The Afro Returns!

Here is a narrative of how I'v worn my afro for that last three days.... 

First Day.

After I washed my hair I sectioned my hair while I putting in leave-in conditioner, shea butter, and extra virgin olive oil in. I twisted my hair in medium to large two strand twists. I let my hair dry like this for an hour and a half (how long you leave the twists in can be as short or long as you want. In the two pictures bellow I twisted and moisturized after I got out of the shower and took them out before I left the door). This allowed my hair to dry better without becoming matted and gave my afro some more definition.

Night Routine:

Grab a section of hair than spray with stray bottle, apply shea butter and olive oil. Than Braid section, continue and repeat on the rest of hair. Sleep with scarf. 

The Second Day.

I took out the the braids and detangled the braids with my hands so that my afro would still be a defined. Notice how my afro is bigger than the day before because my hair was not wet when I braided it. 

 I wore my hair with a headband that day also.

Later on  inThe Second Day.

Can anyone say Shrinkage ?

The weather that day was very humid and rainy One good thing about wearing my afro out is that it gives me a reason to like humidity (water is my hairs best friend), otherwise I start dreaming about snow.

         

  

when I got home I braided my hair (and let the braids stay in for about two hours) again to that my afro would be larger when I left my house again later that day ( before and after above). I decided to re-braid since my hair had shrunken and I would be home of a couple of hours before I left again. This is definitely optional depending on how you like to wear your afro. This is how my hair looked after.

Third Day (Today).

Last night I repeated the same night routine as mentioned above. The only difference is that I braided my hair in slightly smaller sections. This made my afro bigger and gave a little more braid out definition on the ends.

 Word to the wise:

Spray bottle! Spray bottle! Spray bottle! Spray bottle! Moisturize! Moisturize! Moisturize! Shea Butter! Shea Butter! Shea Butter! Shea Butter! Extra Virgin Olive Oil! Extra Virgin Olive Oil! Extra Virgin Olive Oil! 

In that order. ALWAYS

Of course how much you moisturize depends on how the weather is where you live. The dryer the place the more the moisturizer, natural oils, and butters needed. That said afro textured hair still needs lots of:

 > moisture, meaning leave-in (conditioner, or lotion) and spray bottles with water being the main ingredient.

 >Oil NOT grease, ideally these oils are made from things that occur naturally in nature. 

>Butters, shea, avocado, coconut, whatever butter you use make sure that name on the cover is the first thing in the ingredient list.

Overall:

I love, love, love! my afro!   

From Where I Strand: Hair Revelations

My hair journey has been an eventful one to say the least. Ridden with hair loss and dandruff in cycles for years. Throughout all this I developed a strong desire for long hair which only became greater when I was introduced to the natural hair community. Before then I had thought my hair was pretty long for a natural. It was always  teetering between  shoulder  and  mid neck length. So when I started seeing all these beautiful women with really long natural hair I was elated. Black hair really did grow. I redoubled my hair efforts by wearing protective styles. My diet was also very good.
Hair (although it would be nice) is not a separate entity from the body and mind. I have noticed with myself that if  I do not deal with small stresses and try and put them on the back burner they will come back in three ways:

• Hair loss
• Dandruff
• Emotional Eating 

For the past year and a half  I have been working on dealing with stress and not internalizing and over thinking things.  During that time I changed my eating habits, started working out, and lost weight.  Still this hair drama persists despite the fact that all my life my hair has been finger combed, protectively styled, and moisturized. What I am realizing is that my whole way of thinking about my hair is flawed. I have subconsciously seen my hair a reflection of  "black hair." In my goal of inspiring other people I meet on their natural journey I have placed high expectations on my own head. A big part of this is that I need to stop thinking of my hair as a representation of black hair as a whole. I am one person, with one life, and one head.  Another part of this is pride. I don't want to be that natural who is always "stuck" in natural purgatory ( mid length hair) "I take care of  my hair". Without realizing it I have set out to make my hair proof  that black hair does grow. And that is not a healthy way of viewing ones hair. 

The last time I had my hair pressed  I felt mortified. My hair dresser told me I mite have a thyroid issue. I was almost happy, maybe this was what was behind all my struggles. Blood tests came back, and not only I was as healthy as ever, but I was back to square one.  I had no clue what my hair was doing or why.  When people gave me complements about my hair straighted I would say thank you, but what I was really thinking was my hair looks horrible.
 This is what I call the natural syndrome.  I became so use to being the only natural where I go ( in many places I still am)  which meant how my hair looked was very important so as not give off a bad impression of "natural hair."  

