Where to Find Natural Hair and Skin Products in Trinidad - Part III

Hi Folks!!!!

Hands down, the most popular posts on my blog have to do with where my fellow naturalistas can locate products in my lovely home Trinidad and Tobago. This makes me so very happy and just for that I feel this blog has served a useful purpose. I am so happy that so many ladies in Trini are embracing their natural hair and rocking it proudly. If I can help in anyway to encourage, educate, motivate or whatever else, I am only too happy to be a vessel. 

One of the reasons I am heartened is because of how many people have taken the time to share where they have been able to locate products. This post is just a summary of some of the suggestions in the comments from the two previous articles on where to find products in our sweet, sweet TnT. Please feel free to keep adding places where u satisfy your product junkyism! 

Thanks to all my lovely fellow naturalistas who have commented and shared this wealth of info. Keep it coming! And as always, if you go to any of these suggested places, make sure and tell them MzNappyTrini sent you! lol

 

Valrosa Limited
Located on 102 Abercromby Street Port of Spain (623-6805).

They carry products like Uncle Funky's Daughter, Wonder Curl, Curly Kinks, Camille Rose Naturals, BeeMine, JessiCurl, darcy Botanicals and so much more (see flyer below). Lots of product lines I haven't personally tried but hopefully I get the opportunity to! Make sure and visit their Facebook page for more info.

Product lines carried by Valrosa Limited

Mayleah Organics
Located in Santa Cruz and they DO DELIVERIES!! (385-4327)
Specialize in natural and/or organic products. All products are free from parabens, artificial fragrances, artificial colors, phthalates, animal testing, petroleum compounds, sodium lauryl sulfate/ sodium laureth sulfate, PEGS, PPG, MEA, DEA or TEA and GMOs
Check their website for the product lines they carry and check them out on Facebook

Hair City
Located on Henry Street (4 stores up from the promenade)
They carry lots of things, most notably Ecostyler gel (olive and argan oil), Cantu line, black soap, jbco, argan oil, sweet almond oil and shea butter.

Pennywise
Nationwide -  never know what you might be lucky to find, they carry a lot of stuff.
Chartlottte street branch in particular carries - Infusium 23 LEAVE IN, amla powder, and ayurvedic products.

Live Green
Located at the western end of Ariapita Avenue (622-8911; 685-9291)
They carry Giovanni products.


Starlite Pharmacy
Located in Diego Martin (632-0516)
They carry Giovanni products ($50 each), Redken, Aussie Moist, and African Pride


Sankofa African Store
Located on Penitence Street San Fernando
They carry black soap and shea butter ($30/jar)

Onika's
Located upstairs Carlton Center High Street San Fernando
They carry the Mixed Chicks brand

Puja stores - henna

Risa's - She is a certified Mehendi artist and she sells Henna powder in ziplocked packets of 100g for $35. Her contact is 312-5239

Xtra Foods Grand Bazaar - methi, coconut oil

Superpharm -  jbco ($120/bottle), 100% aloe vera gel (Fruit of the Earth)

Santas - High Street San Fernando - lots of brands

Pharmacy at Movietowne POS - Vatika coconut oil

Herbal Store,  Town Center Mall POS - basil oil, lavender oil, jojoba oil, veggie glycerin

HiLo Arima - aloe vera juice ($26/bottle)

Look who won something again!!!!

Beautiful box and beautifully wrapped! Can you feel the love?

ME!!!!!! lol if you read my post from the last time I won something, you can understand my excitement. I didn't just win something yall. I HIT DA JACKPOT! lol Look at this beautiful gift basket...

I know yall see all that stuff!

I won this bounty due to the fact that I practically live on Facebook lmao. So when bright and early one morning before Mother's Day the folks at Body Beautiful on D'Avenue asked their Facebook fans to answer a question on the products they carry, I was one of the first folks to answer. Now they never said what you would win, just that they had a gift. So trust me, I almost fell out when I saw how much stuff I won! And the best part? I had never tried any of the products before. 

I had to line the loot up. Somebody say product junkie jackpot! 

Allison of Body Beautiful was so sweet that since I so happened to show up to collect my prize when they had just got a shipment of Naturalista Juicy Leave- in, she generously gave me a sample to try!!! I about died and went to natural hair product junkie heaven yall lol 

Collecting my prize from Allison at Body Beautiful on D'Avenue

So expect some product reviews and in the meantime my Trini naturals, head down to the Avenue and see Allison at Body Beautiful! They carry so many of the popular product lines including Kinky Curly, Shea Moisture, Karen's Body Beautiful, Jane Carter, Curls, Eco Styler, Naturalista Cosmetics and so so much more. They also carry JBCO, shea butter, lots of ayurvedic products and other beauty products and candles. When you go make sure and tell them MzNappyTrini says hi!!! lol check out their Facebook page for more

Co-washing and Unintended Consequences

This week I did a co-wash using a longtime favorite, Herbal Essence Hello Hydration conditioner. My hair had been in one for almost a week. Most of my washing time involved just letting the water fully saturate my hair and using water to loosen up the dirt/grease on my hair and scalp. This involved massaging my scalp with the pads of my fingertips and using the closed palm (like you are praying) method to smooth my hair. 

If I was washing, that braid would be a loose wet section of hair. Smooth the closed palm down the section from root to end to apply product, wash the hair, etc. This way the hair stays relatively detangled.

Whenever I wash my hair I try not to disrupt the clumps my curls want to be in. I've found that is the number one key to reducing tangling. I think back to my childhood when shampooing involved wild hand in hair motion, trying to create the most lather possible. lol good old days. Washing was fun, combing after, not so much. 

Once my hair was fully saturated with water, I applied a shilling size amount of conditioner to each of four sections on my head and let it sit for about 5 minutes. I then rinsed it out, section by section and did a cold water acv rinse to finish off. I dried my hair with a cotton tee to avoid frizz.

Drying with an old cotton t-shirt to avoid frizz

During washing I could tell that my coconut prepoo I did a few weeks ago was still in effect as my clumped curls were well defined and healthy looking while washing. You can really tell once you get out of the shower and the hair is dried a bit. Look at the definition of my natural hair with no products in it whatsoever. This is the true definition of wash and go. One of these days I'll try and experiment to see how tangled my hair would get if I just left it like that to fully dry. lol

Once my hair was about 30% dry, I applied my kimmaytube-based leave in. I used the following recipe this week:

• 2 tbs Giovanni direct leave in
• 1 tbs Kinky Curly Knot Today
• 1 tbs Redken Antisnap
• 2 tsp jojoba oil
• 2 tsp castor oil
• 1 tsp avocado oil
• 1 tsp coconut oil

As you can see, I forgot the aloe vera juice this week and boy could you tell. My braids were way more frizzy than usual without that added acidity and the curling power aloe vera juice has on my hair. 

Nothing tying with a satin scarf couldn't fix though.

The resulting braid-out made me fall in love with braid-outs all over again (sorry! no pic but I'll repeat it sometime). I don't know why I ever stopped doing them but I expect to be doing more in the future. I did another braid-out a few days later using Ms Jessie's curly pudding. I think I prefer the effect from using my homemade moisturizer better but this was very pretty as well. I wore this to a job interview.

About to get my interview on lol

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.