Wash and Go a new favorite??

It's been  forever since my last post, but preparing to move 900+ miles away can eat up quite a bit of time. But I had to post this awesome change in my routine.

A week and a half a go my husband suggested that I wear my hair down more often. Since being natural for a little over a year during that time I wore my hair either up or braided for about 98% of the time. The reason for this was protecting my hair and not knowing really how to work with it. I'm still learning.  Since being natural I've heard about wash-n-go styles and a product like called Kinky-Curly. I've tried the washa nd go before and it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to. I'm not sure if I did something wrong or used the wrong products, but it turned out kind of weird. I was able to salvage it but was still a bit let down by the results. After going back and forth with myself about it, I finally (with a little encouragement from hubby) decided to try out the wash-n-go again with the Kinky-Curly styling system. I went to Whole Foods and purched the Kinky-Curly Come Clean Shampoo,  Kinky-Curly Knot Today Conditioner. I already had a jar of the Kinky-Curly Curling Custard  lurking under my bathroom sink that I tried and failed with about a month ago.  Earlier this week, I washed my hair with the Come Clean shampoo, used the Knot Today to detangle and as a leave in, and applied the Curling Custard in small sections though dripping wet hair. The results? I love this line!! I love how my hair reacts to it. No I don't get big springy curls (and I'm totally OK with that) but I get smaller little cork screw curls and my hair is nice and shinny. The only draw back is that it does take my hair a while to dry, but I can get 2nd and even 3rd day hair with these products which is a huge plus.  For some reason, I thought I had to wash my hair every day and go though the whole routine every day, but all I have to do the next day is spritz my hair with a little bit of water and finger comb and/or add a headband or scarf and I'm out the door. So these products and the wash-n-go are now a staple in my routine.

I plan to rock the wash-n-go though out the summer. I'm hoping to find some cute accessories to go with my new style. I'm glad I finally tried this. Oh and a big plus for the Kinky-Curly products are they are completely natural and organic with no mineral oil, silicones, petroleum, plastics, acrylics, carbomers, and are also alcohlol, wax, and paraben free. How awesome is that!! If you want to check out these products (and I highly suggest you do if you have kinky or curly hair) swing on over to the Kinky-Curly website and check them out!

Here are my results from this morning. This is my second day hair and a I used a bra strap (from one of my convertible bras) to create this style. Notice the little cork screw curls a the top? I love this style and these products.

Product Experement and Styling Update

For the last month or so I've been reading about Amla. Alma, or Indian Gooseberry, is an edible fruit from a deciduous tree of the same name. It's used in traditional Indian medicine in fresh or dried form to cure various ailments including, skin and hair ailments. Its also used widely among Indian women as a cosmetic. Amla Powder is a natural astringent and skin toner that works on both hair and skin. The paste makes hair glossy and silky, enhances waves and curls, leaving behind a clean and healthy scalp. The past has also been seen to stimulate hair roots to promote growth. This paste can also prevent scalp infection and controls premature graying of the hair, as well as dandruff from the hair and scalp yielding body to the hair. This powder can also be added to henna to tone down the reds and give more brown hues. As for the skin, the past of Amla powder improves complexion and removes pimples and grime.

I've poked my head in on a few natural hair care forums in search of women who have used Amla powder. I've found  quite a few and all have given the powder good reviews. So I figured I'd give it a shot and ordered 200g of Amla powder from butters-n-bars.com. Also while doing my research I stumbled upon a certain oil called Brahmi oil. Brahmi oil is a combination of pure coconut oil and 22 Indian herbs and is known for therapeutic effects. Ramtirth Brahmi oil has been proven beneficial for hair complaints and for promoting the growth of long lustrous hair.  After finding some pretty supportive reviews (and giving in to being a product junkie) I purchased a bottle as well from Butters-N-Bars.

So my package should be arriving next week and when I wash an restyle my hair I'll give this a shot and see how they work. I'll report back with my review

Now, on to a styling update. While searching diligently for a cute, easy to do/maintain protective hairstyle I stumbled across a natural hair blog. Mane And Chic has a great guide called Hair 101: The Beginner's Guide. Featured in this guide are washing techniques, tips on conditioners, shampoos, scalp stimulation and more. There's also a section on hairstyles and in this section the name of one particular style caught my attention. It's called the Southern Tease Bun. Being a child of the South, I HAD to check this style out. To my luck I found that she put together a youtube video on how to do this style. It looked super easy and like a super cute and chic hairstyle! Check out the video by clicking here. I'm going to give this style a try next week as well. I know bunning is nothing new to naturals, but I've yet to try a single bun. I've done double side buns and french twists but nothing like this. My hair hasn't really been long enough to bun until now, so this is kind of new to me. I'm also thinking of doing a bunning experiment. I've heard that a lot of ladies had great growth results by bunning. Bunning is a very popular protective style that keeps fingers out of hair thus preventing over manipulation. So if my bun turns out successful, I'll give it a shot for a month or two and see what happens.  I'll have more product reviews coming up soon.

I'm Baaaaack!!