It is not our job as naturals to give people a good impression of natural hair. If thats what your aim is you are setting your self up for more frustration than any one head should cause.  My hair is reflection of who I am, not my hair length. Not anymore or any less. 

Scalp Update...

My Scalp has a layer of dandruff on it and my hair has become very dry ( which made it more frizzy than usual... I don't mind frizz, but when it comes early I hate it because that means the styles looks worse faster, like a shoe that gets worn out easily. You don't get much wear out of it.) for no apparent reason. I had this problem last time I did my hair. The moisture must not have been sealed (I didn't use shea butter or as much olive oil with my leave in). I could deal with the scalp ( I'v seen much, MUCH worse #horror story) but my hair feels dryer that it usually does.
 So inbetween uncharacteristically dry hair and itchy scalp I am going wash my hair as soon as I get up tomorrow! I'm starting to feel an afro coming on...
Wait, I know " why is she going to wear an afro tomorrow if her hair is feeling dry?" Well, my scalp must be washed!( I was lazy friday when I washed my hair and didn't really make sure scrubbed my scalp)I hardly even wear my hair out, and time is not on my side this week. On the weekend I will return to my regular routine of protective styling.

Unparted Territory: Flat Twists are Amazing!

 

 

 

Story and Procedure:

Yeah, I had to do my hair. It rained today and my hair got a little wet. I was probably going to do it anyway so getting it a little wet only made it certain. After pre-poing( pre-shampoo conditioning) ,washing, conditioning (my hair in large twists), and moisturizing my hair I started parting. Spraying my hair with my Spray bottle I made sure my hair stayed damp as I twisted. All the flat twists are flat twisted into one bigger flat twist and tucked in with one hair pin. I am happy to be curly. I feel like myself again.

Word to Wise:

Wear a do rag at night (a must. do rag = flat style, scarf = curly style). If a large twist gets realLy frizzy redo it.  

Over All:

I love this style! it's a new staple. This style will also look great with long hair (smaller individual flat twists left out or not).  

Side Note:

Curly hair really does hide hair loss best. The places wear parts are wider because of thinning are hardly noticeable. 

See the difference?

  

I am a master of d i s g u i s e . . .

Texture Playground

 back

front

lower sides

sides

People often think I have "good hair" (a term I hate, more on this later) because some (some) of the hair in the front and nape of my neck is loser textured than the rest. Don't let the smooth edges fool you, the back of my head laughs at my wash-n-go attempts most of the time. When my mom used do my hair she would always said that the back of my hair was drier that the front. We used to think it was because I slept on my back. The real reason is that my hair has multiple textures. This can as good as it is bad.

p.s. I took these pictures right after washing my hair.

Shoe Love

These shoes came right on time. I walk alot! this year my favorite shoes ( converse! I love when they get a worn look, but they are not walking shoes as I found out :( were rubbing up against one of my toes and was starting to cause a minor corn. I couldn't have that! So........ I started wearing my workout shoes when I walked. This was a big cross over for me becoming one of "those people" who always wears "comfortable" shoes. It didn't fit my style at all. But the saying " ugly shoes make pretty feet" is often true. I vowed to find a pare of black shoes that are comfortable and look good with everything. Thanks DSW.

"Straight" Talk: Hair Reflections

I'm not going to sit here a write all the things people said to me about my hair this time when I pressed it. What I am going to say is that it is always amazing. People who have seen my hair in amazing bantu knot outs, twists, twist outs, and any nummber of other amazing hair styles tell me that my hair looks amazing when I have it pressed. This is the norm. What I really wanted to shout from roof tops was " my hair should be soo much longer than this." the most backwards part of this is that people tell my hair alway looks cute. My hair has thinned out to new growth like fuzz is about three patches gradually over the last month. Sadly, being used to this because in the past things like this have happened to me because of dandruff; I endeavored to style my hair in a way that would make it unnoticeable. The two patches of hair loss at the my temples have not gotten as big as they are now in a long time. This time pressing my hair only made we realize how bad my hair is. My hair stylist told me to get some blood work done and see if it was thyroid a issue. Nothing came up in the blood test, I am no closer to finding out what the cause of this chronic dandruff and hair loss is. I have been in a cycle of about 5 months normal hair growth than 3 slight to severe months of hair loss and dandruff for the past 7 years. The fact this is has happened to me over and over again only makes me dislike my hair even more. The way I feel about my hair can be summed up like this:

With my hair in its natural state I am a person can do wonderful amazing styles that help me not to notice if my hair has been thinning. However, when my hair is straight I am a person with medium/short hair who wishes it was longer trying to hid some hair thinning while being painfully reminded of it every time I look in the mirror. 

