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

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

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!

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!

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

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!

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!

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.