My Mommy and the Andis Gold

My mummy is a natural too, although I would classify her as a natural rebel. She hot-combs her hair 2-3 times per month, she insists on combing her hair every day, dry, and she uses grease on an almost daily basis. lol. 

Can't tell my mama nothing about her grease lol

While my mum, my sis and I all have what I would call type 4 hair, it is so interesting to see how different our hair is. My mum's hair is super duper soft and not as easily prone to tangling as my hair or my sister's hair. My sister's hair tangles less than mine, is thicker than my mum's, but her hair strands are a bit finer than mine. After my mum washes her hair, she can comb through it with no product and leave it to dry overnight. Neither me or my sister would ever dream of doing such a thing. 

I live in a household with three heads of type 4 hair with 3 different hair regimens that appear to be working for the specific head it is being used on. Due to this experience, I can say for a fact that what I do to my hair may work for me, but there is no guarantee that it will work for yours, even if we are supposedly in the same hair type category. The only way to know for sure is through trial and error.

My mum washed her hair the night before using herbal essence hello hydration shampoo and conditioner. She then airdried in 10 two-strand twists, done by yours truly, overnight. The next morning, I moisturised her hair using Kinky Curly Knot Today, applied John Frieda Frizz-Ease Wind Down Extra-Strength Relaxing Creme section by section as a styler, and Dudley Creme Press Pressing Oil as a heat protectant. I then blowdried her hair instead of hot combing it, using my brand new Andis Gold blowdryer. 

We both were extremely pleased with the results, this being my first time ever blowdrying somebody's hair. Using the fine tooth comb attachment, I was able to get results similar to her hot comb without burning and her hair was moisturized due to the ionic technology. Can't wait to try this on somebody else!

Back view. She wore her hair in a puff to church and I took this pic when she returned so the ends are already reverting lol

Side view

KCCC and My Very First Self-Trim!

I trimmed my hair! All by myself! And it was curly! lol so proud of myself. I didn't have any split ends that I could find but a fair amount of single strand knots. I didn't dare go through and cut each knot out so I took my hair small section by small section and cut about 1/2 to 1 inch off most sections. I know I cut off a good amount of perfectly fine ends as well but I can live with that. I had no idea what I was doing really so there was no shaping going on, just tried to remove as uniform an amount as possible. 

All the hair I trimmed off, not that much when u compare it to the size of a lipbalm lol

I trimmed my hair on 80% dry hair a day after wash day. I stretched each section of hair in my hand by smoothing it between my fingers, stopped just short of where I wanted to cut to maintain the tension and then SNIP lol. I didn't remove too much hair, as you can see from the picture above. The video below by the lovely Ms Naptural85 is a good guide for trimming natural hair, but I didn't bother with all that combing and brushing lol.

As I mentioned, I did my trim a day after wash day. I had done bantu knots over night to stretch my hair.

Moisturized Bantu Knots from wash day

After the Bantu Knot take down. I undid each twist, divided into smaller sections and trimmed piece by piece. I then spritzed the entire section, applied KCCC and flat-twisted for a hopefully fabulous twist-out the next day.

After trimming each section, I spritzed with my moisturizing spritz and applied Kinky Curly Curling Custard and flat twisted each section. I had used KCCC previously for wash and goes and wasn't really impressed with it as the shrinkage was crazy and the hold was atrocious. However, it did give great curl definition so I thought I would give it a shot as a style aid for a twist out.

The contents of my spritz

I used about 1/6 of the jar for this style

top section of my hair after spritzing and applying the KCCC

I then flexi-rodded the twists so I could get a twist and curl effect. 

The white stuff eventually goes away as the style dries

I gave this thing almost 24 hrs to dry and it didn't completely so the style turned out to be a flop. I think in the future if I do anything with flexirods, I need to sit under a dryer for a while or use less product. As a result, I ended up doing a single french braid in the back and a pompadour in the front.

I think if I had done just the regular twists, the twistout would have been great so I may try this again with the KCCC, without the flexirods.

Remedying Porosity - Protein time!

My wash and deep condition supplies

It's been a while since I did a protein treatment (other than my coconut prepoo). My hair seems to be extremely porous these days (or maybe it's the weather change, I dunno) so I think I need to up the ante a bit on my protein. I decided to revisit an old (but expensive!) favorite, the NEXXUS Emergencee. Love is not the word to describe how I feel about this product. It's a product that does what it says it will do and u can count on it to react the same way with your hair everytime.

