WOW! It has been so long

Hi friends! It has been so long since I posted that I don't know where to begin. I hope you all have had a fabulous summer and are ready for the quickly approaching fall (I can't believe how quickly the summer passed).

Although I haven't been blogging, I have been taking pictures of new hair products and other "stuff" that I want to share. I will post these random items and share my thoughts when I have a chance.

Just a quick hair update - I have been really busy with personal things, hence the long blog hiatus, and quite honestly this is going to continue through the end of the year. With that, I have been keeping it extremely simple with my hair. After my last relaxer, I enjoyed my hair for about 2 days and then it was  chaos. As most of you know, I exercise daily in the morning, so once I sweat my hair is done. As a result, I wore my hair in random creative, big styles (like the twist and curl in my profile pic) for about one month before I returned to braids and my wig. I have been wigging since and plan to do so until my relaxer on 9/9 @ 11 weeks.

Here is my most recent wig - I got her in June. I like the way she looks, but she sheds A TON and I don't like that at all.

I have been experimenting quite a bit with how to care for my hair...ok, not that much, but it feels like it since I've been changing things up. To start, since I sweat daily and my hair is already super dry, I actually started rinsing my hair in the shower daily. Since my hair is braided, I just let the water run over my braids, if I feel like it I'll add a little conditioner and let it sit while I do my thang, and then I'll rinse at the end (I guess you can say I co-wash). I wrap my head in a t-shirt to soak up the excess water while I get dressed and by the time I'm finished, my hair is just damp. At that point I'll seal with my oil mixture because I'm basically using the water in my hair as a moisturizer (not sure if that makes sense to you guys). I've been doing this for about 2 weeks and I could definitely tell the difference in my last wash day - it was waaay easier to manage my hair! 

I decided to give this method a try because I haven't had much success finding a moisturizer that I like and that actually works, and I've read about a lot of naturals using good ol' water to moisturize their hair! Again, for my new readers, I was natural up until my texturizer 1 year ago, but my hair is still very similar to how it was when it was natural.

Ok - this update turned out waaay longer than planned, so I'm going to wrap it up and plan to come back soon!

Relaxer Results

Hi Friends! I know it has been forever, but I wanted to drop in with a quick relaxer update. I relaxed today and had a very good experience overall - it was much better than my horror story from March, which kept me out of the salon since my last relaxer.

Anyway - now to the photos, which of course is what we all want to see! Overall, I can tell that my hair grew, but I think it's most apparent in the front/ sides. I chickened out of not getting my hair trimmed as I discussed in this post because I'm a stickler for healthy ends, so I couldn't do it. I came to grips with the fact that I'd rather take longer to reach my goal, than get there and have to chop it off. I need to figure out how to present a nice comparison collage of my progress thus far (I need some tips from Jeni from Just Grow Already :-) ). Blogger is doing something funky with the first set of photos that I couldn't fix, but whatever. The first set are from March 2012 and the second are my most recent...

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!