New Love

A few weeks ago I purchased Amla Oil. I was curious about this oil because last year I purchased Qhemet Biologics Amla and Olive Heavy Cream and really liked it. Although it took a few uses, the cream made my hair crazy soft and moisturized. With that, I figured that since Amla Oil was a key contributor in the hair cream, it would likely be great on its own.

I purchased the Amla Oil from a nearby Indian grocery store. I read that the popular brand, Dabur, contains mineral oil + other oils. I'm not overly anti-mineral oil, but I did want to ensure that I purchased the brand with the least amount of additives. With that, I purchased Bio brand. There aren't any ingredients listed on the box, so it was hard to confirm in the store, but I googled the brand once home and it seemed fine.

So far, I love Amla Oil: 

• The greatest issue that I have is the smell - it is very strong. It doesn't stink, but I don't love it. Aside from that, everything else is cool. 
• Amla is a very thin oil - it's very liquidy and not as thick as a grapeseed, jojoba, etc. It has a green color, which apparently can darken hair over time, so if you are concerned with darkening your hair color, you may not want to use this. 
• According to the description of it's uses (listed on a website with details for this brand), Amla Oil creates a healthy environment for hair to grow and can help increase hair growth up to 7X faster than normal. I didn't purchase this oil as a growth aid and don't necessarily believe the claims, but if it does increase my hair growth as an added bonus, I'll take it! 
• I currently have Amla mixed with my scalp oil concoction (Amla, Vitamin E, Castor, and Jojoba), as well as mixed with EVCO as a sealant for daily M&Sing. Just as with the Qhemet cream, when I first started using the Amla, I didn't notice a difference, but after a few days, my hair was consistently soft and moisturized.
• Lastly, over the last 3 weeks I have used Amla with a new deep conditioner that I purchased (I'll talk about it in another post), and it has been great! I use a generous amount of conditioner and then spray the Amla oil on my hair, place a plastic cap and my turbie twist on for a few hours, and my hair is like butter!

I will continue to use Amla Oil moving forward and hope that my hair continues to respond well! HHJ

Ouidad Double Detangler

Hi friends! A little over a month ago I purchased the Ouidad detangling comb. I had been eyeing this comb since I started my journey over a year ago, but never got around to purchasing it. I was in the mall and happened to pass Sephora, so I popped in and got it!

The Ouidad detangling comb is designed for tight, kinky, curly hair, so that's the main reason I wanted to try it. I wanted to use this for a few washes before giving my opinion (I don't really want to call it a review, but more just talk about my experience using it). I really like this comb, and here's why:

• I did a quick search to try to find what material this comb is made of, but unfortunately I couldn't find any details (it's not plastic). Nonetheless, it's a heavy material that's very durable, but gentle on the hair. It's one continuous comb, so there are no seems where the teeth meet the base, which can cause breakage (not sure if any of that made sense).
• I was able to detangle faster. I wash my hair in four sections, so when it's time to detangle, I throughly apply my conditioner to each section, and then split each section into two sections and comb through. With this comb, I literally am able to glide through my hair after working out the shed hairs (I have included pictures below of my comb out from my entire head).
• According to Ouidad, the reason why this comb works well is because the double rows of teeth eliminate difficult knots and prevent curls from springing back and retangling.

If my hair weren't curly, I'm not sure that I would love this comb as much, but considering my current hair texture (for any new readers, I have a texturizer, so my hair has tight coils), this comb is just what the doctor ordered!

One Lovely Blog Award

The beautiful Jeni form Just Grow Already has awarded me the One Lovely Blog Award (unfortunately I'm not saavy enough to know how to include the image in this post...SMH...how old am I?). Thank you Jeni!!!

In accepting, I must share 7 things about myself and pass this on to 15 fellow bloggers!

1. I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes
2. I'm sort of a health & fitness nut, so I workout daily and basically only drink water (~96+ oz per day)
3. I once did an online commercial for my company
4. Although natural, sneezing is really gross to me and freaks me out because of all of the germs that are released (I'm a germaphobe)
5. I am the youngest of 3 (I have a sister and a brother)
6. My sister's wedding was featured on Essence.com in the Bridal Bliss section
7. I am an Alpha Kappa Alpha woman!

Other Lovely Bloggers...

6 Foot Long Hair

Blutiful Blaq Hair

The other lovely bloggers I follow have already been tagged, so be sure to check out their responses!

APL by 12/31/12?

My sister and I embarked on our hair journey together beginning in March 2011. As expected, we have stalked followed other women on their journeys and paid particular attention to those who started around the same time that we did. Although this is not a competition, my sister and I have noticed that we have not experienced as much length as our counterparts (here are a few examples: She started around Feb '11, She started around June '11, and the list goes on).

I refuse to believe that either of us are slow growers - at worse we are likely average (thank God we have never had trouble growing our hair, we've both gotten short hair cuts on a number of occassions and grown back to SL within a little over a year), BUT I think our stylists may be trimming cutting our hair too much and too often. We go to different salons, but my sister mentioned being frustrated about the frequency of "trims" that she seems to get on a MONTHLY basis. How can you expect to see the fruits of your labor if you're constantly trimming? I can even see dusting frequently, but all out trims negate length retention. Since I went back to relaxing, I get my hair trimmed with each relaxer (3-4 months), but I did notice that my last trim seemed to take off at least an inch or more in some sections.