All shampooed up

Pre-protein treatment

Post-protein treament

Texture shot after washing out the protein treatment

Post deep conditioning

This week's leave in mix

It must be noted that using the Kinky Curl Knot Today instead of the Giovanni Direct Leave in, I get a mixture that is less thick in consistency and my hair dries out/ feels less moisturized faster. I guess I'll stick to the Giovanni in the future. Once my hair was moisturized, I two strand twisted each section and then made a bantu knot, securing the ends with clips.

moisturized Bantu Knots

All That Hair Talk is Great But Check Out Ma Nails Yall!

My nails had it rough the latter half of 2011, don't know if it was due to stress, diet or both. But you couldn't tell under all this wonderful nail polish lol. I'm happy to report that since returning to my motherland, this good food has not only put meat on my bones but my nails are strong again. And now I have my boo's sis Apples to do my nails. I'll post more of her stuff on future blog posts. Enjoy!

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - Plum Lock (640)

10 Professional Nail Lacquer - Starstruck (465)

Forever 21 Love and Beauty - Baby Blue

Free hand design by my sis-in-law

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme wear - The Real Teal (39)

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear - Twisted Pink (15)

Ombre nails - Base: Forever 21 Love and Beauty - Peach, Tip: Pure Ice - Spit Fire

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear - Lacey Lilac (270)

Revisiting the Coconut Prepoo

Ingredients used for my first Trini coconut prepoo mix

Last few months I have been rough on my hair so I decided to give it some TLC by doing a coconut prepoo treatment a few weeks ago. This would be the fist time I was attempting this in Trinidad. I had coconut oil that I brought with me from the US but I needed to locate the other ingredients locally. 

After mixing up all my ingredients. It was a bit less thick in consistency than when I made it previously but worked just as well

My undetangled, dry hair before prepooing. Clearly the last few months been rough lol

A section of my hair after applying the prepoo mixture. Curls are elongated and the section is easily detangled.

Full head all done prepooing

The amount of hair lost. Not bad at all considering I can't remember the last time I fully detangled my hair prior to this lol

Prepoo hair the next day after sleeping on it. 

Once I was done pre-pooing, I steamed using my Huetiful hair steamer. I then shampooed using the Kinky Curly Come Clean Shampoo, conditioned with Giovanni Nutrafix Hair Reconstructor, did an ACV rinse, applied my homemade leave-in and twisted my hair up to dry.

Putting that Huetiful steamer to work!

Naked hair after washing out the coconut prepoo after steaming.

Deep conditioning

My ACV rinse: 2 caps full of ACV, 2 cups water

Back view, post-ACV rinse

Front view, post-ACV rinse

Ingredients used in this batch of leave-in

Hair after applying leave in

All twisted up! 

After Colour with Brianna McCarthy

I had the pleasure of attending my first art exhibition in Trinidad in probably a decade recently. What made it even better is that I have known the talented artist since childhood, growing up as neighbors and attending primary school together. Ms Brianna McCarthy's work is rooted in the depiction of women of color and it has been very intriguing watching her develop as an artist over the years. She is also a fellow naturalista and when I first started following her work, a lot of her girls also had natural hair, in addition to their signature elongated necks.

[Source]

This collection, After Color, sought to use a deconstructive approach to explore issues of colorism in post colonial societies using mixed-media. The artist used handmade dolls and collages to portray women stripped down to the essence of their form with no recognizable skin color or hair texture present. She also used guerilla advertising style billboards based on personal classified ads to spark discussion on what we value when we choose to describe ourselves. Her artist talk was very insightful and spurred probably the most mature and enlightening discussion on race and class I have ever engaged in, in Trinidad and Tobago, with a group of strangers, from all different ethnic backgrounds, and there was no yelling or cussing involved. lol. Congrats to Brianna again and you can check out more of her work at her blog PassionFruit or check out her tumblr.

The Artist, My favorite Doll and I. She's a fierce naturalista too!

The boo's favorite piece. Note the mirrors in the eyes

Her very first Doll

Another Stylish doll

Her very first Collage Girl

Brianna's signature necks. 

Even After-Colour, you can't miss those lips!

My hair for the occasion. A Ms Jessie's Baby Buttercreme chunky twist-out.

If you are in Trinidad, you should definitely check out Medulla Art Gallery, they have some other great shows coming up.