For a GREAT Twist out

My hair was "terrible" yesterday. I hadn't styled or twisted for several days, just went to bed with my satin bonnet on and woke up yesterday morning to flattened, dry strands of stringy,frizzy permed hair with no curl or definition at all. Just straight and bushy! UGGHHH! So, I pulled it back into a semi-puff with a headband and tucked the straight ends under in the back. It looked acceptable then so I wore that style to work.

Didn't feel like washing it when I got home yesterday evening so I decided to just restyle and was going to do curly nikki's dry braid n curl, but I decided against that because my hair was just too dry and straight. Sooo, I smoothed a generous amount shea butter all over my hair while it was still dry, made one section in the back, one above each ear, one framing each side of my face, one behind each of those one at the crown and - an one kinda funky one sorta in front of the one at the crown but to the left a bit, for a total of 9 sections.

I filled my spray bottle with water and Suave Coconut condish and sprayed each section before flat twisting (I just double-strand twisted the two near the crown of my head) rolled the ends with my satin/foam rollers. I then sprayed a bit of Hot Six Oil mist on the sections and in between on the scalp area and then went to bed. This morning, my curls were shiny, bouncy, defined and had a nice little bit of weight to them because of the conditioner. I love the way it looks. I even parted it down the middle and the way it turned out looks pretty good on me today. The only problem I had was that a couple of sections in the front were still a bit wet so I had to blow dry them a bit and then leave the rollers in until I got to work. The sections were pretty much dry then but one section right in the front was BONE straight at the ends - about an inch, soooo....I just cut the straight part off with my scissors! (It's perm anyway, would've eventually been cut off in the end). Other than that, my hair looks great! Will definitely be repeating this routine using these products again. I'm also noticing some growth in the back, where my hair is the most damaged and shortest. Lot's of new growth coming in and lengthening when I stretch it out. Getting a little itchy to cut some more perm off! Will definitely co-wash and maybe try the braid out on just washed hair tonight or tomorrow. We'll see.

ttyl!

Going Out!

I'm going out to dinner tonight, trying to decide what to do with my hair. I did try the WOC gel (sans water) on my hair this morning and it perked up my flat curls pretty good. I decided not to add the water because I just wanted to see what it would do on dry hair. Not too bad. It is pretty sticky and greasy though and I prolly used a little too much so I'll know better next time. I'm going to try it with my leave-in this weekend when I co-wash. See how my hair responds. I really want to see if I'll have product build up and need to wash with a little shampoo next time. I've co-washed the last 2-3 weeks so I'm wondering if I need to go ahead and do a shampoo wash maybe once a month. We'll see.

So, back to this evening. Do I want to:

1). Pull back one side with a clip and flower?

2). Just put a flower behind one ear?

3). Pull back just the front with a wide/decorative (sparkly) headband?

4). Pull it up on both sides?

5). -or- spritz some water on it and make it really big and puffy? ;)

Guess it'll depend which looks best with what I'm wearing. Actually, I'm not going to dress up, just gonna get out of this YMCA work shirt that I'm wearing today. Maybe wear a nice bright sweater or something.

By the way, the pic above, I'm thinking that's about how my hair will look once all the perm is out. That looks like it might be about my texture. Love it! Can't wait. I know that my hair is not going to just "hang" in ringlets from my scalp when I'm au naturel. Not this puffy 4b/c hair. But, I don't want it to. I want to rock it in all of it's Nappy glory! LOL ;)

Welll....ciao for now ;)

Smokin'!

Styled my dry, crunchy hair last night using water spritz, shea butter and olive oil smoothing/hold pudding. did a two tier flat twist with about 10 twists total (4 on the bottom, 2 on either side of my head, one directly in front on my forehead and just one regular two strand twist at the crown.). Rolled these all up to the scalp with my satin covered foam rollers (I think I need to get some that are a little bigger than the ones I have currently, or those flexirods. But that'll have to wait 'til my next trip to the bss). Got up this morning and did the take down and the curls were looking super-fab! Love it. My hair looks something like this - only not as long in the back ;)

I went ahead and got some curl activator, ended up getting World of Curls instead of the Long Aid because WOC came in a smaller jar. Didn't want to get the great big jar of LA because I may not like it. I'm going to just cover my hair with my satin cap tonight and refresh in the morning with a little water and the WOC, we'll see how that turns out ;) Then, when I co-wash this weekend I'll use the WOC with my leave-in condish and see how THAT works. I'll keep you posted. And I will really, really try to get some pics on here this weekend ;)



Oh, and I can't remember which site I got this pic from so I don't know her name (sorry) but I'm putting this pic up as a reminder to myself that if my refresh doesn't go well in the morning, I can always wear my hair like this. It is a cute style that I'd like to try sometime soon.




