Friday 27 December 2013

An Interesting Observation....



I helped a friend take out her 6 weeks old full head sew in recently. Her hair had been cornrowed all back and then the weave sewn across the kind of cornrow-sewing combo that makes it hard to get to your scalp. One thing I noticed as I was undoing the cornrows was that there was hardly any matting at all, the only little matting I noticed and it was so small was at the nape, her hair and scalp were very very oily as in my hands were super oily I had to keep wiping them with a paper towel. So I asked her how often she oiled her scalp or sprayed her roots while she had the weave installed because it was so oily. She said she never oiled it all and had not washed her hair in the six weeks her installation was in either, that was the oil from when she greased her scalp before the installation. I asked her what grease she used; lo and behold it was petroleum jelly! My friend is not on any hair regimen that I know of she gets everything done at the salon the most she does is tie a scarf at night, style in the morning and once in a while grease her scalp. Washing, deep conditioning and all that other good stuff, she gets done at the salon. She is natural by the way and wears long term protective styles most of the time.
 
Sorry I don't have photos of my friend's hair after take down I was not quite thinking of doing a "petroleum jelly" blog post at that particular moment. The idea hit me much much later the next day.
Petroleum jelly has a bad reputation in the hair world due to the fact that it just sits on your hair and really does nothing at all for your tresses in terms of nourishment.  I have mentioned on this blog before that I have no problem using products that contain petroleum jelly as part of the ingredients especially as a styling product or pre poo. While it is true that petroleum jelly and it’s by products just sit on your hair and have no nourishing benefits, they can serve some other purposes that are beneficial to hair. These are my observations based on what I noticed during the weave take down;
  • Because the petroleum jelly just sat on her hair it prevented her hair from matting which could have led to breakage during takedown. The little matting she had at the lower nape was as a result of shower water getting into that section even with a shower cap on.
  • This is a person who never oiled her scalp or sprayed her roots once when the weave was in, so the petroleum jelly by sitting on her scalp ensured that her hair and scalp were never dry the entire six weeks. Her hair may not have been "moisturised" but it stayed breakage free on take down due to the greasiness that provided plenty of slip.
  • Undoing the cornrows was so much easier thanks to the greasiness of her hair the braids just slid through my fingers.
  • Detangling her coarse natural hair which was more like combing through to be honest after take down and before washing was a breeze once again thanks to the greasiness less hassle during detangling equals less breakage and more length retention.No tangles, no knots and very limited matting at the lower nape area.


To be honest as much as petroleum jelly and petroleum jelly based products have a bad reputation in the hair world it stayed winning in this instance by doing more good than harm to my friend’s hair.

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Happy Holidays!



Source

Merry Christmas everyone wherever you are however you’re celebrating!
Eat, be merry and remember Jesus is the reason for the season! 


My all time favourite Christmas ad!
I actually watched a live recreation of this holiday caravan during a Coca Cola Christmas event a few years ago the trucks were so beautifully decorated I so badly wanted to jump in one. It was so amazing!!!

Thursday 19 December 2013

Hair Update!



I touched up today at around 15 weeks post give or take. Totally unplanned for. Blame it on my edges! I took out my Ghana braids exactly a week ago, but my edges kept misbehaving; they just wouldn’t cooperate. Soft hold gel was not good enough for them, the other option was to get one of those firm hold brown gels that I am not very keen on so I thought why not just touch up the edges for now and the rest of the head in February next year as planned.  Good idea……or so it seemed…..didn’t quite work out like that.

Lye relaxers are harsh on my scalp I have mentioned that before that’s why I am team no lye but I had a tub of TCB lye relaxer that had been collecting dust in my cabinet for a little over a year, (hadn’t expired yet) bought before I started my hair journey. Purchased for use on the leave out hair for a weave installation that never happened and I ended up keeping it just in case I got a weave later; still hasn’t happened.  Didn’t have time to go out and purchase my no lye kit after deciding to do the whole head last minute, so I figured that since I now knew that you could add conditioners and oils to weaken relaxers I could probably do the same to this tub and get away with it.  I was right.  Here’s how it went down:
·         Added coconut oil and ORS replenishing conditioner to the relaxer no measurements just eyeballed it
·         Started the application back first, edges last, went over edges twice to ensure they were tamed sorry I forgot to time myself I used my eyes to check if It was texlaxed enough
·         Rinsed relaxer out and shampooed with ORS Creamy aloe shampoo
·         Deep conditioned with ORS Replenishing conditioner
·         T-shirt blotted, used AVJ as a leave in
·         Applied avocado and coconut oil mix to seal in the moisture – water
·         Blow dried on cool and styled (was pressed for time no time to air dry)
No length checks for now until sometime next year.
 
Blow dried on cool. Will be mostly bunning/braidouts for the next week.
Am I happy with my texlaxed results? Yes very much
Would I use a lye relaxer again? Only in an emergency situation if the tub was already in the house. Team no lye it still is.

Just incase you are wondering why the lye relaxer for leave out hair…it makes more sense for me to get a premixed tub since I only use a tiny bit of relaxer for the leave out, seal and keep the rest for future use. Ain’t nobody got time to be mixing up a tablespoon or two worth of box kit relaxer for leave out hair:)

Quick Tip: always check the expiration dates on your relaxers and hair products in general. Depending on the country of manufacture or sale products will have an expiration date and may sometimes include the codes: 3M, 6M, 12M, 18M, 24M etc what this simply means is that the product is good for the number of months stated once opened. “M” denotes the months so 3M means the product is good for use within 3 months after being opened. If unopened then the product is good until its expiration date. Besides you can always do a sniff test if it smells funny or has changed colour it probably has gone bad and you shouldn’t be using it.

AVJ: Aloe Vera Juice

Sunday 8 December 2013

Musings and an award...



The lovely Candice over at  Healthy Hair Diary nominated me for yet another Liebster award thanks chica! Check out my answers to previous awards here and here. On to Candice’s’ questions;

1       What is your favourite colour?
Blue was a favourite for a long time but I tend to lean towards bright colours a lot nowadays think oranges and yellows

          Describe your hair in 3 words.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful:)

         What length do you consider long hair?
Armpit Length and beyond

        How many blogs do you follow?
Around 50 

         What is your most expensive hair purchase to date?
My electrical hair appliances

      Pink or red nails, which do you prefer?
Definitely red

  Do you have any hobbies, share at least 2?
Does watching insane hours of YouTube videos count? The other one would be cooking; trying out new recipes from all over the world

   What is your favourite TV series?
Really don’t have one at the moment but I used to watch “Desperate Housewives “religiously

   Are you left or right handed?
       Right handed

   Have you ever been to the Caribbean, which island?
       Not yet but plan to someday

  Do you have any siblings?
        Yes one sister and three brothers

Random musings…
Sometimes we talk people listen but they do not hear us. I have been offering alternative solutions for a certain situation to a group of people for the longest time now they listen but choose not to hear me. This weekend I decided to put the saying “actions speak louder than words” to the test in regards to the situation at hand. Through my actions I spoke to these people and they heard me and the best part is I did not have to utter a single word from my mouth for them to hear me my actions did it for me. If only they had heard me when I first offered the alternative solutions everyone would have been better off but like the saying goes better late than never. If you are going through a being listened to but not heard situation maybe it’s time to make your actions do the talking for you. Happy hair growing and have a blessed day/night/afternoon wherever you are ladies!