Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul31

May/June GOC Update: Gina (#40)

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Hair
Welp, Kenzi (my hair ) and I have been at odds for the last 2 months. Everything went downhill once I took out the two strand twists that I had done. I kept them in for 3 weeks. Did a wash and deep condition and there was some shedding. But that was to be expected.

Now when it continued every single day, I freaked out. All of a sudden I have single strand knots, which I dont recall ever having. So, I concluded that it was time for the overdue TRIM. In the meantime I started using Aubrey Organic GPB (thanks Shelli!).

So, my regimen switched up a bit. I wash once a week, rather than every other week. I deep condition with the Aubrey GPB prior to shampooing. Then, I condition with Aussie Moist (love it). I’ve seen a bit of improvement, but we shall see. I’ll keep you all updated with the TRIM and shedding.

Health & Fitness
I have been maintaining my weight of 130 lbs. I went down 5 lbs and was very uncomfortable with how it looked on me. So now I think I will work on toning and that’s all!

Pray for me ladies! Smooches & God Bless!

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Jul31

Nappturalite Radio Guest Host Appearance

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TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT!! PLEASE TUNE IN IF YOU GET A CHANCE!!

Guess who’s making her radio debut as a guest host on Nappturalite Radio this Thursday? THIS GAL!! *lol*. I hope that all of you can tune in! Listen to us LIVE on Thursday evening at 7pm EST/6pm CST at www.blogtalkradio.com/nappturalite. You can also catch the replays on BlogTalkRadio & iTunes!

Jul31

Wonder Curl Braid-Out Results

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Here are my braid-out results from the braid set of Sunday night.  As I indicated yesterday, I used Wonder Curl Get Slick Hair Smoothie and Butter Than Love Pudding to set the braids. My hair still didn’t dry overnight, so I sat under the dryer for another 20-30 minutes or so. That mostly dried the braids and I released them with a gifted Original Moxie Hair Bling (High Shine Pomade). It was my first time using this product and it reminded me a lot of Oyin Burnt Sugar Pomade, except that it had a smoother consistency. Too early to give a full review yet though.

All of these pics are of my hair after work.


Pretty decent. I definitely prefer braid outs when I can let my hair air dry and set for a couple of days. I think that I get better results that way. Guess I need to make sure I wash my hair before Sunday night then!

Hmmmm … it’s been a long time since I did a TnC, so I might switch it up and do that this upcoming weekend.

Jul30

Who Really Healed the Broken Bat?

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ANOTHER DARK KNIGHT RISES SPOILER AHEAD!!

So, if you didn’t know, DKR is partly based on the Batman story, Knightfall. Just thought a few of you might be interested in knowing that the doctor who healed the Batman in “real life” was Dr. Shondra Kinsolving … NATURAL … and rocking a TWA. ;).

Oh yeah, and they developed a romantic relationship, he fell in love with her and was about to reveal he was Batman. Then she got kidnapped. Batman … forever alone.

#justsayin

Jul30

Transitioning Buddies

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by Sawah of Discovering Natural

When transitioning from relaxed to natural hair, you need all the support you can get to make the process an easier one. It is difficult enough figuring out how to handle your two textures. Sometimes, people that we think will be supportive of our decisions to go natural might let us down. We struggle with what to do to our hair. Many of us fail during the process and go back to the relaxer because we did not have the support we need.

This is why having a Transitioning Buddy early in the process can help make the process easier. As someone that plans to do a long term transition (2 or more years), I depend on my transitioning buddies to keep me in check. Yes, I do have more than one transitioning buddy. Pictured above is one of them.

Now, you might be wondering, none of my friends are natural … no one in my family is supportive of my decision … how am I going to get a transitioning buddy? Well, there are several online hair forums that have threads dedicated to Transitioning Buddies. CurlyNikki.com has a good support forum for Transitioning to Natural and there is a thread in there for Transitioning Buddies. This was where I found my online transitioning buddy, Uninibile. Check out her hair blog.

So, go online and get yourself a buddy! You can finally have someone to discuss natural hair information, rants and raves.

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Do you have a Transitioning Buddy?

