Me and My Hair

Week 7 and a half

2011-04-19T21:21:00.002-04:00

Week 3 of loc Takedown

2011-03-19T23:38:00.002-04:00

2011-03-13T19:41:00.002-04:00

Decisions, Decisions...

2010-06-28T21:45:00.002-04:00

so.........
i'm thinking of giving up the red hair. WHAT?! yeah. for a few reasons, but the biggest one is tea tree oil.

i recently asked a question on the LovinLocs group about what kinds of shampoos i could use to really clean my hair without using using a clarifying shampoo. actually, i think i was asking about Dr. Bronners shampoo. my sister got a free sample of the almond scented one (y'all know i'm a fiend for almond scents!!!) and i wanted to use it, but i had heard in the past that it was a clarifying shampoo. but people were always referring specifically to the peppermint one, so i had to ask to see it all Dr. Bronner shampoos were clarifying or just the peppermint one. turns out they're all pretty much clarifying shampoos :-(
i'm sure most of you already know this, but clarifying shampoos strip everything out of ur hair, the built p product, the gunk, AND my hard to maintain color. red is one of the hardest colors to have because the molecules in red dye are so big they wash out easily. so i try my darnedest to stay AWAY from any type of clarifying treatment. plus it makes my hair dry and hard. y'all also know what a fiend i am for conditioners and having soft hair, so i only use clarifying shampoos on rare, rare occasions, maybe like once a year or so if that!
but in my quest for answers about the Dr. Bronners shampoo, i learned about a few other things that strip color treated hair faster, including apple vinegar rinses and TEA TREE OIL!!!!!! WAAAAAHHHH! i LOVE tea tree oil! i use it in my homemade spray that i make for my hair. i talked about the tea tree and peppermint conditioning mist that i bought recently that i love so much. i use it all the time!
recently, i've really noticed that every time i shampoo, i loose a lot of color. i see all this deep pink froth going down the drain. at first i thought it was because i didn't rinse well enough when i colored my hair and this was just the excess color coming out. then i really started paying special attention to making sure i rinse until the water runs clear. but then, the next time i shampoo, more color washes out! i was feeling really frustrated until i put 2 and 2 together and realized it must be the copious amounts of tea tree oil i use in my hair!
also there's just the hassle of keeping up with the color. its just hard to do. i have to wash my hair less often than i would like to keep the color vibrant longer. then there's the wet factor. if my hair gets wet, the red will start to bleed. so, for example, one day at work we used the water table because it was so hot out and the kids splashed me and my hair got wet. then the red started bleeding and i had this bright red color start to belled down my WHITE tee shirt. it looked like a majorly bad case of ring around the collar! LOL so all this has led to to think maybe i need a break from the bright red. maybe let this fade out and then go for a reddish brown for a bit.

i'm really sad, guys. i don't know what to do...

Finger Latching

2010-04-16T01:33:00.002-04:00

so, i've been latching my hair for about 3 years now... i think. maybe 4. i loose track of time. at first, i ONLY used the nappyloc tool. it was easy and fast and it was hard to mess up. then the horrible (inevitable!) day came when i lost my tool. it was bound to happen! that thing is soooo small! i tried to use a latch hook. wasn't happening. it kept on getting tangled in my hair and all i was doing was making more of a mess and hurting myself in the process. i briefly tried to use a crochet hook. but that wasn't really ever an option. so then i made my own tool using a paperclip and some electrical tape. if you look on YouTube, there are a lot of vids on how to make a homemade latching tool. it was hard getting used to it because with the nappyloc tool, you thread the entire tool through the base of your loc and that was the way i was used to latching. with the homemade tool ,you had to just thread the tip, or the eye, of the tool through the base of the loc, insert the tip of your loc, and pull through. it was a new way of doing things and it took me much longer to get through the tightening sessions. then i cut my hair and i no longer had those natural tapered tips on the ends on my locs. now i had fat, blunt tips that was even harder to thread through the tool. retightening my hair became such a pain in the butt. that was when i started migrating back to palm rolling. then i just said "bump this!" and i ordered another nappyloc tool. in fact, i ordered two! one the medium size, which was the size i originally used, and one was the large size to help deal with the fatter, blunt ends. then, not even a month later, i lost those!!!!!! i'm blaming this one of my kitten. she loves to walk around on my desk and she knocks stuff over and then she starts playing with what fell on the floor! i KNOW she took them! but, when a door closes, a window opens and i found my original too, which was actually right in the correct spot where i usually leave it. go figure! but i've been so busy with life the past few months that the last thing i wanna do when i get home is mess with my hair.

then i saw a vid by PrettyBoiShai on YouTube. she's a lochead who i've been following from her very first vid when she first began locking. she has a lot of really good stuff. anywhoo, in her vid, she showed how she does her loc maintenance by starting out with finger latching and then moving into using her homemade tool for the last few rotations. i thought this was a great idea! i messed around with finger latching in the past, but it never really looked "groomed" enough for me. i liked my parts to be neat and scalp to show. plus, i latched more often and its harder to finger latch when you only have a small amount of new growth. now i'm moving more towards a more... organic look. maybe that's not the right word. i'm just not as concerned about my locs look meticulously groomed and i'm finding that i actually LIKE the filled in look more. so, i thought, since i'm going longer in between retightenings and i have a lot more new growth at my scalp, finger latching may work better for me now. so while at work on my break, or over my friend's house hanging out, i would finger latch my locs. sitting in the car stuck n traffic, i would finger latch. watching a YouTube vid, i would finger latch. its was so easy and fast because i didn't have to fiddle around with a tool. it took about three days but it seemed so much shorter cause i was doing it in the quiet little moments of the day instead of sitting down with my water/oil spray bottle and my tool and setting aside time to "work on my hair". and my hair is done but it doesn't look "done". know what i mean? AND my locs are thicker. i did a YouTube vid about wet latching versus dry latching and one of the things i talked about was how the loc looks different when you wet latch versus dry latch. so, all in all, this was a great experience and i think i'll stick with it for the most part. i'll probably still latch the front hairline with a tool once in a while simply because those locs are smaller and i want them to look the best, but i think i'll be mostly sticking with finger latching from now on.

Pipe Cleaner Curls

2010-04-11T00:46:00.002-04:00

it's been a while! i didn't realize it had been three months since i last posted! wow. time flies. well, in the past three months, i got married! yuppers! met my husband five years ago through eHarmony. so for all you online dating skeptics, give it a try! LOL! so, for my wedding, i tried a few different styles. its funny, i kept my hair long for so long because i wanted to be able to do some sort of fancy up-do for my wedding, and when i finally couldn't take it anymore and cut it, then we finally decided to get married! but, back on subject. i wanted curls, but i wasn't quite sure how i was gonna pull it off with short hair. i tried the braid out, but that was too informal looking. so i used the loc loops. first time it was too loose because my hair didn't completely dry. it was more like barely there waves. second time it was nice looking, but it looked better after a week when the curls started falling. then i saw one of chescaleighs YouTube vids about using pipe cleaner curls.

i've been following this girl on YouTube for years! if you haven't seen her, you should definitely check her out. she's the one who i first saw using the loc loops. she has 2 channels and some of her older vids are on the first channel, so you have to check them both out.

I've heard other people mention using pipe cleaners or straws for curls, but it all just seemed too complicated for me. i didn't see how you got the straw or pipe cleaner to stay IN your hair. thanks to the magic of YouTube, i found out exactly how to keep the pipe cleaner in your hair. my next concern was with shedding. in the vid, chescaleigh used black pipe cleaners and she has really dark brown hair. so if any of the pipe cleaner fuzz came off in her hair, it would blend in pretty well. i was using bright red pipe cleaners (brighter than my hair, if you can believe it! LOL) and if any fuzz came off, you would DEFINITELY see it. so, i asked my trusty friends on the Yahoo LovinLocs group (another gem in the locking world! get on it, people!!!!!!) and the people there reassured me that the pipe cleaners don't shed. so, with NO hair trial, the day before my wedding, i wet my hair down in the shower and went to work with the pipe cleaners. don't ask me why i didn't do a hair trial. i just KNEW the pipe cleaners would work. so here's a pic of me with all the pipe cleaners in my hair the night before.

thats me with my sister. she has a Youtube channel as well dedicated to loose natural hair.

for the front two rows, i did one loc per pipe cleaner. for the rest, it was two locs per pipe cleaner. i just wanted the front to look really defined. i looked like a crazy fool, and i ran around town doing my errands with my hair looking like that! well, i tied a scarf over the front, so from the front i just looked like a girl with a big hairstyle under a scarf, but from the back, you could see all the craziness going on under the scarf! LOL i don't have any really good pics of my hair after i took the curlers out, but here are a few of me at the wedding. you can't really see it in the pics, but i got beautiful, springy, spiral curls. the kids at my job (and a few of the adults LOL) enjoyed pulling the curls straight and then watching it bounce back into the coil shape. those curls stayed TIGHT for 2 weeks. then i got tired of them and washed them out.

yeah...i didn't keep the poofy dress on for long! that thing was HOT!!!!! LOL

Newest Products

2010-01-25T20:54:00.002-05:00

ya'll know i'm a product junkie. i know i need to deal with this, but lets put that aside for now and let me tell you about the two newest products in my stash. let me start off by saying that one of these products has a bad "cone" in it. a "cone" is the end part of a certain type of chemical that they put in hair products. good "cones" will help moisturize hair while bad "cones" will basically be like petroleum, they will make your hair feel waxy and smooth, but they will in fact be sealing OUT moisture. but the use of a good clarifying shampoo will take care of that. all the stuff about "cone" i learned from my sister who is a natural hair and natural product person. she's very particular about what she uses in her hair.
but i have an relaxed attitude about most hair care products. i use shampoos with laurel sulphates and all that stuff. i use products and i don't always check the back for the ingredient list. the only thing i always stay away from is mineral oil. i just pretty much listen to how my hair responds to certain products. my hair feels soft and healthy. i don't have a problem with dry hair or split ends or shedding and breaking or any of that. so i use what works well for me. i do make my own daily spritz for my hair that is only full of good stuff, though. i do try to use good things in my hair as well, too!! but i don't stress about whats in a lot of products, especially if my hair responds well to it.

anywho, the first product is: Hydrating Tea Tree Mint Leave-In Moisture Mist by Organix.

this is the one with the good "cone". I've used the shampoos and conditioners from this brand in the past. It was okay, but I didn't feel the results were worth the price of the bottle. The tag line on the bottle says: An ultra hydrating blend of Australian tea tree oils to add moisture and strength, while nourishing your hair with replenishing moisturising milk proteins and micro infused peppermint oils for hydration and balance.

