I Need Your Opinion...

Hi friends - I hope you all are well!

So in January, I told you guys that I'm headed to South Africa in December for one of my closest friends' wedding! As I mentioned, I'm in the wedding, so I have been planning my relaxer schedule around December for the whole year. Well fast forward to today, and we're about two months out from the actual wedding day, and my family and I have finalized our plans for travel. I'm sooo excited about this trip, especially considering the year that I have been having (I'll fill you guys in another time). We are traveling for 3 weeks and included is a trip to Kenya to go on Safari!

So now to the hair part - in January, I had planned to just make sure that I had a fresh relaxer so that I could do whatever the bride requests for her big day. I wasn't sure if I would get a weave, but considered adding a few tracks if necessary. Well fast forward to today, and I honestly just want to wear a nice wig and call it a day. The main reason I want to wear a wig is because we will be traveling for a few weeks and I DON'T want to think about my hair at all while we're there. If I do my normal routine of braiding my hair and wearing a nice lace front, I think that should do the trick. The other reason is that I don't want an unfamiliar person's hands in my hair (I know you guys can relate to that). The bride has already scheduled hair consultations for all of the girls the day before the wedding so that we can play with our hair to get the right look for the wedding.

But here is the caveat, we are wearing fascinators as part of our outfits. I don't know how well a fascinator is going to fit over my wig (if it's a headband) and I don't want to ruin the bride's pictures, or day with my shenanigans...not cool.

So I'm torn - do I suck it up and just wear my hair out for the entire vacation, including allowing a random stylist to do my hair for the wedding day?

Or do I talk to the bride and tell her that I want to wear a wig because I feel more comfortable caring for my own hair?

Last bit of info - the bride did mention that she's open to the bridesmaids doing what we want with our hair if we have a particular style in mind because she wants us all to look fab, but be comfortable. But I want the bride to get what she wants because it's her day, and I don't want to distract from that in any way...

What do you guys think? Sorry for the long post! HHJ

De-Solv-It

Hey friends! I don't know about you, but when I started my hair journey, I noticed that I was ruining A LOT of stuff with my overuse of oils! Seriously - I can't tell you how many shirts, sweatshirts, pillow cases, other linen, etc. that I've stained with my oil shenanigans!

Anyway, long story short, I work in the Energy industry with oil refineries. I visited a refinery and one of the guys suggested the below product as one that removes everything from oil to the residue that's left on stuff when you remove a tag, to other random crap. By the way when the guy mentioned oil, he was talking about crude oil, the heavy stuff that comes out of the ground!

So I got this and used it on one of my coats that I had stained with oil from my hair wrap that I wear under my wig. I have to admit that I decided to use the product the way that I wanted to and not completely as instructed. So the product seemed to ruin my jacket at first, but in the end it actually did take the oil stains out. I also used this on one of my blouses that had slight stains and it took those stains out as well without ruining my blouse. My Mom used this on a few things around the house and was less than thrilled with the results, which was a bit disappointing because I had such high hopes for the universal application of this product.

Overall, I would recommend this for clothing that you care about, but caution you to use as stated in the directions. In other words, don't be like me and spray a bunch on your clothes and let it sit for 30 minutes instead of 3 because you want it to work extra hard - you will just be playing yourself! Until next time...

Relaxer Results

Hi All!

I can't believe it's time for another relaxer update already - just a testament to how quickly the summer passed! I relaxed after 11 weeks, which is just one week shy of how often I prefer to relax at a minimum (i.e. 12 weeks). It went ok this time - not as well as last time, but not too bad. As I mentioned earlier this week, I wasn't expecting a lot of growth, but I did get some. I got my hair trimmed as normal and if it weren't for my photos and length check t-shirt, I probably would think that nothing changed. Fortunately I can tell that I'm getting a little closer to the first line on my t-shirt, so I think I'm on track to reach my goal of APL by December.

Picasa nor iPhoto were cooperating with me tonight (and they usually don't...), so I couldn't make a nice comparison of last relaxer vs. this one, but you guys will still get the gist. Until next time...

June 2012 Relaxer

September 2012 Relaxer

Scared...

Hi Ladies!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and will enjoy the additional day off (assuming you get it)!

I wanted to check in quickly because I am scheduled to get a relaxer next week and I'm sure this sounds weird, but I'm actually scared that my hair didn't grow since my last relaxer. I'm sure you think I'm crazy considering we all know that for the most part everyone's hair grows, it's more so a matter of retaining length. So I don't really think that my hair didn't grow, but I don't think that I will see as much length this relaxer as did after my last relaxer.

I didn't change much in how I took care of my hair since my last relaxer, but before my last treatment, I could literally tell that my hair had grown because I would feel my hair on my shoulders and back in different places when I was washing it that I didn't feel before. This time, there doesn't seem to be much difference in the length. To make matters worse, I feel like I've been seeing more breakage during my wash days. I typically don't freak out about breakage because I think it's inevitable, but since I feel like there's been an increase, that definitely has me nervous.

I guess I'll see for sure on Friday, but as I visit some of my favorite hair blogs and look at progress pics, there are ladies who get and maintain every inch, after every relaxer, and that's certainly what I aspire to do. So, I'll keep you guys posted, but just needed to vent a little...

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