Wow, I can't believe it's been since the end of February since I've last posted. Things have been really busy but good news to report. The Hubs and I are gearing up for our next duty station in the next month and a half or so. I've added to my health and fitness resume by becoming a licensed ZUMBA Fitness Instructor and have been working with another ZUMBA instructor to build my teaching skills. This paired with my ACSM Personal Trainer Certification will certainly help pay for grad school.

Zumba and Zumba Fitness are registered trademarks of Zumba Fitness, LLC. Used with permission

In more hair related news, I've become a contributor to my favorite curly hair blog CurlyNikki.com. I post weekly health and fitness tips and can be found on the CurlFriends section of the CN.com community. I'm going to start poisting the same health and fitness tips here as well. I'm so excited and happy to be apart of CurlyNikki.com. I've also celebrated my 1 year natural anniversary. I'm so pleased with my hair's progress and growth. It's been slow coming but it's healthy. I've started noticing texture changes in my hair. I still have alot of 4a/b curls, which seem to have loosened up, but I'm starting to see alot of 3c curls at the nape of my neck.


I've changed up my routine a bit. I'm back to taking my GNC Hair, Skin and Nails vitamins. I've been wearing my hair in a new style, two side buns with flat twists across the front. I wear this style during the week and then wash, deep conditioner and back to buns. I love this style. It's easy and talks very little time to do and allows my hair to rest and keeps me from manipulating it too much. It also holds up very well in the gym! I've also stumbled onto an awesome find in Giovanni 50:50 Balancing and Hydrating conditioner. I picked it up by accident thinking it was the Smooth As Silk conditioner. It's super thick and super slip when the water hits it. Left in and pared with my shea butter, jojoba oil, castor oil and vitamin E mix yeilds super soft and mosturized hair when dried. A total win for me.

I also fell in love with CurlFormers! I've used these for two formal events (as part of a wedding and for a military ball) and both times have yeilded great results with paired with Oyin's Shine and Define styling pomade. (Will post the pics when the portraits from the ball arrive My styles held up after lots of dancing and sweating and even produced second and third day hair. I've also been working with two new deep conditioners from the Carol's Daughter line. The jury is still out on the ruling but we shall see.

I also got a surprise today! I checked my blog and noticed that I have two followers! HI TNT5150 AND PAMELA!! I'm flattered and excited at the same time. Thanks ladies and welcome! I am defenately going to have to stay on top of my blog now *smile*.

Anyway, I'm so glad to be back to work on my blog. I think this is such a helpful tool in my natural hair journey and I'm disappointed in myself for letting it fall to the wayside. Sometimes you have to see your progress to really "see" your progress. Reminders are always helpful. That's it for now. Later tonight I'll post my latest health and fitness tips from CN.com and will post past tips in the upcoming days. Glad to be back!

KinkyShea Does The Cherry Lola Treatment

Ok, I've been reading about this treatment for over a month now and I've been dying to try it. The Cherry Lola Treatment is basically a protien and moisture treatment for your hair. It's supposed to reduce frizz and help define curls and I can really use a lot of that right now. So the recipe for this is as follows:

Plain yogurt (2 Parts):
For the protien and conditioning properties

Baking Soda (1/2 Part):
To make hair more porous

Bragg's Liquid Amino Acids (1/2 Part):
More Protien

I'm going to give this a shot tonight and post before and after pictures tomorrow. Hopefully this works!!

Ciao,

KinkySheaPT

Keep It Simple Experement Update and Shampoo???

Ok, I ran my little experement for longer than the the month of January. This morning I took down my two strand twists and wore my hair out. Unfortunately, I haven't shampooed my hair in over two months and even with cowashing twice a week I noticed quite a bit of flakes in my hair. NOT SEXY!! So without enough time to shampoo/clarify and deep conditioner, I quickly pulled my hair up into a kinky curly pony and went about my day. Once I got home I made a B-Line for the shower and shampooed (in sections) with Giovanni Smooth As Silk Deep Moisture Shampoo. I rinsed each section and applied the Giovanna SAS Deep Moisture Conditioner and detangled each section and pinning it out of the way (without rinsing). I am now doing a d/c with my hair therapy heat wrap and the conditioner in my hair (I'm all out of my JessiCurl *grumbles*).  So out of my frustration what did I learn??

1. I need to shampoo at least once a week do avoid product build up. Although my hair felt soft there was some flakes and product buildup on my scalp and on the strands. Not good.  Although my hair was soft and mosturized the flakes were kind of embarassing (hince the pony).

2. Don't be afraid of shampoo. Ok, because of the harsh winter air and winds I've been so afraid of using shampoo because I've been paranoid of the shampoo making things worst. In my paranoia I ended up making things worse.

3. Don't be heavy handed with products. Sometimes less is more. I have a bad habit of going a bit overboard with my product application (which I'm sure contributed to the flakes and residue). Just because a product is good for my hair it doesn't mean that I should pile it on my head. Less is more.