I was going to write out all the ingredients, but i got lazy. needless to say, there are 16 ingredients and some of them are dimethicone copolyol (the good "cone"), Australian tea tree oil, soy milk protein, peppermint oil, glycerin, silk amino complex, and vitamin E. the first ingredient is water, the last is fragrance. i love the smell of tea tree oil. this product has a nice blend of tea tree oil and mint smell and the smell lasts on my hair for days. my home-made spritz i use had tea tree oil in it,too, so i tend to use that more just because i know exactly whats in it, but every few days or so, i like to use this as well for that added minty smell.

the second product is Color Extend by Redkin.

the tag line says: Shine Enrich. Protective shine serum for color treated hair. and then is says Cranberry Oil a little father down on the front of the bottle. this is the product with the bad "cone". this product has 19 ingredients, most of which are chemical compounds that i can't pronounce. cranberry oil is 10th on the list. this product is basically suppose to work like Frizz Ease, but it also has a color protectant in it. i don't care about "smooth fly-away, and impart a mirror-like shine" part, but i do feel that my color is staying vibrant a lot longer than it usually does. red is one of the hardest colors to keep vibrant. it fades and washes out so fast! i really feel like this product is helping with that. and it smells really nice, too.

so there you go. these, along with my home-made daily spritz, are the only things i'm using in my hair. the spritz on a mostly daily basis, these two products on a weekly-ish basis.

Palmrolling With No Product

2010-01-25T20:22:00.003-05:00

so, i lost my nappy loc tool and i made a few homemade tool out of paper clips. it worked really well when i had longer hair cause my locs tapered down naturally into smaller tips and i was able to lace that through my homemade tool. i wasn't able to lace the whole tool through my loc like the NappyLoc tool. i just inserted the tip through the new growth, put the tip on my loc end through the tool, and drew the hair through. but with my new haircut, my sister cut my hair straight across which gave me very blunt, fat ends. so i was no longer able to fit the end through the tip of my home made tool. so my answer to this was to just palmroll. i know i wrote a couple of posts ago that i had tried this again and i didn't like the outcome cause i was finding the gel that i used was getting caught in my hair at the point where the loced hair met loose, unloced hair. well, to combat this, i just palmrolled with absolutely NO PRODUCT!!!! after washing, i just did the palmroll method i did a video about in my Tried Palmrolling Again... post. and it held pretty damn well, if i do say so myself!!!!!! definitely as good as when i used the ORS lock and twist gel! and it lasted just as long, too! i was able to go three weeks in between palmrolling before i noticed the twists loosening! AMAZING!!!!!!!! this was the answer to all my problems! but eventually i wanted to latch again cause i get pain when i get too much loose hair.

what was that, you say?

yup, when i have too much loose hair at my scalp, my head gets tender and sore. why? well, i'm not quite sure, but i've hypothesized that its because the hair of each loc doesn't grow in evenly. so, for example, the hair on one side of my loc will grow slower than the other part and my loc will start hanging funny and i feel the stress of that hair being pulled tight as it tries to hang evenly because of the weight of the loc. kinda along the lines of when you get braided extensions in your hair and you try and put that freshly braided hair into a ponytail, and because the hair was braided in one direction,usually down, it hurts to try and pull it up into the ponytail. get what i'm saying? but when i re-latch and there's less loose hair, the tenderness goes away. i don't know what that's about, but there you go! LOL
so, i bought two more NappyLoc tools, one medium sized, which is the size i had before, and one large sized to help deal with the larder ends. i re-latched my hair over three days about a week ago and i'm feeling mighty fine!
as my hair grows in, depending on how lazy i'm feeling, i may palmroll again for a few months before i latch again, or i may just go right to the latching, i don't know. it will depend on my mood. but i'm glad i found out that plain water will work just as well for me!

All Red!

2010-01-25T19:42:00.002-05:00

so its been 2 months since i cut my hair and i'm loving it more and more. I've done a couple of new things with my hair since November. I went all red! that's right, from root to tip! before, with my red tips, i bleached my hair first to get it as close to white as possible so the red would really POP!!! but i left like 5 inches of black root for contrast. well this time, i didn't do any bleaching. the L'Oreal Hi-Lift i use already has a lifter in it. so i just ( i say "i" but really it was my sister. she's the one who usually colors my hair! LOL) used the color over my black hair. i didn't expect it to be SOOOOO red! i actually didn't like it at all! i didn't take too many pic with it all red. i though t i looked a bit freaky. but here are a couple of pics of my hair right after i colored it. one is right after the wash, and one is after i retwisted the front.

just for comparison, i'll put in a few pics og how my hair looked before i went all red

see the difference?!?! i was a bit much to take! but i just got my new NappyLoc tools and i just recently re-latched my hair, and i have some black roots! not too much, but enough to make me feel comfortable. isn't that funny. i actually WANT roots to show in my hair! LOL!! anywho, here is the last batch of pics. this was taken two days ago, so this is how my hair is looking now. i know i have a hood on, but you get the idea!

The Big Chop!!!!! (vid at the end)

2009-11-26T23:00:00.004-05:00

well, kinda a big chop. i cut my hair!!!! i ended up cutting off about 12 inches of hair!!! yay me!!!! i know i've been talking about doing it for about 2 years now and saying i was gonna do it but it never happened. well, it was just getting so long and heavy. i get a lot of headaches and migraines and i think the weight of my hair was making them worse. and recently, over the past few months, i've been getting all sorts of things in my hair! deodorant, toothpaste, food. when i was eating, i even got the cheese stuffing from a jalapeno popper in my hair! NASTY!!! so i was keeping it pulled back in ponytails all the time, and whats the point of that?

then i got sick with the flu. why is that important, you ask? well, my Dr put me on Tamiflu-

wait. let me take a break here to tell you some of the side effects of this drug: increased risk of self injury, insomnia, delirium, including symptoms such as altered level of consciousness, confusion, abnormal behavior, delusions, hallucinations, agitation, anxiety, nightmares. WHAT?!?!?!?!

well, i was taking this poisonous drug and i had a dream that my hair was killing my. i just KNEW that if i cut it off, i would get better. and i FELT it so vividly on my head. i was obsessed with getting rid of all of my hair! the only thing that stopped my was that my office is two doors down from my bedroom and i was so sick i was bedridden. there was no way i could make if all the way to my office and then back to the bedroom. i was soooooo weak. my fiancee said i was laying half awake in a daze after waking up from this nightmare and i was just chanting "i have to get it off me" over and over. he was a little freaked out to say the least. and i was only on this drug for a day and a half! i only took 3 pills! poison.

anyways, that was on Wednesday, and i was feeling more in my right mind by Friday, but i was still kinda shook by the dream. plus, my hair really was in the way. i couldn't sleep with my hair tam on cause it gave me a headache. so my hair was just loose on the pillow. it was all over the place. and it was getting dry and hard and frizzy from constantly rubbing on the cotton. then i started vomiting and i got vomit in my hair. YUUUUUUCK! but i was still too sick to stand upright in the shower for any period of time and wash it, so i just ended up kinda wiping it off with a wet cloth. so i was still determined to cut it all off.
so i was talking with my sister about it and she was like, "are you SURE you want to cut it all off or is that still the Tamiflu talking? how about we just cut it shorter and see how that feels and look and then, if you want we cam cut it all off or unravel it later." well, it was actually a longer conversation than that (it took a few days for her to convince me, actually! LOL), but that's the gist of it. so i went over to her house the following Monday, my first day out of the house since i had gotten sick besides the trips to the ER and my Dr.'s office, and she cut it!
her inspiration was how Whoopi's hair looks on the View. apparently Whoopi has a newish bob-like hairstyle and my sister had happened to see The View for the first time ever a few days prior and she saw Whoopi's hair and thought of me. see, it was providence! why would my sister randomly decide to watch a daytime talk show when she never has before?! all the stars were aligning to tell me its was time to cut my hair! LOL
it was really easy. she just laid my hair so the hair in front of my ears was draped over my shoulders and the hair behind my ears hung down my back and then she commenced to cutting! she cut straight across one loc at a time. we tried a few slanted cuts, which is suppose to look better and help keep ur hair from unraveling, but i didn't really see a difference and it was quicker to just cut it across. i was still a little weak from the flu and experiencing major dizziness and nausea and i didn't want to sit up too long.
this is getting really long, so i'll just post the vid so y'all can see the new hair!