I saw this statement by "Luka Lomi" on the curly nikki site today:
"My staple styles are the twists and twist outs. I love to change my hairstyle constantly. Each state it's in changes my mood inversely, I change my hair to suit my moods. I love how my hair changes everyday. Every night I sleep on it, it gets better and more unique. Curly hair has a mind of its own. I've learned to just roll with the punches when it comes to dealing with my mane. If my hair is super frizzy, dirty, or tangled then I put it in a high pony."

Couldn't have said it better my self ;)

Ciao!!!

New Styles

(Pictured is not me, of course - still no new pics of me yet. This is a picture of "Gigi" that I got off of the www.curly.nikki.com website. But, I am wearing my hear similar to this only my flower is a bit smaller).

Finally decided to wear the flower in my hair today with my afro-puff. It's cute. I like it ;)

I really do need to re-twist or wash my hair tonight. I can't go 4 days without retwisting. My hair is DRY and looking frizzy!

This pic is my grandbaby. I love her little natural "fro". I may style my hair like this for the next few days in honor of her - LOL. Of course, her little baby curls are much cuter than mine ;)

ciao!

STILL LEARNING

I've discovered what I call "settling" time with my hair. When I wake up in the morning and either take out fresh twists or refresh my twists, once I arrange them the best to my ability, I have to let my hair 'settle' for a bit without touching it either to let the water and conditioner set and/or oil spritz to dry and let my hair relax into the style that it wants to for that day. I've left my house so dissappointed with the way my style looks and then by the time I get to work and look in the mirror, it TOTALLY looks great. Much better than it did when i left the house. So, when I'm working with my hair in the am and start to get frustrated because it's not looking like I want, I just leave it alone and reevaluate after I get to work. It really makes a BIG diff!

Been reading posts online about using LongAid Aloe Vera Curl Activator on wet hair after washing, in place of or in addition to my leave in. I'm really thinking about trying it. I remember using this stuff when I had my jheri curl back in the day, but don't know how it will work on transitioning hair. I've read that it works well, really conditions and adds lots of curl definition. I checked the ingredients and most of them are o.k. Only a couple that give me reason to caution, but those have to do with the gel flaking once it dries. I figure if I don't get too heavy-handed with it, should be o.k. I'm curious to find out if it works as well as my Olive Oil Smoothing and Hold pudding.

Well, toodles for now! Still no pics yet ;( Although I am rocking the afro puff today. Woke up this morning to an old, tired twist out that couldn't be salvaged no matter what I did - lol! Although, I thought I wouldn't be able to salvage it yesterday and it turned out o.k. just a little on the dry, frizzy side in certain spots. Discovered that when one side is a little flat or frizzier than the other, I can pull it back with a clip and it actually looks cute. Maybe I'll try that flower next time. Still haven't gotten up the nerve to wear a flower in my hair to work yet, HA! Anyway, will re-style tonight.

Huey is my hair idol - HA!

Well, I discovered this morning that I CAN do the "Tightly Curly" method (www.tightlycurly.com) for refreshing my hair in the morning, even if I still have lots of perm left. Instead of spritzing a bunch of water on my hair, I wet my hands (as is recommended on the tightly curly website) and rubbed onto the top of my hair, smoothing it down. Then, I applied a little of my HE Totally Twisted conditioner to my hands and rubbed that onto my hair, smoothing downward again. I repeated the same process with my Hot Six Oil (coconut oil and other fabulous oils) and then kinda rubbed that through my hair and "misted" just a little oil in the back since it was a little drier and a bit frizzy. The results were GREAT! I'll be using this refreshing technique more often as opposed to retwisting my hair almost every other night. I want to manipulate it as little as possible and I think this is the way to go. Just sleep in my satin bonnet and REFRESH in the morning! I've also decided that I will no longer use the Optimum hair cream on my hair (unless absolutely necessary and I have nothing else to use) because it has Mineral oil as it's second ingredient and when I use it, it does make my scalp itch like crazy!!!

I also thought about putting a big flower in my hair today, but didn't know how well that would go over at work - LOL. Maybe I'll start off tomorrow with a small, understand flower and just start from there ;)

My next co-wash, I'm going to use the Suave Naturals Coconut conditioner, Suave Humectant conditioner as my rinsing conditioner, maybe deep condition again with the Pantene Hair Mask and then, of course, my leave in condish will use the HE Totally Twisted. Thought about going back to using my "Motions" shampoo last time I washed but decided not to. I want to see how my hair reacts with a few co-washes, no-poos.

I also ran across this sight that gives great tips for two strand twist out techniques, suggesting starting at the back and making horizontal rows as you go up, then when you get to the top parting the hair on the side or middle and using clips to direct where you want the hair to fall. I might try this with parting my hair in the front down the middle, or even going back. We'll see. I'm sorta torn between doing that or just doing 5 or 6 big rows of flat twists going back away from my face to see how that turns out. We shall see. I SWEAR I'm going to post some pics as soon as my husband takes some and loads them for me - LOL!

By the way, this is how I eventually want my hair to look once I'm through transitioning and it's all grown out to a decent length - My DREAM HAIR! ;)OL ;)