch my hair.

The only plan of attack I have is to keep doing what I have been doing: wearing my hair in protective styles and keeping up with a strict moisture regimen. I cornrowed the sides of my hair last Sunday to make a semi-frohawk and wore my loose hair in a variation of sponge roller curls, french braids, braidouts and braidout buns this week, making sure to wet, moisturize and finger comb my hair each night before resetting. Tomorrow I will take down the cornrows, prepoo with coconut oil, shampoo my hair, DC with matrix biolage conditioning balm and add the kimmaytube leave-in with a few sprays of aphogee green tea + keratin. Not quite sure how I will style it yet, but I am kinda liking the combo of cornrows and french braids, so that may win out. I will try straightening again in December, since I hope the shedding will have stopped by then.

my (sort of) new denman brush

i have recently become enamored with fotki-stalking again, a practice i adopted back when i first joined LHCF. the other day, i was going through some fellow type 3/4 fotkis when i discovered morenita, a beautiful curly who talks about her modified denman brush. i had heard of this before, but hadn't really been concerned with trying it, since i was sure it involved warping my beloved brush in some way that would render it useless if i didn't like the modification. i purchased a new brush last month, but left it home in virginia, so this past weekend i packed it to bring back to north carolina. i decided that since i had two brushes, why not research how to make one into this "newer" version? i followed the link posted in her fotki to a youtube tutorial and was SHOCKED at how simple it was to make the switch! after watching the video, i ran to the bathroom to grab my brush and try this out. i didn't get to use the "new" brush until the next morning, when i cowashed for my daily wet bun. i did a double take when i noticed how easily the brush slid through my hair, and needless to say i am sold! i never thought i could make a near-perfect hair tool better, but apparently it can be done -- and so easily, too! give it a try and let me know what you think.

click here to watch the tutorial.

oil rinsing is the.....!

i decided to try something new to my hair tonight, since i have been cowashing and wet bunning consistently for a while now. i had already decided to DC my hair tonight, and somewhere between writing out my regimen for tonight and applying it, i decided to make a small tweak. i ran across a thread the other day on oil rinses, and i decided that since i have SO MUCH OIL, i would go for it. well let me put it like this: i started doing it because i wanted to use up my stash, but i will keep doing it because it makes my hair feel fantastic! here's what i did:

*DC under plastic cap with matrix biolage conditioning balm for about an hour, no heat
*rinsed with warm water
*applied oil mixture (for this go-round, i used EVOO, castor oil, and my new nutiva EVCO)
*covered hair and left on for about 15 minutes
*hopped in the shower, rinsed with HOT water
*cowashed with HE HH, detangling with fingers and shower comb
*final rinse with cold water
*t-shirt dried for a few minutes, then added kimmaytube leave-in
*set hair on satin-covered sponge rollers

i simply thought that doing an oil rinse would make my hair shiny, or maybe even define my curls. in all truthfulness, i had no idea what to expect....i was just experimenting in an attempt to use up product. what i quickly discovered is that oil rinsing made my hair so easy to detangle -- while my hair never really gets super tangled, i always have to be gentle since SSKs + fine strands leads to breakage. not only did the comb glide through my hair, but even finger combing was effortless -- my fingers ran through my hair so smoothly i almost couldn't believe it! coupled with the fact that the nutiva smells positively delicious and my hair is super shiny, i definitely think we have a keeper with this one. i only wish i had discovered it sooner!

as for the impromptu rollerset, i am not really expecting much -- i just wanted to stretch out my hair. it would be nice if i woke up and was able to fluff out a curly fro, so we will see. as long as my hair is feeling this good tomorrow, i really don't care! *grin*

back to black (-ish)

the tracks that i bought for my sew-in ended up being wayyy too dark for my head. i always get a #4 since no one can match my hair color (or skin color, but that's another post) and this time i decided to just dye my hair dark brown so that my leaveout matches. well it came out great....except the color is a *bit* dark. hopefully it will just lighten with a few washes.

in any event, my crazy cousin has been MIA for the past few days, so i didn't get to install my sew-in on tuesday like i had hoped. my mom told me she will try to cornrow my hair today, so hopefully all goes well. the other day i cowashed my hair for a date and decided to rock a puff. i don't know whether it was the garnier, the noodle head, or the hair color....but my ends did this weird clumpy thing that i really liked. instead of being a whole bunch of frizzy-ish curls, they came together in a few well defined coils. i need to find out what caused this, because i like it!