Tried Palmrolling the Front Again...

2009-11-26T22:23:00.003-05:00

wow! its been awhile since i last wrote! i've been sooo busy. i was unemployed for about 4 months (i know i said i found a job in my July post, but that didn't end up working out :-/ but the good thing is this new job i found pays a dollar more! yay!)and i was job searching hard core while still going to school online full time. then i found a job and i started work in September but i had to take additional courses for my job in addition to my full time school and work! my plate was FULL!
but, a lot has been going on in my world in regards to my hair! i'll save the biggest news for my next post, but one big thing is i started palm rolling the front of my hair again. not all the time, just in between latchings. i'm trying not to latch the front as much because i don't want to cause stress on the delicate front hairline. i've never had problems with my hairline before, but i figured it was best to just go easy on it. i don't know why. probably cause i was hearing a lot of people talk about their hairlines recently and it got me thinking about mine. i did a YouTube vid on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc683k-qqY8

you have to go over to Youtube to see the vid, i don't allow embedding anymore, sorry! i was finding my vids posted all over the place! sometimes in places i wouldn't necessarily want them to be...

but then i remember why i hated doing that! a line of dirt in my hair where the loced part ended and the loose hair started! i was sooooo disgusted! i don't know why i get that! i use the tiniest amount of gel! you can see that in the video! and its clear gel! i don't understand it. unless its not the gel and its something else. i don't know! its not on all the locs, just like maybe less then ten. but its a very visible (to me) line if dirt. almost like when you were a kid and you wore a ponytail for too long and then when you took the rubber band out of your hair, there was that line of dirt where it was. i had to use a toothbrush and wet it and scrub the line out. i went back and forth and then up and down. by the time i was through, my hair was a frizzy, puffy mess! but the VISIBLE dirt line was gone. who knows whats going on inside the core of the loc where i can't see.
ugh! there's more i want to say about the palm rolling the front, but i don't want to give away my big surprise i'm gonna put it in a separate post! so i think i'll just end this one here. i know it doesn't really make any difference since the newest post will show up before this post, but humor me, okay! LOL

Tam in Action

2009-07-22T19:26:00.004-04:00

Just a quick vid of me wearing one of my tams. I didn't do a drawstring for this one. I love it so much this one is gonna be fo ME! LOL!!

BTW, the other tams and visor are up and available on my Etsy page. Check them out!!

Knitting

2009-07-20T01:02:00.003-04:00

i got a job! yay!!! but i'm taking an 8 THOUSAND DOLLAR a year pay cut. the economy is so bad no one is offering any decent salaries! five and a half years ago, with virtually no college coursework and five years less experience, i was hired on at my old job at $14.65 an hour. over the five years i gradually made it up to $15.94. then the economy collapses and my center got closed down and now i'm laid off. everywhere i was looking for a job in the past few months ranges from 12 to 14 an hour!!!! with most of them averaging around $13!! and that all well and good, but i'm now a ten year veteran with much more education under my belt! you'd think i could at least start off at $15! but NO, no place wanted to even consider it. so i finally ended up with this particular company, which was offering the lowest salary ($12 an hour), but it was the place i really really loved the most and had the most room for growth. i'm actually so so exited to go work for this place.
so, now this means i really gotta get up on my game in regards to knitting things to sell. I'm not going to recoup my 8K a year, but if i could even get 2 or 3K, that would be awesome. so i made these three products. i haven't put them up to sell yet cause i want to get really nice pics of everything. i'm probably only gonna ask for like 5 bucks each for these first few things cause i can definitely see areas for improvement. for someone like me, who's an easy going relaxed consumer, minor errors won't bother me. but for someone like my sister, who is very picky and particular, the small errors might make her angry. its not like there are a lot of errors on each piece. it just that each piece has one small stitch error each. one tiny error. it makes me angry, but i do it every time!! arg! so i can't ask for any sort of decent price for these things. i'm basically just trying to make enough back to buy some more yarn.

the first one is a raspberry tam.

the holes aren't too big, so i suppose someone with locs could wear it. there's a little string hanging out from the back. that's the drawstring to tighten the tam so it stays on your head. but its only one string, so its not like you can tie it or something. i suppose one could tuck it under. but i don't know how to advertise and make that lone tightening string a good thing. so that's the error with that piece.

the next one is a larger tam in strawberry lemonade

this one is one of my favorites. but the holes are larger, so i'm not sure how it would work with locs. it would probably work better for someone with an afro, i'm guessing. this one has a nice drawstring woven through the headband. it looks nice, but the error on this one is on one side of the drawstring, the yarn is loose!

you can see it a little bit on the end of the drawstring on the right side. i don't know how this happened! it won't come unraveled, but it doesn't look as neat as it could have! arg!!!

the last one is a knitted visor

i love love love this one. this one has some stitch errors where the visor meets the head piece. needless to say, i almost wept in frustration. and, the visor is a little too narrow for my taste. i would prefer if it was a little bit wider. i'll probably make the next one with a wider visor. and this one is adjustable!! the back closes with a decorative button, but there are five button slots in the back, so it could fit a child's head as well. but i like it a lot. maybe i'll be bold and ask for 6 dollars for this one! LOL!!

that's about it. i start my new job next week so i may not have as much time to knit after that. right now i can make one piece a day. it might slow down to one or two pieces a week when work starts. i'll throw these these three pieces on my Etsy page and see what happens. Maybe no one will want them and i'll end up giving them away as gifts for my family. we'll see...

Simple is Better

2009-07-19T23:48:00.004-04:00

I've been working on really cutting down on my hair routine and products. I know I'm a product junkie. And its not just from the few years i wore a relaxer, cause i was using all kinds of products in my natural hair, too. i just like the different effects different products have on my hair. but i'm really starting to realize the less i do to my hair, the better its coming out. so, what i'm doing now is shampooing every two weeks or so with a color depositing shampoo i got from Sally's. literally, the shampoo and conditioner are bright red and it actually deposits color on your hair as you wash. i've only used it once, but i saw results. usually i see color fade-age after each and every wash, but the color looked just as vibrant after i shampooed with this stuff. here's a pic of the shampoo:

of course i bought the matching conditioner. i know i probably need to lay off on the conditioner, but i really like how soft my hair is after i use one, no matter which one. and i'm only washing may hair once or twice a month anyways, so i'm guessing (hoping?) its not that bad.
after i shampoo and condition, i oil my scalp with something. right now i'm using up the last of my original formula JML island oil. after that i'm going to use my doo grow oil. now, the first ingredient in that is mineral oil, which i know is suppose to be the devil for hair, but i've used this stuff for years and years and years. from my natural years, to my relaxed years, to my jherri curl years, back to my relaxed years, and now on my locs. i love the way it smells, i love how nice my hair feels after i use it. i just like it! so i'm going to continue to use it.
then i mist my locs with an conditioning mixture that i've finally settled on and have been using for the past few months. it used to be i would switch up the "formula" every time i made a mixture. but i think i've finally settled on the mix that i like best. so, its a bottle of the extreme shine leave in treatment, some JML cactus leave in conditioner, and a few drops of Africa's Best hair and body oil. here's a pic of that:

this stuff is the SHIT!!!! i did a youtube vid on it. i read out all the ingredients in this oil. its great great great stuff. and i only use a few drops in my mixture! i paid about 3 dollars for this bottle and i've had it about a year and there's still more than 3 quarters left. a great investment!! and after that i mix the spray bottle with water and give it a shake to mix the oils and its good to go. here's my little secret. as the spray bottle get emptier, i just add more water, but not more of the other leave-in's or oil. the mixture is a a yellowish color, so as long s it still has a yellow hue, i know it still has some of the other stuff in it. when it gets really light, which is usually when its almost empty anyways, i just make up a new full strength batch. i do this mostly cause i don't want to put a lot of stuff on my hair when i'm not washing it as often. usually by the time i make a full strength batch, it time to shampoo my hair as well. as time goes on, i don't want to keep putting more stuff on my hair if it hasn't been recently washed, so i water down the mixture. so then it kinda becomes more plain water and less "other" that i'm putting on my hair as time goes on and i get less "build-up" (i put that in quotes cause i don't really have build-up in my hair, but it kinda feels yucky to spay an oily mixture on hair that might not be as clean as it can be)and then by the next time i shampoo, the mixture is uber watered down and i make another full strength bottle. i don't use the mixture every day, more like twice a week. i just try to make sure my hair stays really hydrated cause i tend to have really dry hair anyways and the coloring doesn't help at all. and when it gets really dry it gets crunchy and hard and my hair starts to shed and break off. so, that my simplified regimen. wash, oil the scalp, and spray the locs twice a week. and even though i recently did some hard core coloring, my hair feels as healthy and strong as it ever has. i'm happy with this light weight routine. and i'm glad i've got things figure out as far as what works best for my hair.

in other news, i FINALLY re-latched my hair after like three months! it was getting a little unkempt looking for my tastes. i like a more filled in scalp now, but it was starting to look like a little afro with locs. when i did the brid out, i just finger rolled the roots before i briaded, so it didn't look as puffy and "crazy" as it really was. but after this most recent shampoo, there was just so much loose hair! so, i took the time out and spent over 2 hours latching my head. and i loved the way it looked! my hair hasn't looked this neat in about half a year. like i said, i'm really starting to like a more filled in look now as opposed to the scalpy uniform look i used to favor. but for some reason, on THIS particular latch session, i really likes how nice and neat my hair turned out.

alright. this post is getting long, so i'm gonna end it here! LOL!