So how do we fix this? While doing an impromptu length check today, my sister noticed that she has a section that's close to APL, so she thinks she can get there by December. Of course I jumped on the bandwagon! We decided that we are going to hold off on getting trims through the end of the year. I feel like this is a bit drastic and I'm REALLY nervous because if there is one thing that turns my stomach more, it's seeing some long, straggly, thin, ends with a smiling face next to it claiming APL, BSL, etc. - not cute, at all! But, in all honesty, at this point I protective style 100% of the time, M&S daily, wash weekly, and use direct heat on relaxer days only (4X/ year) so in theory there is no reason for me to have bad ends. After my June relaxer I was planning to wear my hair out over the summer, but if I'm trying not to trim, I may just keep it wigged up to avoid needing a trim.

Anyway, the point is, although it's best to focus on health before length, we had the health part down pre-journey, so we're long overdue for length! I guess we'll see how this turns out in December! HHG.

New Goodies!

Hi friends - I hope you all are having a great weekend and enjoying the early peak of Summer (for those in the Northeast)!

I purchased these bottles a little over a month ago after seeing them on Jeni's blog. I had been in the market for glass bottles to house some of my oil mixtures and products, but didn't commit to finding what I needed. Once I saw her post, I decided to use the same vendor. Glass bottles are great to store products in because they contain less potentially harmful chemicals than their plastic counterparts (such as BPA).

I purchased the following and love them!

 

From left to right:

• 6 oz: I use this bottle for the oil mixture that I apply to my scalp on a daily basis. This has a dropper so it allows for easy and controlled application to my scalp. 
• 6 oz: I'm currently not using this bottle, but I'm sure that I'll find some use for the pump.
• 6oz: This bottle has a spray nozzle which I LOVE for M&Sing! I previously had trouble getting just the right amount of oil to seal my hair. Now, I actually fill this bottle with EVCO, warm it up if it's not liquid, and then spray it on my hair after moisturizing for even distribution on my strands! It's also a bit less messy than applying the oil with my hands - #winning!
• 3oz: I purchased this bottle for traveling. I've been traveling a lot lately and need to be able to transport whatever oil(s) I need in my carry on bag!

Until next time!

Roller Set #FAIL

After I relaxed my hair the last time and had such a traumatic experience with tangling as a result of wearing corn rows and not detangling regularly, I decided to start experimenting with different options to replace the corn rows under my wig.

My goal was to experiment with different ways of straightening my hair so that I could regularly remove the normal shedding and reduce the potential for tangling on wash days. I had the bright idea to try a roller set, not with the intention of wearing it out, but with the logic that it would be a nice way to get my hair "straight" without having to blow my hair dry. I washed and conditioned my hair myself and then hightailed it to the Dominican Salon to have them roller set it. 

Welp - here are the results of that idea: a hot mess!

Here's the thing, as I mentioned, my honest intention was not to wear this out as a style, but in my mind, I imagined that my hair would come out a bit straighter than this, but that just didn't materialize. The main issue is that because my hair has a lot of texture, it's too curly to actually straighten out on the rollers, so the ends were sort of clumped and confused when the rollers came out. The girl who roller set my hair told me from the gate that this wasn't a good idea, but I needed to try it to be comfortable with checking this option off of the list. This wasn't the worse experiment, but I definitely won't be trying this again because I still ended up putting two cornrows in my hair to wear under my wig. 

Mission unaccomplished!

Happy 1 Year Hairversary

I can't believe it's been one year already, but it's true friends. I started this journey 1 year ago today and feel like I have barely scratched the surface.

It's interesting how much things can change in one year. This whole thing started when I searched online for natural hairstyle options and after one click lead to another, I landed on Ms. Kibibi's site. The rest is history. 

The interesting thing about this as well is that I started this journey natural. Just in case you haven't read my hair story (which is pretty lengthy, so I would likely skip it too), I got my first relaxer at 2 and in 2009 decided that I wanted to go natural. I stopped getting relaxers and was 100% natural after about a year and a half. I liked that I didn't have any chemical in my hair, but because I exercise daily and like straight hair, the two were a recipe for disaster. After starting my hair journey and seeing all of the gorgeous relaxed heads, I decided that I could have a nice head of relaxed hair that was long too (I was one of those people who thought that letting go of the chemicals would result in longer hair...not in my case).

So to make a long story short, following are some of the takeaways from my first year:

1. I can actually do my own hair! It's still a struggle, but I'm much more comfortable with handling my hair myself than I was one year ago (you couldn't pay me to do it)
2. My hair likes to be wet when being manipulated - it's more pliable
3. I don't have to saturate my hair in oils in order to moisturize it
4. Coconut oil is my friend
5. This is a journey...

I definitely underestimated how much work and PATIENCE required on this journey. However, I'm glad I decided to embark upon it and hope that next year's update is more exciting, including longer length!

HHJ