as of now, i am deep conditioning with a new product i picked up -- a fortifying deep conditioner by garnier. it was very creamy, which kind of made up for the fact that the tube is so small. instead of getting one use out of it, i may be able to get two whole uses....joy! (can you sense the sarcasm?) next i'll rinse out and probably go ahead and pull out my perimeter in order to make it a bit easier for my mom....because i know the whole concept of doing that will just confuse her. she acts so hair illiterate that i can't help but laugh and shake my head. ah well, this way i can make sure it looks the way i want it. wish me luck!

my latest project...

now that i've got the hang of crochet braids, i am trying to learn about tree braids. this may be one that i have to get someone else to do for me initially, but i am intrigued. i never really knew what they were, save this one thread on LHCF one time, but even then i didn't read through it to see what the buzz was. the thing i like about crochet braids is the fact that they mimic a really intricate, complex style but take so little time -- for example, normal micros take what, 10-12 hours, but you can get crocheted micros in about 3-4 hours. it's sort of the same deal with tree braids, from what i read...they resemble micros or a sew-in but take 3-5 hours max. what's more is you can use either straight or wavy hair to get the desired look...so if i DO go this route, i'd probably get wet and wavy since i'm definitely a girl who likes versatility. now all that's left is researching them some more -- any time i find a style i am interested in, i read till my eyes are about to fall out, then rest up and watch youtube videos showing different ways people do them. i just started this process last night, so i am not too far in it all, but within the next few weeks i hope to be certain as to whether this is doable or not. if nothing else, i can at least try it on my guinea pig of a sister -- she pretty much is open to anything, so we will see.

next on the list...

after my box braids came out around the first of the month, i played around with twistouts for about a week and a half since i decided i will allow myself up to 2 weeks between braids/twists to play in my hair (and use up the billions of products in my stash). during that time, i tried HE hydralicious, which i purchased while in box braids (what? it was on sale!) and hadn't gotten a chance to use. i liked it, but need to use it again to get a definitive evaluation. while in my braids, i was perusing LHCF when i came across BlackMasterPiece's thread about crochet braids and fell.in.love with this style! i knew i had to have it, but was unsure of when i would be able to install it...then there was that whole confidence thing about actually being able to do it. anyway, i walked into one of my local BSS's on february 15th to check out their kanekalon when i asked the sales lady, on a whim, if they carried freetress water wave bulk hair. unfortunately, she told me they stopped carrying it, so i went back to the regular braiding hair to pick up three packs of $1.99 braiding hair for senegalese twists. just as some $7.99 wavy braiding hair caught my eye, my mom entered and came over to where i was. coincidentally, she picked up a random pack of hair and asked me "why don't you get this?" lo and behold, she was holding a pack of blonde $9.99 freetress water wave...AFTER the lady told me they didn't have it! my jaw DROPPED, and i asked her where she got it, hoping that maybe they had a solid brown or something in that family. she shrugged and said it was laying on top of the rack, and i frantically searched to see if there were any other wayward packs while she asked at the front if they had more. she got the same answer (plus a shocked look) from the sales lady...and then a man came out from behind the counter and came over to where i was standing to look for more. he ended up finding TWO MORE packs, which was perfect since i was going to buy three packs of whatever i was getting anyway. i was concerned again with the color, since he had two blonde-ish packs and one that was T33, a black-and-red sort of combo. he then not only reassured me that they would blend nicely, but said the magic words: "i'll sell to you for a good price"! i looked at the $7.99 pack in my hand, asked him what price, and he offered to sell me them for $6.99 a pack. i looked at my mom for her opinion on the colors, and she told me they should be fine, although she then admitted she knows nothing about "fake hair", her term for everything from half wigs to kanekalon. i know i should have asked for $6 just to ensure i wouldn't feel bad if the colors looked crazy on me, but i wasn't thinking at this point and i simply said yes. that is the story of how i got my crochet braid hair...the rest is history.