So after washing, detangling, conditioning, my hair felt and looked a lot better! My looks to have thickened up since my KIS experement and the use of the Wild Growth Hair Oil. I think my experement did help to maintain my hair growth rate (didn't really grow faster or anything) but every little bit helps.

I now have my hair in flat two strand twists. I'm not sure if I'll take the twists out tomorrow (tomorrow is supposed to be very windy and I might just end up waring one of my caps). But I will say I've learned my lesson well. Shampoo is not my enemy and less is more....

The Mixtress is In...

It's henna time! I always get excited when it's time to put henna in my hair. I've done this quite a few times now with different mixes. I've done a henna and indigo combo, a henna mixed with lemon juice, henna mixed with green tea, and tonight I'm going to try a new mix. I've always noticed that when I rinse my hair from henna and do a deep conditioning my hair feels stiff and crunchy. Well since lemon juice can be very drying (it's highly acidic) I decided to try adding a little something to add moisture. So I've decided to mix the henna with lemon juice (until it looks like pudding) and then add 1/4 cup of safflower oil and mixed extra well. I'm going to let it sit over night and apply when I wake in the morning. I have already co washed my hair in prep for the treatment.

So why safflower oil? Because, safflower oil is an emollient. What is an emollient? An emollient is wax like, lubricating, thickening ingredient that can prevent water loss and have a softening and smoothing effect on skin and hair. So if lemon juice is drying on the hair then the emollient will help prevent the water loss and help soften and smooth the hair. Now why am I mixing the henna with lemon juice? The acidity level of the lemon juice helps release the dye of the henna which gives the coppery red coloring when applied to the skin. The mixture needs to set over night or for about 4-5 hours to get proper dye release. The dye from the henna adds a unique coloring quality to the hair. The greatest thing about it is that it's all natural, hypoallergenic, and the best part of all...no two heads will look the same after a henna treatment. For women with black hair sometimes the hair will look darker and in some it will impart a red/auburn tint to it (sort of like taking a red crayon and coloring on black construction paper). For some the henna dye is clearly visible, where as others you'll only be able to see it in certain lighting (like the sun).

So why use henna in the first place? Henna actually thickens the hair strand and helps to strengthen the hair. So with repeated use the hair becomes thicker and stronger. Henna can also help with hair growth. Because the hair is stronger there is less breakage. In natural African American kinky curly hair henna can also help loosen the curl pattern which I love. Henna is one of my favorite things to use on my hair as I absolutely love it. My hair has changed dramatically due to it.

So tomorrow after leaving henna on for about 4 hours I will do a 1 hour deep conditioning treatment with Jessicurl's Weekly Deep Treatment, which is rich in yummy ingredients for hair. I am super excited to see how this will turn out. Oh and by the way, my hair is still in twists and I will be applying the henna with the twists in my hair. I may have to re twist after but we'll see. I will post my results tomorrow night!


Ciao,


KinkyShea

Routine Update...

Ok for about two weeks now I have been wearing my hair in medium sized twists and wearing up do's just about everyday. I re twist once a week and deep condition twice a week, with a henna treatment thrown in here and there. I also added Wild Growth Hair Oil to the routine as well, more for moisture than anything else. So this is what's happening thus far. When I re twisted my hair on Sunday there was a significantly less hair in the comb which means less breakage. My hair is nice and moist thanks in part to the WGHO and conditioner/oil mix. Styling my hair in the morning is super quick and easy, which I love as I am up 4 out of 5 work days at 3 am. Plus, wearing up dos (loosely) keeps the hair from rubbing against any clothing and getting snagged. I love the ease of twists. I haven't noticed any growth yet but the fact that there is less hair in the comb after a week of not combing makes me pretty excited as I'm keeping more hair on my head. So so far so good. No complaints. I'll probably keep this up for the rest of the month and on into March. Thus far, thumbs up!


Ciao,

KinkyShea

Wild Growth Hair Oil

My curiosity finally got the best of me. The other day while browsing around in Sally's, I picked up my usual bottle of Wild Growth Hair Oil Light Moisturizer and out of curiosity I picked up the original formula. I've read tons of reviews about this product, almost all of which positive with the exception of the smell. So, I thought I'd give it a try. At the very least it could help moisturize my hair. So I got home and opened up the bottle and most of the reviews were right. This product does smell like beef jerky! The oil was thick and a dark honey color. So I massaged a few drops into my scalp and added some to my actual hair. The smell was awful. So I had to follow it up with my conditioner, water, and oil mixture which thankfully has a few drops of peppermint oil for fragrance. The peppermint oil pretty much knocked out the smell. I didn't really notice much difference in my hair at this time.

This morning I washed my hair and did the same routine with the hair oil and leave-in mixture. I untwisted and re twisted my hair and noticed that my hair felt much softer. Softer than it had ever felt before. For a few minutes I just stood there touching my hair. It felt great. Eventually I re-twisted my hair and styled.

So conclusion? So far so good I'm liking this product. The product does smell but it's pretty easy to cover up. So I'll keep using and see what happens. Even if I don't get the hair growth at least I'll get the softness.

Ciao,

KinkyShea