TWA Wash Day

Better late than never, right? :)

[1] Detangled this is a Pre-poo, right? with Castor oil, Coconut Oil & water mix.

[2] Shampooed x2 with Creme of Nature Sulfate-Free Moisture & Shine Shampoo.

[3] Tea Rinsed with green tea. I find when I don't do a tea rinse I'll see quite a number of hairs, be it shed hairs or breakage, so this step is here to stay.

[4] Deep Conditioned with VO5 Herbal Escapes Clarifying Conditioner, Tresemme Moisture Rich Conditioner and Castor Oil. It was whatever I had on hand. I had some chores to do on the front lawn so I put a plastic bag over my head and went to work.

[5] Applied Roux Porosity Control and let it sit for 1-2 minutes.

 The Results

                                    After the rinse                                                  Texture shot :)                    

                

[6] Air dried until hair was about 75-80%.

[7] Applied my DIY Leave in + Shea Butter mix.

[8] Flat-twisted hair into 6 twists and let it stay in my hair until it was time for my protective style to be put in.

One thing I've noticed about my hair is, even when a comb hasn't run through it in a week, detangling is still easy peezy after I put a water and oil mix in. Lawks! If I knew it would be this easy to detangle my hair I would've cut my hair sooner! Also, the curls seen in the texture shot just vanishes whenever my hair gets dry and my hair clumps up - that's all I get. Sometimes I wish it would stay as it is when it's washed but it has never turned out that way. Ah well, such is life. I plan to put in a protective style sometime this week and that's what I'll continue doing, keeping in line with my short and long term hair goals.

Hope you guys had a great wash day as well.

Be well,
Gibbie

Read more →

Ramblings: Hair Products, Prices and Me

I wouldn't say I'm necessarily frugal or cheap..wait, maybe I am..but this crazy spending on numerous hair products isn't going to work. As it stands, I only like spending money on necessities like food and alcohol..and since I live in Jamaica, that's all I have money to spend on. 

Now it's almost normal to become a Product Junkie when you start a hair journey because you're either looking for that holy grail product all the Youtubers and bloggers you see raving about. What will end up happening is, eventually, you're going to regret all that spending.

Just sidestep the "eventually" part of that neatly and don't spend all that money to begin with.

I say this to say, I was about to start the Product Junkie-ism and dive right in since I just started my natural hair journey.

Until I saw how much it was for a Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Masque. 

$2,100.

WAH?!

I did an exorcist head-turn same time because it wasn't going to happen. Plus, the product came in a container the same size as a Chiffon butter container here.

Nerp. Couldn't cross it.

I suppose I was grateful that I had already started the more natural route for using products in my hair (getting Castor oil, Coconut (cooking) oil) etc., which made it a little easier to make a U-Turn out that hair store because I wasn't buying it. Additionally, apart from the fact that my boyfriend thinks I'm doing some form of seance when he isn't at home with all the oils and mixtures he sees around the house, he's okay with the shea butter and castor oil smells my hair has from time to time and that's okay with me. I don't have the money for the Mizanis and the Keracares and the Miss Jessies. I suppose I'll eventually go out on a limb and get one of  these products and stick to it if it's good but, at this time, it isn't happening. Plus I don't, mind being called cheap frugal.

Be well,

Gibbie

Read more →

When To Chill Out (After You've Done All Your Hair Research)

You've watched countless of YouTube videos, you've asked YouTubers a gazillion questions, you've read blogs and excerpts of the Science of Black Hair and everything you could get your typed fingers on as it relates to black hair.

Now what?

Now, you CHILL OUT..or Go Easy as we Jamaicans would say.

If you've done all of the above in terms of research and then some and have been getting the same answers for black hair topics, just CALM. DOWN.

That's what I've had to tell myself of late with regards to the abovementioned..because if you don't, you're going to have information (and possibly brain overload) and you're going to second-guess everything about your hair.

You know the basics:

• Wash your hair 7 - 10 days
• A deep conditioner is just Conditioner with oils
• A Protein Treatment is just eggs/mayo/yogurt/honey and you follow up with conditioner or oil to balance your hair out
• Moisture and Seal with the L.O.C. or L.C.O. method
• Protective Style and Low Manipulation Styles for length retention

 DASSIT.

Stop stressing yourself about products (what I've been doing of late) and just CHILL. OUT. All you have to do is follow the basics and tweak it as it relates to your hair needs.

Deeven bodda bout hair typing (sorry I stressed about this so much in the past) and go after your hair texture. What I've found that does help is to find Bloggers, YouTubers with the same texture and if you want, see if the techniques they use for their work for you; and even then it might not work. It really is trial and error work to get something that works exactly for you.

For my hair, in just the week I left it out, I have noticed the following things:

1. It is super coarse
2. It's manageable and feels moisturized once I give it some L.O.C.O. care
3. It clumps
4. It has no curl definition
5. It retains moisture when it is left in a low manipulated/protective style (braids, flat twists)
6. It loves to be left alone and untouched (hand in hair is a big no-no)

And so I'll leave it at that. Deeven touch it. It seems to have a personality of its own and it is feisty. So I'm giving it space lol.

I say this to say, that I was about to go down the path of doing a bunch of things to see if it would do what I want when really and truly, it isn't about that life. All it'll do is be over-manipulated and break..after which I'll be the same one wondering why it didn't grow like I expected it to.

