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Showing posts from May, 2014

VINDICATION

Hi guys,      I hope you are enjoying your holiday. This post has been in my drafts for a while now and I'm really glad that I can finally publish it.  Remember the post where I talked about Conflicting Theories?  Well, an expert was quoted on Blackgirllonghair.com as saying that oils and butters do not seal in moisture and suffocate the hair.  Her exact words were:   ''Oil does not seal in moisture . Oil coats the hair and repeals natural moisture [from the environment]. It causes dehydration, dullness, and frizziness. Our hair is like us, it needs to breathe. If we suffocate it [with oils], it dries out."   There was a lot of debate on the blog as to whether this statement was true or false.  Three days after the blog post went up a natural hair blogger called JC of The natural haven blog wrote a response to this claim. She analysed how sealing with an oil or butter works and referenced JeniJen of Justgrowalready blog who actually conducted an experime

DIY Homemade Whipped Shea Butter Cream

Hi there,  This weekend I was busy whipping up a favourite staple of mine -Whipped Shea butter cream. I use it as a sealant and I LOVE it so much because it L.O.C.K.S the moisture in. I'm talking about 3 to 4 days of soft well moisturised hair and for me that's awesome. Basically it involves whipping up Shea butter, one or more oils, Aloe Vera Gel  (or not) and whatever else takes your hair's fancy to create a super creamy heavy duty sealant. Here's my version : Ingredients Shea butter Aloe Vera Gel Glycerine Extra Virgin Olive Oil Fragrance ( I used sweet pea body fantasy)  Olive Oil, Aloe Vera Gel, Fragrance, Glycerine &Shea butter  I whip the Shea butter first to loosen it up Then I add the Olive oil, Aloe Vera gel, Glycerine and Fragrance I whip it all up All done... looks so yummy doesn't it?      You may have noticed that I used a food processor rather than a hand mixer to do the whipping. I don't have a han

5 ways I use my conditioner

Hi there,    One of the most important products I use on my hair is my conditioner. It softens and moisturises my hair but it can also serve other purposes as well. Here are 5 ways I put my conditioner to use. As a Prepoo  The process of shampooing can strip off much needed moisture from the hair leaving it brittle and damaged. This can be alleviated to some extent by prepping hair with either an oil, some conditioner or a mixture of both for some time before shampooing. I use my conditioner with one or two oils under a shower cap for upwards of 1 hour (most times overnight) before I shampoo. As a Cleanser Co-washing or conditioner washing is very popular with healthy hair lovers whether natural or relaxed. It involves using a conditioner rather than a shampoo to gently clean moderately dirty hair. I do this by saturating my hair with the conditioner and leaving it on for a few minutes. I then proceed to rinse it off under the shower while massaging my scalp to lift off th

Finger Detangling 101

Hi there,      I am a finger detangler, how about you? Finger detangling is using your fingers rather than a comb or brush to remove tangles from your hair. In other words, it is combing your hair with your fingers only. Why would anyone choose to  use their fingers to work through a whole head of natural hair when there are different kinds of combs and brushes that will do a more thorough job in one tenth of the time? Well,combs and brushes can damage your hair. Combing hair too frequently can cause the hair ends to wear out and break off. They can also forcefully uproot strands of hair from your scalp. They cause split ends too due to the constant wearing out of the protein layers in the hair shaft by the motions of combing through. For those who still comb their hair, there are a few things that that help to alleviate some of the problems that combing causes, you can find them Here . I decided to ditch combs and stick to finger detangling most of the time because I wanted healthie

Patience is still a virtue :-)

Hi there,  Does it seem to you like your hair is not growing? Are you tired of all the care you take of your hair with no visible results? Are you longing for super healthy waist length hair? If the answer to these three questions is yes then this post is for you. I found these super cute pictures about patience on Instagram ( I just joined!!!!) and I thought to share. Beautiful ;-) Preach!  You'll get there some day It is just a reminder that if we hang in there and do all the necessary things we will achieve whatever healthy hair goal we set for ourselves. So hang in there, your mane will surprise you one of these days :-) KimB

Homemade leave-in-conditioner - Curly bola's version

Hi there,     Leave-in conditioners are the bomb.com for natural hair because our hair is usually very dry. My fave (you should know that by now) leave-in is Cantu Shea butter leave-in conditioning repair cream but since I ran out I have been trying to improvise till I can get my hands on some more. You tube is full of recipes of homemade leave-ins and you trust me to have tried a few of them. I did Kimmaytube's version some months ago, was meaning to blog about it but I never got around to. I found this new one from Bola Cooper on YouTube and I decided to try it out.  Recipe 3 Tablespoons of Aloe vera  gel 1 Tablespoon of  glycerine 1 Teaspoon of olive oil 1/2 Teaspoon of honey. Mix it all up and voila: a moisturising leave-in! My opinion I found it a little sticky at first but I guess it might be as a result of the brand of Aloe Vera gel I used. It was absorbed fairly quickly and I felt the softness almost immediately. I sealed with my whipped Shea butte

Hair Update- Its been a year!

Hi guys,     I cannot believe its been a year since I big Chopped! At that time I didn't know anything about healthy hair journeys or that there was such a thing as the natural hair movement. I just wanted my damaged hair out of  the way so I went snip snip snip. I wasn't really happy about my hair cut ( you can see that from my one and only BC picture) but I just felt there was really no need to hold on to hair that was as damaged as mine. Sometime thereafter I discovered hair blogs and YouTube and the rest they say is history. I put my hair on a regimen and decided to keep my hair natural. That's one of the best decisions I ever made. I am so in love with my hair!!!!! If I could hug and kiss her I would ;-)    Of course there have been ups and downs in my hair journey. The ups are the new (and sometimes crazy) experiences that I have had with my hair and my newfound self reliance in all things hair related. The downs have been the inevitable  mistakes that have someho

I DEFINED MY CURLS!!

Hi  guys,     My natural hair journey has been a great blessing to me in so many ways. I have learnt things about my hair that I would never have known if I was still relaxed. One of the things I recently learnt is that my curls can be defined. In this Post I talked about how I was able to identify my curl pattern as 4a but I wasn't sure if I could achieve the super defined curls I saw in other 4a sisters I saw on YouTube. Fast forward some months later, I got my hands on the famous Ecostyler gel (with Olive oil) and I was ready to find out if my hair would make me proud.     I did a test run on fairly stretched moisturised hair. I picked up the first lock of hair and applied a bit of the gel from the roots to the ends. Then I briskly rubbed it in in a downward motion 3 to 4 times and voila....Curls were popping!!!! All done ;-)     I finished my whole head in about an hour and a half because my hair wasn't fully detangled and I didn't want to use a comb (