I Looked Too Cute...If I do Say So Myself! LOL!

2009-06-20T17:12:00.004-04:00

i knit a cocktail hat (actually it was a mistake that i made work!! check out my looming blog for more details and to see a slide show in color) and my sister actually claimed it as soon as she saw it, but i snatched it back to wear to a friends wedding today. i just loved the way my hair looked so much with the little cocktail hat that i just had to snap a few pics...okay, a lot of pic! to save you the hassle of scrolling down, i put it all in a little slide show. enjoy!

Going back to Red

2009-06-15T01:59:00.002-04:00

i dyed my hair red again! i was so scared to do it for the longest time because of the warnings i had read about henna and how when you mix it with commercial dyes, it could turn your hair green or black! the sites recommended waiting at least 6 months to a year before you tried regular hair dyes on your hair again, and since i had used the henna last year August, i was gonna wait til then. but then one of my YouTube subscribers and friends made a video and asked me about how i got my hair the color it was, and i made a response vid all about how i originally got my hair colored and how i switched to henna and blah blah blah. ANYWAYS, the point is, another lady commented on how she dyed her hair with henna and the put a commercial dye right over it THE NEXT NIGHT!!!! it blew my mind! and then i got to thinking... the hennaforhair website was warning of your hair turning black or green if you mixed pure BODY GRADE henna with commercial hair dyes. body grade henna is the kind you use to make the temporary tattoo. i doubt the henna i bought from the health food store was body quality henna. so, after reading that, i pretty much decided that i would dye my hair back to red as soon as possible. i just needed my sister's help, cause she's the hair dying queen and my hair has gotten to a length where its a pain in the butt to do it all by myself. we were going to do a YouTube vid of it, but it was too hard to hold the camera and deal with all that red dye. so we just took pic throughout and i made a pic montage about it and posted that to YouTube.

Enjoy.

Oh No! No more Conditioner!

2009-04-20T23:44:00.002-04:00

so i did a post a little bit ago about how when i use conditioner, i tend to loose little clumps of hair from any unsealed ends i may have. also, some of the very tips of my locs have weak points. i don't know why, and they were breaking off there. it didn't use to bother me. and i didn't use conditioner all that often. but i went through a period where i sorta neglected my hair and i didn't wash it for a bit and it was dry and dull and feeling like hay. so for the past two months, i've been using a conditioner every time i wash. plus a leave in conditioner. well, my hair is falling apart!!! well, not literally, but those tinly little clumps that i was talking about? well, they multiplied by 10! and i had a lot of puffiness along the shaft of some of my locs. i mean, it got kinda concerning! so i've stopped using the conditioner for now. i wash, oil, and just use my leave in, which right now is a mixture of water, the extreme shine leave in treatment i talked about here, some left over mane and tail leave in i had, and a dallop of the JML cactus leave in. i just washed my hair last night and so far, no hair clumps falling out. we'll see how this goes.

its just such a pain in the butt cause now i'll have all this conditioner but no shampoo! i rarely buy the same shampoo twice. so when i do but a shampoo, i buy the matching conditioner so i can use both together cause i've been told that that's the best way to do it. dr. camille, loc extraordinaire, said that its best to use the matching conditioner cause they've been made to chemically balance each other out and you'll get the best results that way. oh well. my boyfriend shaved his head, so he doesn't use conditioner (or shampoo, for that matter!). they don't expire, right?

Meet the baby!

2009-03-21T00:33:00.003-04:00

so i started another loc!!!! its just so cute and tiny! it makes me smile whenever i look at it! basically my loctician who started my hair thought that the two locs at my temples were too tiny for palm rolling and she joined them with nearby locs. but now i latch and i've been having a lot of trouble with the loc on my left temple in particular. the bed where the loc comes from is too wide and the shorter temple hair kept escaping from the loc giving me a frizzy hairline. and if i tried to manhandle that hair back into the loc, it hurt and in the end, it would just pop out later! so after i washed my hair yesterday, i just pulled all that loose hair away from the loc. its was all crinkly and soft. so i gave it a little twirl around my finger and this perfect, tiny, little coil formed immediately! its just so cute! so i decided to leave it. now i have a baby loc at my temple. its going to be smaller than my other ones. and it might not ever get that long. but i love it! maybe even more than the other ones (but don't tell them that!!!! LOL!) here are a few pics of it. i know i took waaaaaayyy more than was necessary! you can't blame me, i'm a proud mama!!!

here she is with my hair down as normal. see her?!

and here are some close ups

Curly Ends

2009-02-22T00:21:00.002-05:00

i've heard a lot of people recently voice concerns about their curly ends. well, some people. some people love it and keep their ends unlocked and curly on purpose. its a pretty look. but other people have concerns about it. well, i just wanted to say, relax. i've had locs for 6 years. my hair is grade 4b/4c. so, basically, i have the kinkiest, "nappiest" grade of hair there is...and i still have curly, unlocked ends! not on all my locs, mind you. just about ten to fifteen of them. its really apparent when i use a conditioner in my hair. i have one right in the middle of my head that has a good three inches of unlocked hair at the tip. and most of the ends make little curly-q's. but some are just puffs of hair. i've been twisting them around my fingers to try to get them to at least make a little curly-q, and it seems to be working so far. but my point is, it's perfectly normal.
i also tend to lose little, tiny clumps of hair from these unlocked, unsealed ends. again, more so when i use a conditioner. but that doesn't really worry me either. i know its just the shed hair that was trapped in the loc for so long that's falling out.
but if you're one of the people who is really worried about this and it bothers you, then there is a video on youtube by prettyboishai. she shows you how to use a crochet hook to make the ends of your locs round, and in the process, you tie up those loose curly ends. its a really helpful vid.

Oh Youtube, How I Love Thee!

2009-01-25T00:26:00.002-05:00

my company holiday party was yesterday (late january, you ask? yes, we always do it around this time. apparently its cheaper). we go on a three hour cruise around boston harbor on The Spirit of Boston. free food, free drinks, free guest, free parking! anyways, i got out of work at 4:30 and we had to start boarding by 7:30. three hours is not a long time to get ready when an hour of that time is already eaten up with the commute to my house and the commute to the boat! i ran home, washed and conditioned my hair ( i would have just washed, but this winter air is making my hair sooooo dry! i have to condition almost every time now!) and started to put the loc loops in when i realized that almost an hour had passed and there was no way on God's green earth i would have time to sit under the dryer, pick out my clothes, get dressed, and get the make-up on. so what was i going to do with my hair!! it was wet still with NO time to even consider the dryer. i had to do some sort of style!
so i went to my ever faithful mistress, youtube!! i remembered seeing a vid by one of the ladies i subscribe to. she has micro braids and she did this video on cute ponytail styles. i had to slightly modify her style because my hair is just too bulky and too many different lengths to do the bun she did in the vid, but the criss cross in the front was BANGIN'!!!!

you can find her vid here

and here is me with the hairstyle. please excuse the quality of the pics, i had to use my phone cause the battery on my camera died

that little glittery thing up top is a jeweled flower pin i stuck in to make sure the locs wrapped around the ponytail didn't unravel

and here's a pic of me in my sister's car, all dolled up on the way to the party!

YAY! I Used A Latch Hook!

2009-01-04T22:13:00.002-05:00

so i finally, FINALLY did my hair. i didn't do the hot oil or the conditioner and all that, but i did it! i went through all of Thanksgiving and Christmas, all the parties and gatherings, with a frizzy, puffy hairline. i just but a headband on and kept it going. but i had to go to a funeral for a close friend's mother, and i thought "enough is enough! time to get this done!". so i latched my hair on Tuesday. by Thursday i noticed i had missed some hair and i had some little tufts of hair sticking up on the top of my head! i was a little concerned cause i had JUST latched my hair! it was tight to my scalp and there was no way i would be able to gather the loose hair and do another rotation with the nappy locs tool. so i got inspired by an update vid i saw on YouTube by a girl named PrettiBoiShai. she had recently used a latch hook to tighten her entire head and she is a new locker, has no previous experience with using a latch hook, and her hair came out looking nice. so i thought, i have to give this latch hook another try. so i did it, and it worked! i used the latch hook to pull just the the loose hair into the loc shaft. it was a wonderful, mostly easy solution to a pestering problem! i'll probably use this technique more often when i have those fly-aways along my hairline in the future. i'm veeeeeeerrrrrry happy. i did a vid with a demonstration, but i'm having trouble posting it to YouTube right now, and its too large to post on here. hopefully i'll get that figured out soon.

Yeah...

2008-12-06T03:49:00.002-05:00

...that hair day never happened! then i said, you know what, I'll just do it on Friday night. but Friday was my first day back at work from vacation. because I'm such a night owl, i was all off schedule. so when i got home Friday, i crashed! i intended to take an hour or so nap. i ended up sleeping for FIVE HOURS!! woke up at about 11:30 at night and thought, "there no way in hell I'm gonna start all that stuff for my hair now!" and i have a busy weekend ahead of me, so there'll be no time this weekend. maybe next weekend? oh well. i was really looking forward to curling my hair again.