well, not really...i guess there is more to the story. i shampooed my hair, DC'd with my new favorite, ion effective care intensive therapy treatment -- which really deserves its own post, blow dried my hair mostly straight so she wouldn't rip through it, and got my cousin to do my cornrows the next day since i didn't feel like it (and hers are tighter than mine). she didn't quite listen to my request for 16 straight back cornrows once she heard i was doing crochet braids and instead did 10 curved ones. there was also a glitch with my hook...my sister heard "crochet hook" and that's exactly what she gave me, claiming she couldn't find her latch hook. since the hair wouldn't stay on, i pulled a BMP (my term for doing what the thread author did) and used a bobby pin to install the hair. i was a bit concerned when the knots weren't tight since none of the youtube videos i watched (and trust me, i watched a TON) mentioned this, but i went forward...and eventually, it didn't seem to matter: the hair stayed in and ended up looking great. also, the fact that she did curved braids seemed to work out better, since i don't have that "driveway", as one youtuber called it, running down the middle of my head where the hair is parted and falls on its own. i split ALL my braiding hair into 3 sections instead of just the hair on the sides, gelling each piece like BMP did, but with matrix biolage gelee (glycerin free, as recommended), and ended up saving myself a whole pack-and-some-change...i only used a pack and a half in the end, so i have enough left over to do this style again with these colors! what's even better is the guy at the BSS was right, and these colors look great together. i felt so relieved when i realized it, and noticed he wasn't just trying to make a sale. i will admit i added too much in the beginning on one side, but it wasn't anything a pair of scissors couldn't fix. hopefully maintenance will be as easy as people have said and it will last me closer to the 6 week end of the spectrum...i have LOTS of gel at my disposal, as well as lots of braid spray and conditioner (i do think i will attempt cowashing around week 4). i also got the idea last night to pull a Nichi (it's a shame how i refer to styles/techniques by the LHCF user i got the idea from, lol) and cut the hair shorter once it starts to lose steam.

now that the hair is in, i have gotten quite a few compliments...one from my cousin who put the cornrows in (her words: "that didn't turn out half bad", which is as close to a compliment as she can give, lol), another from my ex's mother (who asked me a million questions before deciding that she wants me to do her hair like this for the summer) and even one from my anti-fake-hair mother, who was so impressed that when i told her i was ordering more hair this weekend (hairsisters had an amaaaaazing weekend dash sale, where all their freetress bulk hair was $4.60 a pack), she asked me to pick up two packs for HER so she can wear her hair like this! this style is definitely a keeper...glad i am building my style arsenal and looking flyy while doing it!

tis the season...

i kind of thought it was a fluke, but now i know for certain...i shed like a small animal in the fall. thinking back to around this time last year, i tried this low-mani thing out, and not only was it an utter fail, but i experienced so much shedding that i thought my hair was falling out. however, at that particular point in time, i didn't know whether to attribute it to my lack of detangling or the change in the seasons. now that my regimen has been pretty solid for the past few weeks, not to mention the fact that i've placed 2 protein sessions with joico k-pak DPR in there, i definitely know it has something to do with the time of year and not my washing/styling habits. i am thinking about going back on those garlic supplements, since they really did seem to work, and i have already started wearing styles that require less washing and thus less of those massive hairballs in the shower. i'm currently rocking a twist n curl a la curlynikki...i may post pics as the week goes along to share how it came out. in any case, i hope it stops soon. my next paycheck (and subsequently, my order with hairsisters to get these tracks) can't come fast enough.

good enough to eat!

i posted earlier about the info i got from the post by pokahontas on LHCF...so last night i had a facial night. i have done the lemon/sugar scrub once before, but something was different about my routine last night, and whatever it was gave me the softest skin. i am literally struggling not to touch my face because it is SO SOFT. this combo is a keeper for sure.

• washed with desert essence + clarisonic, as always
• ACV toner
• lemon sugar scrub, exfoliated and left on ~5 min
  
• greek yogurt + raw honey mask, ~15 min
• moisturize with AV gelly and grapeseed oil

i have two hormonal blemishes that i have been successful in leaving alone, but they are taking too long to shrink for my liking. i tried another tip i picked up, covering them in raw honey and a bandaid and leaving this on overnight. well, guess what...they are in fact a lot smaller. i am thinking 3 days of this could make them disappear, which is GREAT for the cystic one on my chin.

i am selling/swapping this philosophy microdelivery peel -- it's really good, but i don't see myself using it anymore now that i have this regimen.

andddd another one!