 

Jul30

June/July GOC Update: Cassandra (#26)

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Hair
I still haven’t measure my hair, but I can tell how much it has grown by how much my hair hangs down my neck. Since April, I’ve been a strict CG Method follower. But, since I’m more concerned with my hairline growing back more fully, I’ve started to use castor oil again and have become more of a modified-CG follower. In June, I started to incorporate pre-poos and using sweet almond oil to keep my hair moisturized. Normally, using conditioner (Tresemme Natural) as a leave-in works well as both a leave-in and slight hold. But, with the 100+ temperatures in Northern VA, my hair was starting to feel really dry and brittle. So, first I tried using Eco gel to lock in the moisture, but I feel it was too “heavy” for my hair and discontinued. Now I’ve been using Paul Mitchell “The Conditioner” as a leave-in conditioner.

My edges are still the problem areas for me to get to regrow. So any help will be appreciated! I will have to wait to see if the castor oil will work again. I read up on the benefits of sweet almond oil to help with hair loss and have mixed the almond and castor oil together to moisturize and massage my scalp and edges. I’m going to give it awhile to see if it will make a difference and jump-start the hair growth. Only other issue I’ve noticed is a lot more hair shedding. I know it’s shedding, since the bulb is attached. But I wanted to get others thoughts on if this was a normal “shed” process?

Health & Fitness
June and July have been pretty active for me: (1) Started a new job (Yippy!); (2) Planning a move in late July and dealing with packing/movers; (3) Dealing with the commute. So, with weight loss, what little I did lose previously was wiped out due to not having the time to exercise and eat home-cooked healthy meals. I’m not going to lie … the McDonald’s workers know me by name :). But by August, I should be settled and have a routine set ,so that I can plan time to go to the gym and take exercise classes. I know I have a lot of excuses as to why I’ve haven’t kept up, but I’m ready to re-commit and finish strong for the challenge.

♦

Check out Cassandra’s other GOC-The Sequel posts here:

Initial Submission
April Update
May Update

Jul30

Something New: A Shampoo Brush

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As you know from my post yesterday, I pre-pooed with a mix of Aubrey Honeysuckle Rose conditioner and Vatika Oil from Saturday into Sunday. On Sunday night, after finishing cleaning the house (with the exception of the dishes, because Wei always says he loves washing dishes, so I didn’t want to steal his joy;)), I hit the shower and shampooed. It had been a while since I clarified and I debated between Ion Curl Defining Shampoo, a sulfated, yet moisturizing shampoo, and the unopened bottle of Lavender Garden Terressentials Mud Wash under my sink. The Ion shampoo won and I diluted it in water before applying.

After shampooing, I used Herbal Essences Hello Hydration to finger detangle under the shower stream. Now, this is where the something new comes in.

I picked up this shampoo brush at Sally’s for $0.99 about a year and a half ago. I very rarely use it, but Wei gives it a work-out! *lol* Well, I’ve been getting a lot of tight, little knots caused by shed hairs. I’ve had to resort to the scissors at least once every wash day the last month or so. That got me to thinking that finger detangling hasn’t been sufficient lately. And, I’ve read of some who finger detangle first and then use a wide-tooth comb, Denman brush, Tangle Teezer, etc. to finish the job. So, I decided to use the shampoo brush to comb through my hair as a final step before rinsing my conditioner. Yup, I used the shampoo brush!

You see, when the Tangle Teezer (TT) was the craze early last year, someone wrote that this cheap little shampoo brush was just as good, if not better. If I remember correctly, they said that this was because the teeth on the shampoo brush aren’t as sharp as the TT and it they don’t have seams.

So, anywho, after doing a thorough finger detangling, I took the shampoo brush in the palm of my right hand and the ends of my hair in the left. Then, I slowly combed through my hair, working up from the ends to the roots. If I met any resistance as combing, I stopped to remove the “obstruction” with my fingers, then resumed combing. The brush really glided very easily through my hair when it was fully saturated with conditioner and I allowed the water stream to flow over it. It also made my curls clump nicely. But, I don’t know if I’ll use the shampoo brush every wash day. Maybe every other. And, I’ll be keeping an eye on my ends as I used the TT for a hot minute after a big “trim” and noticed an inordinate amount of splits almost immediately. So, if that happens, I’ll stop using it immediately.

Back to wash day. To finish, I applied Aubrey Green Tea Rinse directly over the HE HH and rinsed with cool water. Then, I set my hair in six braids for a braid out with Wonder Curl Get Slick Smoothie and Butter Than Love Pudding, using the shampoo brush again to evenly distribute the products through my hair.