Hat Youtube

2008-12-05T01:47:00.004-05:00

heres the youtube vid i did about the hat.

by the way, i started the looming blog. that address is loominglilly.blogspot.com

Getting Creative!

2008-12-03T22:16:00.002-05:00

its sooo hard to find hats that fit when you have locs!! so i decided to make my own hat! i loom knit. (i'm actually gonna start another blog all about that,so if you're interested, keep an eye out!) i figured i could just make my own "rasta" hat. its basically a visored beanie with a deep balloon shape. it was a pain in the butt to make the hat, but i won't go into that. basically, i'm pretty please with the end result. its a bit tight! but that's my own fault. i did a really tight stitch at the bottom, which, looking back, i don't know WHY i did that! its huge! but that's a good thing. basically, i want this hat to last me a couple of winter worth of hair growth. i still haven't mastered the art of putting on a rasta hat. it takes me a few minutes of cramming my hair in the hat before i'm ready to go. that can be a pain in the butt, especially when i'm just trying to get out the door! i'm sure there must be an easier and faster way to get this hat on. we'll see. i feel kinda stupid asking people how they get a hat on their head! LOL! anyways, the hat is 20% wool, 80% acrylic. i'm not really worried about it leaving fuzzies in my hair or anything like that. i just need it to loosen up a bit so i can really enjoy wearing it!! i'll probably not sell it or make anymore to sell. it was a real pain to make this hat. i can't even imagine doing it again any time soon. and if i did make another, i would probably sell it for like 25 bucks to make up the cost of the yarn and the time spent, and who would pay 25 dollars for a hat! nobody i know! okay, so here are the pics of my first rasta hat!

i don't know why this pic is so much bigger than the rest, but, oh well! i look like i have a dinosaur head in this pic, right! LOL!!

Its Time To Fix Things Up!!

2008-11-28T22:46:00.003-05:00

yeah... i've been really lazy about my hair. i have not done it in QUITE a while. probably not since my sister's wedding in august! i'm all for a more organic look, but its starting to be a little much for me. so i'm gonna bite the bullet and spend a whole day devoted to my hair! i'm only doing this 'cause i'm on vacation right now! LOL!! so i think i'm gonna start of with a hot oil treatment. a shampoo and condition, oil and leave in conditioners, a wet latch of my WHOLE head (that's gonna be the most nerve-wracking part!), to really rein in all those loose hairs, and i think i'll finish it off with the loc loops, which i haven't used since i bought them! but i think this times i'm gonna try to put like 4 or 5 locs on each curler for a looser curl. no more lamp chops look! i might even sit under a dryer! who knows! it will give me time to work on some of my knitting projects, at least! LOL! i'll probably post some pics of the finished product afterwards. i'm actually exited to be giving my hair this TLC. it deserves it! LOL!

Its Been Awhile!

2008-11-11T22:54:00.002-05:00

I haven't posted anything in a while! its mostly because i've been so focused on my youtube videos. all the new revelations and good tidbits are getting posted there! but a lot has been going on in hair-land lately. i recently switched to Herbal Essences shampoo. the Hello Hydration line. i must say, i LOVE it! the shampoo is crazy thick, so i have to make sure to water it down to use it. i used to do a half water, half shampoo mix. then it mostly became 60% shampoo and 40% water, since a lot of the shampoos were thinner and i didn't feel the need to dilute them so much, but with this herbal essences shampoo, its more like 40% shampoo, 60% water! the smell is heavenly. and it makes my hair look and feel soft and shiny. it also made my hair look thicker! i'm not sure if its all in my mind or not, since they say nothing can make your hair thicker than it naturally is. and it could in part be because i have a lot of hair unlatched right now. yeah, i've been lazy. i've only been doing my hairline so i have about 1-2 inches of unlatched hair. so maybe the shampoo is really moisturizing the unlatch hair and making it puff up with hydration and that is giving me the appearance of thicker hair. who knows. my other shampoos didn't do this. so i think i've found a winner. i'm gonna stick with this shampoo for a bit. i bought the shampoo and conditioner, but i've only used the shampoo so far. i'll probably try them both when i wash later this week.
i've been really trying to streamline my hair routine. since i started making the hair oils and finding all these products, i've been going a little product crazy. but i'm really trying to cut it down to a few essentials i use on a regular basis. so what i've been doing is just a shampoo or just a conditioning no 'poo wash, not both. then some JML island oil on the scalp and some of the leave in product i used in the "Extreme Shine" post. i can't think of the name of it offhand. but anyways, i went back to Sally's and bought 10 more tubes of that stuff. i mixed two tubes of it with about 6 oz of water in a spray bottle, and after i oil my scalp, i spray that on my locs. and thats it! no more extra stuff. this routine seems to be working for me. my hair is looking healthier and shinier than ever. the non colored part is looking AMAZING!! more and more i'm questioning my decision to go back to coloring. the non colored hair just looks so much more healthy than the colored parts. do i really want to purposely damage my hair again? i'm not sure. i might actually cut off my hair where the color parts starts and just start all over with my natural color. this would also solve my long hair problem. i'm not sure. we'll see. i'm still a little scared of how that will turn out. its super hard to find anyone around here who has experience cutting and styling locs.
on to other things, i've been trying to make my own hair ties. maybe you remember from the "I Hate My Hair" post a few months back, i'm not a fan of long hair and i try to keep my hair out of my face, but hair bands, head bands, and heap wraps give me a headache, so i'm not left with much options. so, since i've been on a knitting craze (since Christmas is right around the corner and i've got NO MONEY this year!) i been knitting i-cord hair ties. i like the results so far and i've been trying to jazz them up with beads and wires and all that jazz. maybe i'll post some pics when i have it more figured out. the most difficult part of that is finding the right kind of yarn that won't frizz up and leave lint in my hair. i'll experiment with a few more different types of yarn and then i'll do a post about that later.

Pictures Cut Off

2008-09-25T15:20:00.002-04:00

okay, so the pics in the previous post cut cut off. i'm feeling a little too lazy to go back, resize the pics, resave them, re-upload them to a wesite to get a code, and re-do the blog. so i'm just gonna do a little slide show of the pic. enjoy.

lazily yours,
lilly (LOL)

Loc Jewelry Update

2008-09-25T14:28:00.000-04:00

i've been making more loc jewelry. but i also got inspired again, mostly by Pinky2d4, partly by some stuff i saw on about.com, and also made some matching earrings too! it was incredibly fun and mostly easy. i find the hardest part is being creative! i made a particular pair about 4 or 5 times trying to make it look "creatice and fun", and then i realized that maybe i should just settle for "pretty" right now and worry more about intricate designs when i'm more experienced! so here are the sets. i also did a youtube on it describing more of the parts and pieces i used to make the jewelry. check it out if the feeling moves you!

this is the unicorn piece. y'all know i'm nuts about unicorns! so, this, of course, is my favorite piece!

this is carnelian stone chips

and this is rose quartz. the second pic is me with the loc piece in my hair. i did a double cuff with this one, and i like how it turned out!

Shiny locs slideshow

2008-09-07T01:34:00.001-04:00

New product and another lost loc

2008-09-06T02:34:00.000-04:00

so i was looking in the mirror the other day, gazing at my reflection (LOL!!!) and checking out my hair, when i noticed a little lint in my loc. so i picked it out and i decided to check the rest of my head just in case. and what do i find???? one of my back locs on my hairline was CAKED with dust/dirt! it looked like these pig gray patches in my loc. so i went to work trying to pick it out, but it was just too much. so i cut the loc. i ended up cutting about 5 inches of loc off! and then i tore into the piece of loc to see just how deep the dust/dirt went, and it was all the way to the core! that really freaked me out! so then i realized that over the last year or so, i've had to cut all of the locs along my hairline in the back because of imbedded dirt. and that really made me angry. but then i relized that only the bottom parts of the locs were that nasty, so it must have happened years ago...when i was going to the salon to get my hair done!!!! for the first three years i never washed or styled or retwisted my hair myself. i had everything done at the salon! so this nastiness was THEIR fault! it made me think of all the times i was getting my hair shampooed and the girl wasn't even looking at what she was doing! she was talking to the other people in the salon while she washed my hair with one hand kinda lazily scrubbing my head. and they had the nerve to want to raise their prices! it makes me so glad i do my hair myself now!
changing subjects,
i was browsing the products in Rite-Aid the other day and guess what i found! JML anti-itch spray, which i was looking for for a while. i went into the hood to find it and they didn't have it there, but here, in this nice little small town of Roslindale where i just moved to last month, they have it here, in their tiny little black hair care section! wonders never cease! but i also found this leave-in shine treatment here's the bottle:

its 18ml. it cost under 2 dollars, i think. the texture of the liquid is a little heavier than water but definately lighter than the olive oil i use. the directions say to work through wet hair and style as usual. so i washed my hair, used about half the bottle on my hair, and did a braid out. my hair came out soooooooo shiny! it looked beautiful! its hard to get any kind of luster with locs. its just the nature of the hair. usually, if i want my hair to look shiny, i have to add a lot of oil to it and then i have to wash it the next day cause i don't want buildup. this stuff did the trick. here's some pics of how my hair looked after the treatment. the camera didn't REALLY capture how shiny and hydrated my hair looks, but you get the idea!