it always feels like i am being mega conceited when i admit things like this, and i am trying to tell myself that after all the trials and tribulations i have been through with my hair, i deserve it...but i went home for the weekend, and it felt SO GOOD to get weave checked by my best friend and her family. i wore it half-up and half down, and all the hands that ran through my hair were a bit creepy but still reassuring that i am doing something right. my bff was really the one that made the difference though -- she told me that my hair hasn't been this long since she met me 5 years ago, even though i know my hair has NEVER been this long. she has said a few things about "good hair" in the past that have rubbed me the wrong way, but i was ecstatic to tell her about the new staples in my hair care arsenal, namely aussie moist. in addition, i have always admired her aunt's long, healthy-looking hair, and when she came up to me and touched my hair, it was shocking. i mean...it kind of felt like being a singer and having your idol compliment you on your vocals. bottom line? it feels good to get some sort of indication that all the stuff i am going through is actually worth it.

just like honey

true product junkies know that there is an art to determining if your hair likes a product or not: hardness, sheen, and bounce are just a few of the factors that can let you know if something is a stable or just plain garbage. i have come to be very picky with my DCs, since adding or subtracting a single product from my moisture mix can have drastic consequences on how my hair feels...and if i'm gonna sit under the dryer all that time, i want it to be for a good reason!

in the past i have gotten good results with a combo of light protein (aphogee 2 min), oil (grapeseed) and a good moisturizing DC (gvp conditioning balm) before straightening my hair. i bought a bottle of raw honey from the grocery store the other day, as opposed to regular honey, and decided to put in a squirt of that too, since it normally takes me for-ev-er to get through a bottle of honey. well...i don't know what it is about raw honey that my hair loves, but as soon as i stepped in the shower to rinse it out and put my hands in my hair, i almost fainted! my hair felt soooo soft, which is always a great sign to me that my DC mix has done its job. i absolutely dread touching my hair when it is wet and noticing that it still feels bone dry, no matter how much water i run through it. my hair felt so great that i didn't even have to cowash after i rinsed it -- i just ACV rinsed, plopped and applied my leave-ins. needless to say, i found a new staple DC mix.

i'm currently sitting under the dryer, where i will probably be for quite some time being that i ran my denman under the sink to smooth out my hair before i rollerset it (my spray bottle is being a little wonky, so i had to improvise). another thing...i ran out of rollers this time and had to throw in some grey and turquoise ones. it's nice to see that the grey ones finally fit since i used to envy girls who could use the big grey ones, but i still get paranoid that they are too big and will fall out. i guess i should up my goal to being able to use them all over...and then raise it to being able to use the big black soda can looking ones. one day soon, right?

hair update

i've been going through some things with my hair for the past few weeks, some good and some bad. after realizing that WNGs were murderous on my ends, i had to restructure the way i go about doing things. since i really didn't feel like dealing with it over spring break, i put in senegalese twists on the 4th of march. i ended up keeping them only until the 28th -- no water on my scalp was making me antsy, plus they got really fuzzy.

after i took them out i went back to my first love, WNGs. i decided that it would be better to wash them out after a max of 2 days, since detangling HAS to be what is slowing me down. i also picked up a few new hair products, and i'm not having a single regret about them! here is my new WNG regimen:

• wet hair down and add HE Hello Hydration. i don't know what it is but this stuff gives the greatest curl definition...
• rinse most of it out and squeeze out the extra water. some days i switch it up and rinse all of it out.
• dry with my handy dandy t-shirt for about 5 minutes, then remove it...if i rinsed it all out, i add GVP leave-in
• seal (yes, me SEALING) with jojoba oil.
  
• add lily of the desert AV gelly to keep it fabulous and funky. good to go!

other goodies that i throw in the mix are HE LTR (since i fell in love with the leave-in last summer) as well as aussie moist (for cowashes and DCs), and grapeseed oil. i'm still looking for that quintessential shampoo; the organix has become a body wash and the chi infra shampoo that i bought dried my hair out too. i almost forgot that crappy one night stand i had with ecostyler gel; it may be more cost efficient than the aloe vera gelly, but it certainly doesn't give me the shine, softness, and definition that this double duty gel provides. and you know it's good when you can use it on your face too!

another revelation that i made is my hair likes protein...or at least i think it does. i did a DC with megatek about 2 weeks ago, of course followed with a moisturizing DC, and my hair thanked me for it! i went home and stole both the aphogee 2 min and the nexxus emergencee, so now i have enough strengtheners to last me the rest of the semester.