So I have decided to chill out. I'm doing the foundation work and simple basics and then I'll leave it be. If you're newly natural like me, I'd advise you to do the same.

Be well,

Gibbie

Read more →

The Week That Was: First Week Wearing Out My TWA

I thought of re-braiding my hair after my last braid take-down but decided I should start wearing my hair out to get a feel of what my natural hair was. Now, after about a month since I big-chopped, it would be the first time my anyone except my bf and the person who braided my hair would see my hair out. Here's a run down of how my week went:

Monday.

I wore a bantu knot-out of bantu-knots I did on Sunday for Monday.  They didn't turn out how I wanted and was such a fail I didn't take any pictures of it.  I pulled the knots out and used a headband I had that covers most of my hair and wore it to work. Some co-workers didn't even know I did my big chop..and those who saw my natural hair didn't seem to mind. I put on so many fandangles (large earrings, lipstick) that most didn't even notice. As I said before, there aren't any pictures.

Tuesday. 

About 80% of the curls were gone by Tuesday and I had no idea what to do with it. I eventually combed my hair into an afro and put Monday's headband back on and when to work. I hated it. Tuesday evening I put some cornrows (we say canerows here) in and went to bed. I'm not good at doing cornrows but it actually looked better than it looked all week at that time. There are no pictures.

Wednesday. 

It was a field day for work so all I did was put a headband over the cornrows I did Tuesday evening and went to work. There are no pictures.

Sidenote: There are no pictures because I was mortified and DREADED wearing my natural hair out. My hair wasn't doing anything I thought it would've. I knew I had 4C type hair and I knew it would be naturally dry but this was something way different. I thought I had hair like my girlfriend Trudy, which, is 4C hair that shrinks but was curly and all it needed was oil and water to curl up. GOOD LORD I WASN'T READY. I have Type 4 hair yes, but this is something different. It doesn't curl up - even when water RUNS through it. There is no curl definition with any curling cream/paste/concoction/liquid I have since used, it "clumps" together and, it's dry..like desert dry. I was lost and didn't know what to do with my hair. I contemplated cutting my hair very low..mainly because I could probably pull off a low cut look and I wouldn't have any issues with that style. I also had no intention of relaxing my hair again.

Thursday.

I pulled my cornrows out and wore that 'out style' and it was the best thing that happened to my hair all week! I made a shea butter mix to see if it would give my strands some hydration and I could feel the difference in my hair. I put a little water-based liquid in, then some castor oil and the shea butter mix in brushed around the sides and used my ouchless band to do a Puff. I used my scarf to snazz it up a bit and here's how it turned out:

              

Gladbag buss!

                                              

Friday.

The curls were gone for the most part but I was okay with it. Armed with my LOCO (DIY leave in, coconut oil, shea butter mix and castor oil), I applied them to my hair, brushed around the sides and again, used my ouchless band to do a Puff and used my scarf to snazz it up a bit. Here's how it turned out:

Needless to say, I was in better spirits than the start of the week and learned a few tidbits about my hair. I've never known or taken care of my natural hair until now (almost 2 decades later) so I'm feeling my way along. Thankfully I did some research beforehand. Stay tuned for next week's run-down (I hope it gets easier!).

Be well,

Gibbie

Read more →

Wash Day - Teenie Weenie Afro Edition!

And what better way to do it through The Wash Day Experience! 

The braids are out after a 5 week stint. Here's a shot of my hair after the take-down:

I was feeling myself a bit :)

Now it's time to go alone with my twa - at least for this week. Here what I did on my last (Saturday) wash day:

[1] Deep Conditioned with Organics Hair Mayonnaise. I let it stay in my hair for about 10 minutes with heat then rinsed it out. I haven't done a protein treatment in a while and since I had the braids in, it needed some strengthening.

[2] Shampooed with Creme of Nature Sulfate-Free Moisture & Shine Shampoo.

[3] Oil Rinsed with Castor Oil

[4] Conditioned with Tresemme Moisture Rich conditioner to rinse the excess oil out.

[5] T-shirt dried my hair to about 85% (which takes about 30 minutes).

[6] Moisturised with my DIY Leave-in + castor oil + Softsheen-Carson Optimum Oil Therapy (don't think I'll ever use this again).

[7] Tied a Du-Rag around my hair and went about doing some errands. 

Wash Days are pretty much smooth these days as 1) I have little hair on my head and 2) once water or conditioner is in my hair, detangling sessions are a breezeee :)

Hope everyone's wash day went well! I'd love to hear about it.

Be well,

Gibbie

Read more →

9 Styles for Week-Old Braids *Updated*

I got this #9 style the day before I took out these braids! I couldn't let it go without sharing it with you all. It's now one of my favourites. I hope you enjoy this updated post!

As may know by now, my go to protective styles are braids, be it Senegalese Twists, Crotchet Braids or Box Braids.The maximum amount of time I'll keep them in is 5 weeks, mainly because I can't keep a neat hairstyle for a number of reasons. This time around, My hair was already "roughed up" by 2 weeks because I was sabotaging the style so I could pull the braids out to see and deal with my natural hair. My girlfriend and bf talked me out of it and I've kept the braids in ever since it was done (re-twisting some braids once a week after). 

The styles below are some styles I picked up and are presently doing with my four-week-old what I call my worn out braids. These are great for when the middle or inner top part of the braids start to frizz out. And to top it off, these styles can be done in a matter of minutes! 

Here goes:

1. The Good Ole Braided Bun

Read more →