Loc Jewelry

2008-08-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

so i saw this youtube video by pinky2d4. she was showing how to make loc jewelry and it looked pretty simple, so i thought, why don't i try it myself. so i went out and bought the 20 gauge wire, the pliers kit, and some pretty red glass beads and antique beads. i rewatched the video tonight and i did it along with pinky, and i got a beautiful piece!!!! so then i decided to get bold and i tried to do a piece with the red glass bead. and it came out so well, i did another! so, now, in total, i have three brand new, homemade loc jewelry pieces! and they look sooooooo nice!

so, this is the first one i made. this is the one pinky shows you how to do in the video, but in the begining of the video, she also shows you a couple of them that are on her locs, so...

that gave me the inspiration to make this one.

and then i made a youtube video and i made this one on that video.

so i'm really happy with these three pieces. maybe i'll go back and get the silver wire and make some with that, cause y'all know silver is my color!
i'm soooo excited! just when i thought nothing about my locs could excite me anymore! now my next big project will probably be to cut them! there's probably a youtube video out there about how to cut locs as well. i just have to find it!

Henna? Again?

2008-08-08T10:45:00.001-04:00

thats right. i tried the henna again. almost every website i've read has said the henna lasts for anywhere from three months to a year, but i noticed some fading about a month and a half out. now part of that could be because i used a clarifying shampoo twice. i know that the shampoo made my color fade when i used commercial color. maybe it made the henna fade as well. who knows. but anyways, my sister is getting married in five more days and i wanted a fresh coloring for the wedding. i am the maid of honor, after all! but i've decided that i miss the vibrant red of L'Oreal too much and i'm gonna let the henns fade after this and go back to commercial colors.
so, like i said, i colored again, but this time i did things a little differently. first off, i used lemon juice instead of hot water. a four oz container of henna took about 8 to 10 oz of lemon juice!. now, i read that you can use orange juice ( or vinegar or any acidic juice) or a half lemon/half water mixture cause the lemon juice can be drying to your hair and scalp, but i decided to go full out and use all lemon juice anyways for the most vibrant color possible! Also, this time i didn't use any egg or olive oil either. the Henna For Hair site said not to add anything or it will interfere with the dye uptake process. so i mixed the henna with the lemon juice yesterday to the consistency of cake batter. then you're suppose to put some plastic wrap over it and let the henna sit overnight so the dye can be released from the henna. i did a little more research about exactly how long "overnight" was. it seems like 6-8 hours is ideal. after about twelve to fifteen hours, the henna starts to "demise" and the color won't take as well. too bad i didn't read that BEFORE i mixed the henna! i mixed mine about 7 pm last night and i got up at eight this morning to put the color in, so it sat for about 13 hours. not optimal time, but still within reasonable range.
before you apply the hanna, you're suppose to add more lemon juice to make it the consistency of mashed potatos. now, i like my mashed potatos very thick and chunky, but i wasn't going to use that on my hair, so i made it a little thicker than cake batter. smooth enought to apply without worrying that it was gonna run or drip off. so, unfortunately for me, this time i had no assistance from my sis. but i was prepared this time! i cut up a large gargabe bag and layed it over the bathroom floor. i had four sets of latex gloves handy. i had an old shirt on and a towel over the sink. it took me a little under an hour to apply the henna.
so, now i'm sitting here with the plastic bag buns on my head waiting for the next hour to go by so i can wash this out of my head. i remember what a tedious process that was last time, so this time i'm gonna fill the sink up with warm water and swish my head around in that first for a few minutes. i totally forgot to take before pics but maybe i'll take some after pics and i'll post them later. if i remeber. which is unlikely! LOL!
anyways,wish me luck!

here are the websites i used for reference:

http://www.hennaforhair.com/ (download the free ebook! SO informative!)

http://www.everydayhenna.com/faq_henna_hair.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/292554/recipes_for_coloring_hair_with_henna.html?cat=69

Getting ready for the Wedding

2008-07-15T21:51:00.000-04:00

my sister is getting married in less than a month. so i'm trying not to latch my hair. cause when i latch a good chunk of new growth at one time, it comes out looking smoother and neater as opposed to when i latch just a half an or so of new growth. but its hard!!! i feel like an inch or more of unloced hair at my scalp and i want to just play with it and poke my finger through it. my hair feels so soft at my scalp. i don't remember my natural hair being that soft. but then again, how long has it been since i've seen and felt my natural hair? there was that short period when i was transitioning from the perm to the natural, but that was only like a month or so, then i got the yarn to start my locs.

anyways, i've joined the gym...AGAIN!!! this time with some friends. so i have a partener now, lets see if this works any better for me. so now i'm getting all sweaty at least twice a week (i'm aiming for three days a week, but we gotta start out small. baby steps, y'all!) so i'm not oiling my hair cause i think its nasty to add oil over a dirty sweaty scalp, even though its the next day or even two days later. so i have a dry, itchy scalp. and so i have to wash my hair more often. i was doing once a week, but i think i'm gonna have to up it to twice a week, i tried to just do a water rinse, so i'm not drying my scalp out as much with the shampoo. i couldn't do it! i had to throw some shampoo in there. i didn't feel clean! so we'll see how this more washing goes. i love the feel of fresh clean hair and walking around with my hair damp as i let it air dry. but i shower at night, so i end up going to bed with wet hair and then i have to sleep with a towel over my pillow to keep it from getting too wet. its a little bit of a pain. maybe i'll figure out something later.

i made another yuotube video. but it came out all pixilated. i'm probably gonna delete it and do it over whenever i get a new camera. i actually made two videos, but the second one was SOOOO bad, i had to delete it on the spot! the second video was of me doing the hairstyle that i'm gonna use at my sisters wedding. no hairbands, no pins!

on another note, i have been experiencing some scalp soreness/tenderness. i'm not sure whats the cause of that. i almost feel like if i latched, the tenderness would go away. i don't know. we'll see what happens with that.

I'm going through that funky period again!

2008-06-22T02:29:00.000-04:00

i hate my hair!!!! yeah, i'm going through "that" period again. it seems every few months or so since my hair has gotten past shoulder lenth, i go through this funky few days where i really don't like my hair. i've never in my life has my hair this long before. i really don't think i'm a long hair type of girl. but i'm really curious to see how long my hair will get. but now the weather is getting to be hot again and i'm starting to experience that "wool blanket" feeling with my hair on my neck, and that makes me start to think again about cuttting it. i'm wearing it in ponytails almost every day, and that alright. but, my problem is i always make them loose-ish cause i get headaches really easily. and so sometimes the pontyails come out looking CRAZY! well, at least to me. i'm sure other people aren't as critical of my hair as i am. but you know how it is, if you don't feel inside that you're looking cute on a particular day, you feel kinda yucky and self consious about your appearance the whole day. and i'm going to the gym again with one of my friends, so i'm washing much more often, so my hair in more frizzy and doesn't look as neat. and you all know that the hairline is the most important part to keep neat for a groomed appearance. so i've been trying to wear some headbands, cause that helps disguise the messy hairline, but that gives me headaches too. the only time i'm happy, even when my hair looks messy, is when its in a braid out, but it takes time and effort to braid my entire head up and then i have to wear the braids around for a day until my hair dries. that was cool when i was washing every couple of weeks. sitting for an hour to braid and band all my locs wasn't a big deal. but now that i'm washing 2 and 3 times a week (cause of the gym thing), i don't have two to three hours a week to devote to braiding and banding! thats crazy! but i'm gonna have to figure out something, or else i'm never gonna be happy. geesh. i can be such a finicky, whiny person sometimes!! i thnk i'm just really missing the red hair right now. i'm not really 100% loving this more muted color. there. i said it. i'm not completely happy with this color. i tried to talk myself into it, cause i saw how damaged my hair was getting with the color, but i MISS it! i'm not happy! okay. its almost 3 in the morning. i'm going to go to bed and stop this ranting and raving!

Yet another Youtube video

2008-06-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

yeah, i did another one. i was playing around with the movie maker and i wanted to see if i could do a movie with music in the backround. this one is of some of the hairstyles i've had over the years

My sister and I did a video together!

2008-06-19T21:08:00.000-04:00

so my sis REALLY wanted to do a video together, so we did one. this one just talks about why we went natural and what it means to us.

Another Youtube video

2008-05-31T22:47:00.000-04:00

i did another youtube video. this one is about the products i use in my hair. my sister says i look angry in the video. and thats becasue i WAS!!!!! i did that video over and over again. like FOURTEEN TIMES!!!! i kept stuttering and slurring my words so i would start over again. originally, it was like 8 minutes, but by the fourteenth time doing it, i was down to 4 minutes! anyways, enjoy. i want to do another one with one of the hairstyles i do, but my hair is curly now from the braidout i just did, and this particular style looks better with straight hair. maybe after i wash my hair this weekend. we'll see...