right now i am sitting under the dryer with aphogee 2 min, grapeseed oil, and GVP conditioning balm in my hair. i'll let this sit for about 40 mins, then it's wash day! i'm definitely gonna try a ponytail rollerset, and since the other one didn't go so hot i hope i can get the hang of it! i will post pics if it comes out right, my camera broke on me (well, someone broke it) so i will try to take a few via webcam.

something old, something new

the old? clarifying and DCing. the new? baking soda!

i've been slightly intrigued by the idea of using that big ol' tub of bentonite clay for my hair, as evidenced in kinkerbelle's fotki, but before i got into all that i wanted to try out the baking soda texturizer that littlegoldlamb profiles in her fotki. long story short...i still have the same texture =)

1) washed with organix vanilla silk shampoo...love the smell, but still convinced that there is sometihng better out there that doesn't tangle my hair. either i'm using too much or my curls are trying to tell me something!

2) airdried to 80%, as suggested by LGL, then applied the mix. i added approximately 2 tbsp of conditioner to a small container of trader joe's nourish spa conditioner -- probably the amount i would use to DC with. i left it on for an hour under a plastic cap.

3) rinsed and applied DC mix: gvp conditioning balm/kenra mc/herbal oil blend. went to exercise like i said i would, then left it on for maybe an hour past that as well.

4) detangled, rinsed out DC, plopped with t-shirt, applied gvp's paul mitchell the conditioner, and twisted it up into 1-12 big fat ones.

granted, my hair is really soft, but it doesn't feel any different from when i normally clarify and DC. i can see myself doing it again -- maybe, it's kinda time consuming -- but it's not a lifesaver.

pics coming when i unload my camera.

back on the wagon

oh my goodness, it's 11/13. it's been a month since my bday...and five since the BC.

i'm in serious "get to APL by december" mode again, mostly for selfish reasons - like seeing the look on my ex and my cousin's faces - but nevertheless i want it, dammit. I megassaged again sunday, then tuesday night i DC'd (with heat, 30 min), cowashed (trader joes + STC), and ponytailed it up...but the interesting thing was my DC mixture. i love throwing in random crap, so i added NTM mask, coconut oil....and STRAIGHT MT! i have heard about some people on LHCF using this stuff to DC (apparently it does wonders to stop breakage) so i gave it a whirl. my hair felt kind of tangly when i was rinsing so i got scared, but there seems to be no harm done. i will only be doing that at max twice a month though, don't wanna overdo it. the funny thing is it's 24 hours later and the middle of my ponytail is still damp, which means it's still moisturized, something i seem to have trouble with when i wear my everyday puff. this ponytail thing might be something to look into.

for those who are wondering...yes i tried a bun. no i didn't wear it out in public because it made me look like an alien.

i'll try megassaging again thursday night and i'll throw in the classic kenra mc + clear glaze DC this weekend. no better recovery than to get up and start running again.

luxuriousity

yeah, that's not a word. but i take back everything i was lamenting about a few days ago - i'm not gonna claim APL, but i will claim soft and silky hair. coconut oil will CHANGE YOUR LIFE, i tell you. i'm sealing with this stuff at night before putting on my silk scarf, and again in the morning before bunning it up (who knew you could get so many hair complements just from doing the southerntease bun) and i keep touching my hair! it's amazing! GO GET YOU SOME!

mission: impossible...?

being that my goal check-in was SUPPOSED to be a week ago, i feel kind of bad about the fact that i didn't straighten my hair till yesterday, and i only did it because i was bored. i tried to judge the outcome before i finished straightening, but the only thing i could say is i upgraded from the tan rollers to the pink rollers. i think i can use the purple rollers on some of my hair, but i didn't try. i've had to look at the picture a few times to see if i made APL, and i'm not sure i want to claim it. when i don't stretch my straightened hair, it's SL, but when i do it's riiiiight at APL. (i'll post it once my camera stops trippin'.) i did notice that what someone on LHCF said is really true: even if i am APL, my hair does not feel long at ALL! that paranoia about my hair breaking off was setting in too...thank goodness i have some cute hair clips and coconut oil!

my hair isn't silky like it was last time, although it is incredibly soft - it could be the temp of the flat iron that controls that. i also can't shake this dryness thing. it could be because i stopped DCing 2x a week so i will go back to that then straighten again in a few weeks. i DID tell myself i was gonna start doing that once the fall came, and it's definitely supposed to be a little on the cold side tomorrow. in any event, i'll enjoy my hair till i get sick of it.