  

     biggest patch

there are three patches like this throughout  the back

I know hair is not the biggest thing in life but when you have tried to have something for seven years that seems so simple it is very frustrating.  One of the things that bothers me is that I am trying to help other girls starting their natural hair journey and look at my own hair.I have little to show for being natural all my life, wearing protective styles all the time, finger detangling, moisturizing, etc. But I will continue on, I am going to start doing pilates again and get more sleep and just distress and not over think things in general.

  

I am debating as to whether I should wear my hair another week like it is or wash it and do it Saturday. A couple of things bother to so much that I want wash my hair even though I usually like to wear my press as long as possible to give myself a brake from doing my hair. This Saturday the wind was blowing and exposing my hair loss to the world. If I wash my hair Saturday I will get the joy of figuring out how to flat twist it in such a way that will hid the hair loss. Taking these pictures of my hair did help me to see that it doesn't look bad and if I wore a head band while I walked to school the hair in the front would not move. It will all depend on how I feel I guess. 

Straight Out of NOWHERE....

Long Story ( that will be coming soon) short, its not ok to look Black at the NAACP. Last year at the ACT-SO competition sponcerd by the NAACP I went to national level in the category of oratory and health and  medicine science fair ( I won g-o-l-d on the national level in the health and medicine science fair category !!!). Here (bellow) I was trying to give my oratory  and one of the major comments (that are given in paper after the competition is over) I got from the female judge was that natural hair is not appropriate especially curled and to the side. Yep, happened in the real life. I have that papers to prove it. She said these things like I  came in with a three foot afro! but in reality (which she -being brain washed- could not see) this is what I looked like:

So this year I straightened my hair........... Its a competition that is really amazing and I don't want my hair to effect all those black judges. The saddest part about this is that I REALLY, REALLY  like competing in ACT-SO and to do that I guess I have to look as white as possible..  This year when I go the Nationals I will get my hair pressed AGAIN. I will go the ACT-SO competition nationals like the feminine verson of the Morehouse man and leave like the Black Panther. As soon as I get to the hotel room after I compete I am wetting my hair and going back to my Au Natural afro. But alas these are some of the pictures of my hair straight. The hair stylist at N&N Hair Designs is very good and gave me a great shape up and trim( *tear, 1 1/2 inch ) that I badly needed. My ends were bad.  I have nothing against wearing my hair straight if I just feel like getting it pressed. However to HAVE to it another thing entirely. My ends are a little puffy and it has only been six days. Nothing like east coast weather. This is why I not like having my hair pressed in the summer or spring. It does not last long at all.

Procedure:

Sleep in hard Rollers ( I know there hard, but the curl is much better. I can sleep on bantu knots so  6-8 medium hard rollers is so not bad) every other night with hair net and satin scarf. 

Word to the Wise:

DON'T I repeat DON'T go over your hair with a flat iron again!!!! (been there done that.) If your hair is going back.LET.IT.

Heat damage is no fun.

Over all:

I like my hair, it looks nice and all, but the reason I got it pressed is still crazy. 

Unparted territory: Flat Twist Style

  

Story and Procedure:

Just some twist strand twists. I didn't feel like doing anything the required more time.

Word to the Wise:

wearing a head scarf  DOES work! the next day my edges(don't brush then to death) were soo smooth. 

Over all:

Nice fast style for when you don't feel like doing anything with your hair. The only reason I like this is because of the angle of the parts. 

The Second Life of the two Strand Twists

 Story and Procedure:

After I wore the twists for a week I redid the flat twists in the front and took out the back to wear the twists out for a week. Every morning after taking off my scarf I spayed my hair with a mixture of 70% water, 20% leave in conditioner,and 10% oil. Then fluffed my hair out and shook it around. This took away all the bed head making my twist out hang perfectly. 

Word to the Wise:

I would not recommend wearing a small twist out like mine for more than a week because detangling was not as fast as it usually is. whenever you leave natural hair in a small twists/braids leaving them in to long WILL lead to more detangling time! As time goes on though you will learn how long to leave a style in and when to take it out.

Over All: 

this style took a small amount of time, looked great, and lasted me two weeks. Its a keeper.