Henna, the day after

2008-05-21T00:08:00.000-04:00

so, its the next day, and let me tell you! i am so excited! the color definately got better. it looks much more reddish and less brown! but let me start from the begining:

so i bought three 4oz containers of henna from the natural food/hair store. two were persian red. one was sherry red. there were only 2 persian reds left, so i bought the sherry too cause i didn't think 2 would be enough. so the directions said mix each container with one cup boiling water. for dry hair, add one egg and 2-4 tablespoons olive oil. so i mixed one package of the persian red with half of the sherry (roughly 6 oz of henna), 2 large eggs, about 3 oz of olive oil, and roughly 1 and 1/4 cup boiling water. the henna stunk at first. it smelled like decaying leaves. but it makes sense, henna is a dried crushed plant product. so i seperated my hair into 8 sections, four on each side, rubber banded them off where the color started, and got ready to color the first half of my hair.

it was an EXTREMELY messy process. the henna was about the consistancy of cake batter. i was putting it on with my hands and smooshing it in. if i took too much, little globs would roll off and into the sink or on the floor. a couple of times i dropped my locs and they smacked me in the face and left smears of henna on my face! i was freaking out cause i thought it would leave stains on my face, so i was hollering for my sister to come help me and wipe my face off. i couldn't do it myself! i had on gloves that were covered in henna! so, it took a long time to finish the first half of my head. probably about 20 minutes or so. i got henna on the floor, on the wall, and all over my shirt! so my sister made me a garbage bag cape! i felt ridiculous, but it was the only solution! so i mixed up the rest of the henna for the other half of my head. this side went faster. i aslo made sure to really smear on a thick layer of henna even after i put my hair in the "princess Leia" buns. then i used some plastic shopping bags to wrap my hair and sat on the phone with my fiancee for a while, watched some tv, chatted with my sister. but the buns were on opposite sides of my head and the henna made the buns REALLY heavy, so i was getting pain along where my hair was parted. it was really uncomfortable so i ended up wrapping a headbacnd around the buns to hold them closer together. i looked like a flippin' fool! thank god there are no pictures to document that part!

so after about 2 hours i rinsed the henna out in the kitchen sink. this was the most grueling part! i rinsed for over half an hour!! now, this may not seem like hard work, but i have carpal tunnel in my hands. i had to squeeze water through my locs over and over to make sure i got all the henna out. my hands went numb and felt really weak after the first ten minutes. i have a good amout of hair, and its pretty heavy when wet. it took so much work to get all the henna out. i was ready to just give up and go to bed with the henna still in my hair. at one point i was slumped over the sink almost ready to cry! i was so tired and my hands hurt so much and i still had so much henna in my hair! that was the low point of the night! but i just took a minute rest leaning over the sink and i got back to work! first i rinsed with hot water, then with cold, as per the directions on the henna package. then i shampooed and rinsed some more!

so, after all that was done, i ran to a mirror to see my shining red glory! and what do i see! BROWN!!!! i was so upset! but it was late and i had to go to bed, so i put my hair in a bun and wrapped it with my silk scarf on and went to sleep with soaking wet hair! yeah, i got a pretty big wet spot on my pillow, but i was so pissed, i didn't care!

the next morning i noticed the color was a little more orange-ish. by the time i got home from work, it looked more orangy-brown. i remember reading from the free henna e-book that the color takes a few days to settle, so i can only hope as the days wear on that the color will start to look more reddish. i am satisfied with the way it loks now. i will try it again in a month or so. heres the youtube video i made

2 quick notes:

(1)the e-book said not to mix the henna with boiling water, that it would make the color fade and its better to mix the henna with lemon juice and let the henna sit over night for a brighter, more vibrant color. so next time, i'm gonna do that. heres the link to that free e-book:
http://www.hennaforhair.com/freebooks/

(2)when i did mix the henna with boiling water for the first batch, i added the water first and then the eggs. for the second batch, i added the eggs first and then the water, and when the hot water hit the egg, it started to cook the egg!!! so if you ARE gonna use boiling water, add the egg AFTER you mix in the water!

Tried the henna

2008-05-19T22:38:00.000-04:00

ok, this is gonna be short cause i don't want to say too much yet. i tried the henna. it was SUPER messy and smelly and it looked like baby poop. once the henna was on my hair, it was extremem;y heavy and uncomfortable. i kept it on for 2 and a half hours and i just washed it out... and i'm not happy with the results. it looks brown! i got the brightest red one at the health store. but i think i read somewhere that it brightend up in a few days, so we'll see how it looks wednesday or thursday. i also did a video. its not finished yet cause it doesn't have the final results. i'll probably post it on youtube a little later. i'll link it. alright. we'll see how this turns out...

Gotta do something about this color!

2008-05-14T23:27:00.000-04:00

okay, i can't take it anymore. i've got to make some decisions about what i'm going to do about this color. i really want to try the henna, but it seems like such a complicated process and i have to leave the color on for HOURS!!! i'm talking anywhere from 4 to 6 hours!!! thats a long time. i don't know. maybe i'll visit the natural hair store later this week and take a peek at the henna again. i'm so torn!!!! i don't even want to color it at all! i wish this red would just fade into a nice coppery color and i wouln't have to deal with this at all! oh well.

Washing my hair in the shower

2008-05-12T23:27:00.000-04:00

ok. ever since i was little, i always got my hair washed in the sink. i don't know why. i kinda got the idea (from my grandma) that only white people washed their hair in the shower. then i went to camp when i was about 9 and discovered i had swimmers ear and i got a phobia about getting water in my ears! so, all my life, washing my hair had been this big ordeal that has to be planned in advance and it took an hour or more of my time (try three hours or more when i palm rolled my hair myself) and it was pretty much just a pain in the butt. then i got my hair locked. but i didn't know what i was doing, so washing my hair was still this BIG event cause now i had to book a visit to the salon to get it washed. then i learned about latching and i started latching my hair instead. washing was easier, but it was still time consuming cause i had to wash all the dishes first if there were any in the sink, then sanitize the sink, then hook up the little hose (you know the one i'm talking about! that little white one you get from the hair store!) then set up my shampoo mixture (half shampoo, half water in a squirt bottle. maybe'll i'll write another blog all about my shampoo routine later), my conditioner mixture (half conditioner, half water), sometimes get the hot oil treatment ready. it still took a chunk of time, and then i used to sit under the dryer 'cause i had it in my head that i just couldn't let my hair air dry. why? i have no idea!!! but on sunday before i went to work at my second job, i really wanted to wash my hair. and i had to shower, but i didn't have time for both (yes, i take long showers)! so i decided to try out the "white" method and wash my hair in the shower.
it was sooooooo relaxing!!! i love having my hair gently pulled. what does this have to do with washing my hair in the shower? well, when my locs are wet, they weigh three or four times as much. with them soaking wet and hanging down my back ( as opposed to hanging over my head in the sink, which just caused neck pain) it felt like somene was gently pulling on my hair. i sat under the sprayer for five minutes just letting the water run over my hair and feeling the sensation. it felt so good. so i did one shampoo. no conditioner (i'm finding that if i condition too much. my hair starts to unravel!) and a looooooong rinse (for the relaxation factor!) and then out of the shower. i wrapped a towel around my head and continued with my getting ready routine and then i put some JML oil through my hair and let it iar dry for the rest of the day.
i felt so free.

I couldn't do it!

2008-05-03T00:46:00.000-04:00

so, i've been tryin to latch the back of my hair and palm roll the front two rows. its looks wonderful and it works, but not for me. i had a couple of problems with it:

1) i wasn't washing my hair as often. since i've been latching, i' ve been washing about once every week and a half or even more. but since the first time where i palm rolled the front (about three weeks ago!), i haven't washed my hair since. i "freshened up" the front rows once. but it takes an extra twenty minutes or so to twist the front. and then i have to either sit under the dryer or sleep with the clips. so i just didn't wash my hair. and i felt kinda yucky!

2) i have buildup! so, most of the length of the locs are palm rolled. then i have about an inch 2 inches of latch hair, then there was about 2 inches of palm rolled hair again near my scalp for the front locs. so, not only was there a slight size and texture difference where the was latching in the middle of the loc (which didn't bother me at all) but gel was getting caught in the "knot" where the latched part started! and i use clear JML gel. so you can imagine how terrible it would have looked if i used a creamy gel. i washed my hair and rinsed for OVER HALF AN HOUR with really hot water!!!! i'm not kidding! and i still couldn't get all of the old gel out! you know what a freak i can be about buildup! i destroyed two of my locs already trying to get the buildup out!

so i decided to just go back to latching my whole head. and i discovered a way to make the front look neater. latch it wet. i usually latch dry before i shampoo, but i've found that if i latch wet, i get a neater look. the hair is slicker and it lays flatter ,so the latching looks less frizzy and more tight. it makes sense. when i palm rolled dry, i got a completely different look than when i palm rolled wet. so i might just latch the front few rows after i shampoo so it looks as neat and tight as it can.

i love the freedom of latched hair. why do it half way?

Noticing a difference

2008-04-28T01:14:00.000-04:00

so i've been using my oil blends for a few weeks now. i am definately noticing a new softness to my hair. not to say it wasn't soft before. but i definately notice that is feels softer than i've ever felt it before. i wonder if its the veggie glycerine or the oils? or maybe a combo of both.

New oil, and I got burned!

2008-04-23T18:36:00.000-04:00

so, i found a new oil at Stop & Shop. i was just looking for some olive oil, but guess what else i found?! i found sweet almond oil, flaxseed oil, and grapseed oil. in larger quantities and cheaper than at the health store. i always hear about getting cooking grade oils becasue than means they're truely chemical free. well, thses oils were for cooking! i'm happy about that find. but i also found this little doobie:

the top of the bottle says: Omega Plus. Extra Virgin Oils. its a blend of avocado oil, olive oil, and flaxseed oil. heres a quote from the back of the bottle:

"Olivado has created a natural balance of Essentail Fatty Acids. Omega 3, Omega 6, and Omega 9. Take Omerga 3,6,and 9 as nature intended with the powerful antioxidants: polyphenols, beta sitosterol, lutein, and vitamin E, found naturally in the Extra Virgin Cold Pressed Olive, Avocado and Flaxseed Oil

Take two teaspoons a day, or use with salads, vegetables,and smoothies..."

so i did a new oil blend with less water and more of this oil, grapeseed oil, a little more olive oil, veggie gylerin, and aloe vera. this blend is a little heavier than my other one. when i spray it on, it sits on my hair and i have to make sure to massage it into my locs. then i added the orange eo...