straight hair regimen:

• conditioner wash with organix vanilla silk; detangle with shower comb and denman (my hair has been really tangly lately - maybe another sign that i need to DC more?)
• DC with NTM mask for 30 minutes with heat
• apply sabino mb and ponytail rollerset; sit under hood dryer for an hour or so
• flat iron with solia on 370 using comb chase method
  
• run coconut oil through hair, focusing on ends, every night till i wash again
  

this time it only took me about 30 mins to roll my hair, which is a big improvement over the hour it took last time! next time i will use my nexxus emergencee and do the keratin treatment like southerntease suggested, because i feel like my hair is breaking for some reason. i have some wispies on the left side, although the right side reaches all the way back into my hair clip. i definitely need to step my hair game back up, because i have been having some issues that i need to correct, such as the dryness and the difficulty detangling. now that i am at my first goal i can focus on health before length!

is it that serious?

i've gotten a plethora of comments on my hair in the past few days, most of them on thursday in the span of about an hour. first i saw my friend's roomie - maybe i should point out that this is a girl whose hair i have admired since first year...and she was in awe of my hair. as in she was touching it, asking me how i get it to "do that", and sighing because she wants to go natural, or something like that. wow, what a feeling. second, my TA said something in class related to the fact that when my doctor sent in an email last week to get my absences excused, she knew it was me because she couldn't look at my hair the class period i was out. i got another comment later in the day...and rats, i forgot what it was about. today i was at a community service event in richmond and a friend of mine asked me why i was natural. i mean, just out of the clear blue sky, like she had been thinking about it all morning. once i explained it, we got into a LONG discussion about hair. i've known for a while that she does her own hair, and two of her roomies run a pseudo-beauty shop out of their apartment, and while her hair doesn't necessarily look damaged, talking with her made me realize that maybe i'm not looking at the bigger picture.

our conversation mainly revolved around her 4th roomie, who is natural (and coincidentally, a friend of mine on fotki). she spent a long time ragging her hair, saying things like "why do you have all that hair and not do anything with it", "she always gets long straight tracks although she could just do that to her own hair...so she must not really want to be natural", "i don't understand why she washes her hair every day cause that can't be healthy", and a lot of other things that made me go...uhhhhh....and after a while, i started feeling like captain-save-a-head when i was forced to interject with my opinion. what's worse is the other girl at the table with us is actually going natural (which i didn't know), and she had questions she wanted to ask me, but couldn't because of motormouth making her feel uncomfortable. girl b (just seems like a good thing to call her) has kinky twists, and i was able to ascertain that she wants to BC in december, her mom has been natural for 2 years, and she is scared but excited to do it. she was subsequently discouraged from going for a long transition by girl a since "it's bad to have two textures", and of course since i had a 12-month transition i let her know what the deal was. i guess all-in-all it wasn't anything i've never heard before, so perhaps it's who it was coming from...i just thought she knew better than to say some of the things she was saying. oh, and of course when she mentioned her roommate "has so much expensive hair sh*t cause she goes on these natural hair chat sites"...yeah she was talking about LHCF...i almost lost it. luckily i realized it wasn't really a big deal, and i simply said i look on the internet for help as well, not to mention i have more hair products than the ethnic aisle at wal-mart. then i laughed it off.

wanna know the icing on the cake? "i want to go natural, but..." i won't even bore you with the rest. just know that it's along the lines of my-hair-won't-grow. ohhhh how the tables have turned.

let's lighten the mood with a FOTD pic or two. believe it or not, that's the same eye in two different lightings. in real life, it's a purple smoky eye i copied from DRBrooklyn's creamsheen haul vid. excuse my crappy camera till i get a new one for my bday by using your imagination.

face: select cover-up concealer; SFF; true romantic blush; MSF in light flush
eye: wet n wild paradise cove palette (see next entry) - light purple on inner half, brown on outer half and brows, light tan highlight; brown HiP cream liner; too faced lash injection mascara
lips: NYC ultra moist lip wear in petal; ulta super shiny lipgloss in goddess

garlic: bread, biscuits and...hair?