As it was about 8 pm by this time, I knew that there was no way that my hair would dry overnight. So, I decided to finally take the Salon Dryer on Wheels, which I got over 2 months ago, on a test drive!!

I realized pretty quickly that I needed to do something with those hanging braids if I wanted more than my scalp to dry! So, I secured them across and against my head with large bobby pins.

So far so good! The dryer is pretty loud though and I used the timer, which sounds like a ticking time bomb. But, it seemed to be doing a decent job of getting my hair dry. I sat under it for about an hour. My hair didn’t dry entirely, but I’m hoping that it will finish drying overnight *fingers crossed*. I’m writing this post Sunday night, so I’ll have to comb back with the final results later! Sorry for the delayed gratification!! But, I’m sure you’ve been there before ;).

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If you finger detangle, do you use a comb or brush as a final step? What hair tool works best for you (wide-tooth comb, Denman, Ouided Double Detangler, etc.)?
Jul29

Shrinkage & Return of the Pre-Poo Big Bun

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This is just a random short post to share a couple of pics I posted on my Facebook page. The above pic was before I was about to pre-poo. I pulled a piece of hair and was tickled about how much longer my hair is than it looks, even with a stretched style. Shrinkage is really an amazing thing. I love it for the fullness and poppin’ curls it gives me … but not so much when I continuously encounter pain in the butt matted hair and tangles at my neck on wash day though. But, I’m getting better at dealing with that as I know that I need to SPREAD the hair first to loosen the knots and shed hairs. THEN, I can work the hair down and out without causing a knot to form and/or tighten to the point where my only option is to cut the offending snarl. I HATE when I have to do that and it was occurring more often due to wearing loose styles. So, I needed to modify my approach to finger detangling on dry and wet hair.

Anywho, after taking this impromptu pic, I pre-pooed with my new Holy Grail mix of Aubrey Honeysuckle Rose (HSR) conditioner and Vatika oil. My hair was a tangled rat’s nest and I really had to work it in and gradually work through my hair in sections until it was detangled enough to put into my normal 6 twists. I donned my heat cap, but then I didn’t have enough time to wash my hair before I had to get ready to meet my buddies for lunch!! So, big banana clip bun to the rescue!!

Didn’t need to use gel or anything!! Just brushed it lightly, secured it into a “ponytail” with the banana clip and then wrapped and pinned in a matter of minutes. Whew!! What a life saver!!

Oh, and here is the Sci-Five (4 founding members and 1 reserve ;))! We finally got to wear the tee-shirts Anthony designed and gave us for Christmas all at the same time!! We had so much fun as Anthony and I lambasted bad Dark Knight Rises (my review is here if you missed it last week.).

The Sci-Five: Anthony, me, Megan, Fabio and Fernando

And now, I need to get back to cleaning this house (still had the suitcases out from my Playa del Carmen vacation and family reunion weekend roadtrip! *smh*)!! I’m actually excited as I thought this would be an all day job, but think I’ll be done by 2 pm at the latest (would have been earlier if I hadn’t stopped to write this post! *lol*). That means, I might actually be able to wash my hair before midnight! Yeah … ‘cuz I did absolutely nothing after lunch yesterday. So, the pre-poo is still “marinating ;).”

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What have you been up to this weekend?

Jul27

April/May/June GOC Update: Brittney E’Lise (#37)

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Hiya everyone,

It has been a long time since I have update and I’m sorry for that. In short, life got in the way. And while I can give ya the “411,” that is not the reason you are reading this. So, I figured while I am pre-pooing and catching up on the first season of “Being Human” (the BBC version), I can let you guys know what is happening with my hair.

May

Hair
I wish I could tell you that I did some amazing stuff, but, with my sister’s Prom, I barely did anything with my hair other than washing it every time I needed to. HOWEVER, at the end of April, I found something that made me have a heart-attack … a braid that WAS NOT attached to my head. I will tell ya that I nearly lost my natural mind. After I finally calmed down (it took a while), I made myself readjust my routine. When I air-dried, I tried to keep the braids from weighing down and adding extra stress to my hair by pulling them up into a ponytail. I also went ahead and made a appointment to get my sides and nape redone. Those are my more weaker spots and I’m pretty sure that is were the “dreaded” braid came from.