AND I BURNT MYSELF!!!!!!!!!! i got a little, teeny weeny smear on my knuckle. i didn't think anything of it. i've heard that you have to be careful with essential oils because they can burn your skin, but i didn't think that tiny little amount would hurt me. five minutes after i got that smear on my knuckle, it was hurting! and the skin was red and a little swollen. i've learned my lesson. next time, i'll wear gloves!!!

Hair Oil Results

2008-04-17T00:39:00.000-04:00

so, i've been using my homemade hair oil mix for the past few days. i've been trying to use it everyday, but i think i've missed a day or two. the smell is awesome!! my hair holds the smell of the almonds quite well. my sister doesn't like the smell. she says it smells like insence. i guess she means the smell is too "heavy" if you know what i mean. it does have a slightly different smell when i spray it on fresh as opposed to at the end of the day. i admit, i maaaaaayyyy have been a bit heavy handed with the fragrance oil. i might try to add more olive oil to the mix to dilute the almond frangrance oil smell a little more. but so far, so good. i think i'm gonna make up another batch but use the orange eo this time. i'm excited to see how that one comes out! i've decided to only use one at a time. so if i'm using the almond smelling spritz, i won't use the orange one too, i'll wait till i wash my hair before i use a different scent. although almond orange could smell good... we'll see. i also have a peppermint eo to use. but i don't want to use that one yet. i'm not sure if i'm ready to go around smelling like a candy cane!

Homemade Spritz

2008-04-12T01:18:00.000-04:00

Well, i'm trying to go all natural! really all natural. i've been careful about the shampoos, conditioners, and oils i use in my hair. i've been reading up a lot lately about homemade oil conditioning spritzes and i decided to try an make my own. so my sister and i went to the natural health store today and i racked up a bill of over $50! i got some vegetable glycerine, sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, jojoba oil. i got a cherry almond shampoo and conditioner. i got a pepperment and an orange essential oil and an almond musk fragrance oil. as you can probably tell, almond is one of my favorite scents! then i went on over to my friendly neighborhood walgreens and got 2 8oz spray bottles. i already had pure aloe vera gel and olive oil at home. i did a post on lovinlocs to ask about ratios to use in my spritz, but i was too eager to use my new purchases. so i went ahead and just guess-tamated using some info i got from browsing around online. i didn't used exact measurements, but it was comething along these lines:

4oz water
2 oz blend of veggie glycerine and aloe vera gel
2oz blend of olive oil, jojoba oil, and sweet almond oil (more olive oil)
approx 15 drops of almond musk fragrance oil

from left to right: olive oil, veggie glycerine, sweet almond oil, jojoba oil, aloe vera, and in the front, almond musk fragrance oil.

i sorta squeezed the ingrediants into the spray bottle as i went. i shook it up real good and commenced to spraying my head! i grabbed a chunk of locks and sprayed along the shaft and squeezed as i went to really get the oil into the locs. it smelled heavenly! then i went back and did the tips. then i did my scalp. the mixture is really light, so my hair didn't feel heavy or oily at all! i found out that i have to keep on shaking the bottle as i go 'cause the oil and water keep on seperating, as can be expected. so i just got through with that about ten minutes ago. i'm gonna hit the bed and see how my hair feels tomorrow. i'm not sure if i should spray in the morning before i go about my business or at night before i go to bed. i might spray my hair a little more tomorrow before i go out. alright. off to bed i go!

Thanks Knappy Soul!

2008-04-10T23:45:00.001-04:00

So i took the advise of fellow blogger and lovin locs member, Knappy Soul. i washed my hair and i latched the rest of my hair but i palm rolled the first two rows around my hairline. this solves my quasi problem completely!!!! i was satisfied/content to settle for a messier hairline in return for the convenience of latching. but now i see that i don't have to settle at all! on another note, my hair is INCREDIBLY faded now. to me, it looks pinky orange and i am not happy with it. but when i tried to take pics, they came out looking more red. my sister said she doesn't see pink and its all in my head. this is quite possible! you know we are our own worst critics. my sister and i are looking into henna. i might use that to color over the pink with a more brownish red color. we'll see. it looks like the henna is a bitch to mix up and put on. i really dont want to go through any more hair color nightmares again just yet! here are a few pics of my (in my opinion) pink hair and the top palm rolled

Doin' it BIG!!!!

2008-04-08T19:15:00.000-04:00

i'm on the loc loops website!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! when you order the loops, the owners asks you to send in photos if you're happy with the results. well, i emailed her two or three days ago and sent her some pics. she emailed me right back and said she was very excited about the pics. so i went to the website today and went to the section to view photos, and BLAM!!! there I am!!! I feel so proud!!!! i'm gonna be famous!! just kidding! now i gotta go spread the word...

check it out for yourself:

www.locloops.com

Already missing it!

2008-04-08T17:42:00.001-04:00

I made a promise to myself to not color my hair anymore for the next year. my hair is just getting too damaged. i used to have a friend wash, color, and twist my hair. she was a certified colorologist (if there is such a tittle! all i know if her specialty was in coloring). but she had never dealt with locs before. so she used to do a quick rinse and as a result, a lot of color was left in my hair. and it used to run every time i shampooed and rub off on EVERYTHING!!!!! i have so many white t-shirts with a pink collar from where the color rubbed off. and, as you can image, having that color stuck in my locs didn't do them any good either. and this went on for a few years. then, i decided to take the reins and do my own hair. so now i was responsible for my own washing, coloring, and twisting! the first few washings were a little tough. i had never tried to twist and clip my hair myself. after doing the first three or four locs, i gave up and just braided three locs together as i twisted and did a braid out. i got through 2 washings this way. then, thanks to the WONDERFUL advice and encouragement i got from a wonderful group on Yahoo, called LovinLocs (BIG SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY "FAMILY' ON LOVINLOCS!!!!!!),i learned about latching. so i bought the nappylocs latching tool and about 2 months ago i began latching my hair. this woked out GREAT!!!!!! but there was one downside. now, i'm washing my hair about once a week. before, i was washing about once every six weeks or so. becasue i'm washing so much more often, the color doesn't last as long. so i tried to color my hair myself. for the first time in my life. it was pretty bad! as you all know, my color of choice is red. not just any red, the brightest red i can find. needless to say, by the time i was done, there was red everywhere! all over the bathroom sink ( i colored in the bathroom so i could see what i was doing). a few BIG splotches on the floor. a smear or two on the wall by the light switch. then, when i went to wash the color out, i got read all over the counter in the kitchen!!! i wash my hair in the kitchen sink with a washing hose. i have a serious phobia of getting water in my ears!!! but i got through it. the color was wonderful. i was happy. but then i washed mt hair a week later, and a bunch of color ran! i was a little puzzled 'cause i thought i had done a good job at rinsing. and now the color wasn't as vibrant. oh well. then i washed my hair again a week after that. more color ran. the color is even less vibrant. i'm now four washings in since i colored my hair and its just a dull as it was before i colored it!!!! i'm not going through that coloring fiasco again!!! so, since i'm washing my hair more often now, i'm not going to color. its a waste of time. and i'm damaging my hair. but, god, do i miss it!!!! a lot of people say the color is great and its so bright, but I know how it can really look when its at its best. but i will say this. if the red fades to pink, which it has done in the past, i'm gonna color it over with a deep auburn. we'll see what happens. sometimes it fades to a pink, sometimes it turn and orangish brown, sometimes a reddish brown. i'm actually kinda excited to see what my hair will look like brown. for as long as i've been able to color, i've done red. this will be a new look. lets hope this goes well...

and for those of you who are interested, here's the link to the group:

alt="Click here to join lovinlocs">
Click to join lovinlocs

MUUUUUUCH better!

2008-04-06T20:38:00.000-04:00

so i re-wet my head and tried the loc loops again. i put some ORS gel in a spray bottle and watered it down. my hair was pretty damp still. and then i sprayed every two locs with the watered down gel as i rolled them, so my hair ended up being pretty wet. then i sat under a medium warm hooded dryer for an hour!!! i wasn't taking any chances that my hair wouldn't dry this time!!!! i put on a silk scarf and went to bed. the next day, i had nothing planned, so i kept the curlers in all day as well. so here are the pics.

Loc Loops, try one

2008-04-03T14:53:00.000-04:00

so this is my first try with the loc loops. i made a few mistakes. well, actually, just one big mistake. i didn't let my hair fully dry. i sat under a cool dryer for abour 1/2 hour. i wan't too sure about the dryer part. didn't know if the curlers would melt in my hair. can you imagine?!?! melted foam curlers in my locs!!! so 1/3 hour under a cool dryer and air drying for the rest of the day and overnight. the next day i started taking the curlers out and i realized that my hair was no where near dry. but i had things to do, and i'm not about to go out in public with big curlers in my hair! the curls in the back were really limp with a few tighter ones in the front. the first few pics are of that. i didn't really like the look, so i decided to try to pull some of the front curls out more for a more uniformed look. the last 2 pics are of that. please excuse the pissed-off face. i was aggrivated about my hair and running SO late!!!

p.s. i don't know why the pics are sideways and i don't know how to fix it!