because of MT, my hair has been shedding like a small animal lately. i thought i would just ride it out but i really can't take it anymore. i dont feel my scalp or anything so it's not bad in that sense, but seeing all that hair still freaks me out. garlic is good for stopping shedding, among other things, so i tried a garlic paste concoction last night. i smelled like spaghetti night for a few hours but i thought it would be worth it...but i was rinsing it out and still pulling back hairballs. i wanted to cry but instead i hopped on LHCF and read up on garlic supplements, with the prior knowledge that they can stop shedding in 2-3 days. wal-mart has a twin pack of garlic tabs for less than 6 bucks so i hopped in the car (at midnight) and went straight to the pharmacy section. they are 1000mg each so i took two as soon as i got home, then cowashed again this morning...and you know what, the small animal that was living on my scalp left a hairball BUT THATS IT. i mean, before last night i couldnt even run my hands across the TOP of my hair without pulling back about 5 strands. detangling was a joke, even with my shower comb...but i fingercombed and then detangled this morning and my shedding was down to about 1/4 of what it has been. idk whether this is a coincidence or what, but...i'm not complaining!!! maybe in a few days it will be gone altogether! what a great discovery.

oils > butters, dang it

i am STILL looking for a moisturizer for my rollersets even though it is long gone now. i have been experimenting on my 2nd day puffs, and unfortunately had to come to the conclusion that my hair hates butter. i tried putting shea butter on my ends - they were dry as crap. i tried it in my DCs - dry hair under the showerhead. i even baggied overnight with the stuff - how did i wake up to a dry puff under the baggy?! of course i'm frustrated being that i bought 8oz of the stuff and have yet to use about 4-5 oz of it, but it's making me wonder what i CAN use on my hair. i know it loves oils, especially castor oil and my beloved africa's best herbal oil, so i guess i will have to break down and get some coconut oil like i keep on saying...this is a sad sad day but at least i pinpointed what it was that i added to my DCs that kept them from working their magic.

flat ironing success!

*i know you want pics, but i have none. i'm just as sad as you are...lol

two days after i rollerset my hair, my mom came to me and told me she wanted her hair straightened. i offered to rollerset hers as well but she has a strong aversion to hood dryers, the same fear that kept me from DCing with heat all summer, so i had to find another way to do it. i suggested flat ironing - and she agreed - so i did it.

i prepared by DCing her hair with kenra mc, no heat of course. after that i put sabino mc in her hair, and i'm pretty sure i skipped the giovanni direct for whatever reason. instead of putting it on rollers i put it in the ponytails like i did with mine and i braided them up till the next morning. i thought i was doing pretty good, being that i had already perused LHCF for straightening tips and added as little product as possible, but for whatever reason her ends came out horrible. yeah her hair was straight, but it looked dry, and her ends looked horrible despite the fact that she BC'd just over a month ago. thank goodness the next day she got caught in the rain.

for round two, i used ElleDoll's tips for "lightweight, silky flat ironed hair" (found here) minus the chelating part, which contrary to what i was told this weekend suggested blowdrying then adding the heat protectant. well i tried it...and i dont know if it was that or the blowdrying but her hair came out BEAUTIFUL, relaxer straight and just so shiny. even her ends looked fabulous, the way they were supposed to look. we both sat and thought as to what made the difference; while i think it is the heat she thinks it was the longer DC time. here is what i did this time:

• DC'd with lustrasilk for an hour and a half, no heat.
• rinsed and applied giovanni direct.
• plaited into sections and blowdried each on medium with my cheapie ionic hair dryer. once again i used pinkskates' tension method, holding the ends with my denman.
• got scared cause her hair was really big.
• parted her hair into 5 sections (half mohawk at the top, two sections on the sides, and two in the back).
• applied sabino mb to the first section (i started in the back) by covering the bottle opening with my fingers and tipping it upside down. everytime i poured it out i got too much so this worked well.
• flat ironed small sections using the comb chase method.
• repeat with other 4 sections.

her hair just curled up so easily with just a bend of the solia - so i knew i had a winner on my hands. i was just going to wrap it but i decided to try pin curling her hair instead, and the pin curls just looked so silky that i just kept complimenting her. this might sound petty...but i can't wait to hear my stupid cousins' mouthes when they see her hair. i'm so happy, and the important thing is she is too! i was planning on waiting until september to flat iron my hair, but who knows, i could end up doing it a lot sooner if i keep looking at her hair.