Also, shortly after my initial post, I read about tea rises and I used them after every wash. I was using black tea (Lipton) to help with the shedding. At that time, I was watching two lovely YouTube videos from naturals by the name of Chesalocs and MsVcharles.

Health & Fitness
Health-wise … yeah we aren’t going to talk about that.

June

Hair
Ah, it is now three months and I am ready for these lovely braids to come out of my head. I was ready to take care of my loose hair again. However, I don’t think I was ready for how long it would take for them to come out. Now, at this point, it was already three months and I knew any longer and it would be dangerous to the health of my hair. I thought that, because I have watched YouTube videos of take down methods … Yeah … those weren’t applicable to my hair for two reason: Most people only kept the braids in for a few weeks to a month at the longest and their hair was four times shorter than mine, which meant that I could not comb out the yarn with a rat-tooth comb.

So, with a bottle of cheap conditioner, scissors and water, I took them down. And it took me 77 HOURS OVER 11 DAYS … this is not made up folks. It is the real business. Braids take longer than twists to take down in my mind. The picture of the two hair balls that resemble something Cousin It hacked up are my shed hairs from a normal weekly process (left) to the yarn braid one (right).

And yeah, that looks like a lot of hair, but I promise you that 90% of it is shed … and, well, the other 10% was when I got vexed late at night taking it down. So, the only cons I had with this style was I hadn’t learned how to curl the braids, how long it took me to take it down and how long it took for me to air dry. But, I am going to try it again in the fall, but maybe twist this time.

I got back to my usual schedule of washing and co-washing. I will wear twists during the week, since at my job there is a high chance of getting random pieces of cat/dog hair in them and it easier to pick out of my hair in twists than when it’s loose. And, the weekends, I wear twist outs and braid outs. I finally got down the method of pin curls and braid out thanks to another YuTube natural, Naptural85. I have a pic of a hair style I used of hers recently, where, if you are lacking volume in your ponytails, you can “fake it.”

I also learned how to detangle my hair when in twists easier with the help of Urban Bush Babes … detangle not from the bottom but from the top. While I wasn’t crazy about it, it made sense when you think about it, because shed hairs comes from the scalp, not the ends.

I also had something very important happen … I FOUND MY FIRST GREY HAIR … right smack dab in the front on my right side. I have no problem with this other than it seems as if this little guy didn’t get the memo about what it’s supposed to be. It is as straight as straight can be … not even a wave. Not cool y’all.

Health & Fitness
So, once again, health-wise … I lost weight and while that is usally a good thing for some, for me it’s not. It’s more of a stress thing. I started taking Biotin, but it wasn’t for my hair on my head. It was more for the hair loss I got in other places (like my eyebrows). I haven’t noticed a change other than when I was taking it more than three times a day … my face had a fit. So now I take it two to three times a day.

So, that’s really it. And now, introducing my hair for the first time to you lovely people. She doesn’t have a name yet, but that is her in all of her glory (well, in a streched out, pin curl style really). See you guys next month. And if anyone has any tea rinse combos, I would love to hear them.


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Missed Brittney E’Lise’s initial GOC-The Sequel submission? Check it out here.
Jul27

Beauty Spoon Giveaway! *CLOSED*

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Remember my Waste Not, Want Not post from earlier this week and how I told you guys that I ordered a set of Beauty Spoons? Well, guess what? Right after I placed my order, I sent a message to the company asking if they were interested in doing a Hairscapades Giveaway! And, you know what? They were!! Woot Woot! LOL!

So, what do you have to do for your chance to win??? It’s soooo simple!!

  1. Like the Hairscapades Facebook page;
  2. Like the Beauty Spoons page.
  3. Write in the comments below to let me know when you’ve done both and why you just have to have the Beauty Spoons!

All subscribers, old and new, are eligible. Just make certain that you’ve liked both pages and comment below!! A winner will be selected at random the week following the giveaway deadline!

*The deadline for entries is Friday, August 10th! Good luck ladies!!


*No purchase necessary. In accepting the prize, the winner acknowledges that Hairscapades.com may not be held liable for any loss, damages or injury associated with accepting or using this prize. This contest is subject to all federal, provincial and municipal laws. Contest open to Continental U.S. residents only. One entry per person. Claiming of prizes requires an e-mail response to hairscapades@gmail.com from the winner within 15 days of being notified of winning. Failure to respond shall mean that the winner forfeits the prize.