new hair regimen - June 2012

i have so many different products that i sometimes forget what i put in my hair.
you won't beleive i don't remember all the thinks i put in my spritz bottle. of course there's water and that's about it. not sure which conditioner or what oils are in the bottle.

i've told myself that until i finish using all, i mean all the products in my wardrobe, ain't buying new stuff.

ehm..... i'm getting there.

also learning what products, oils and creams my hair prefers.

olive oil      - makes my hair shine but leaves it  greasy
castor oil    - super greasy. you'll even see droplets of oil on the tips even after 24hours.
amla  oil     - not moisturizing.  but still have a lot and will continue to use it.
argan oil    - same as amla oil
almond oil   - finished. thank goodness
coconut oil  - my hair hates it as a leave-in. turns it into dry hay. could even be combustible. not bold enough to find out.
8 wonder oil - not sure it did anything for my hair.
jojoba oil     - aaahhhh! kaching!! perfect for my hair. moisturizing, silkening, simply lovely. will stick to it.
sheabutter    - not sure, still using it though. now i use the LOC method, it no longer leaves my hair as dry as it used to at the end of the day. will continue to use it till i run out of it. then try other butters.
black soap   - this makes my hair soft. since i've been cowashing for a while, i use black soap only once in a while. thinking i'll use it weekly for a while and see how it goes. will cowash during the week if need be. deep conditioning or steaming will now have to be a must on a weekly basis.
Huetiful hair steamer  - a great investment. hair is silky soft after only 15min under it.
aloe gel       - not bad
Herbal Gro formula - just got it, no review yet

so what i plan to do for next month is
wash day (weekly)
1. prepoo with honey+coconut oil for at least 1 hour
2. wash hair with black soap
3. apply conditioner and either steam suing huetiful hair steamer or cover with a plastic cap and use a hooded dryer
4. rinse off with cool water
5. apply jojoba oil to seal in moisture, followed by shea butter
6. apply leave-in conditioner
7. apply the Glover's herbal gro formula
8. style hair as desired.

Between washes
1. as needed, re-moisturize hair
     a) LOC method
          i) dampen with contents of spritz bottle
          ii) apply jojoba oil
          iii) seal further with shea butter
2. as needed restyle hair
      a) use shea butter or  aloe gel or whatever gel i fancy from the wardrobe.
3. Cowash if a product has left hair very dry

and that's it. discovering that keeping things simple when it comes to regimen helps a lot. my hair seems to prefer simple no fuzz procedures.

after a month of sticking to this regimen i'll do a comparison and get back to you with the results.

till later,
cheers.

honey and coconut oil pre-poo - Part 2

in part 1 i said how ordinary my hair looked after the first time i used honey as a pre-poo.

well, this is a follow up on that story. a week later, used the same thing and my hair looked fuller and bouncier than i'd ever seen it.

must be that the honey does work.

plan on continuing to use the honey and coconut oil prepoo treatment as i continue to search for the right regimen and products that my hair loves.

will keep you updated.

cheers

honey and coconut oil pre-poo treatment - Part 1

hello there, thanks for reading this.
a couple of weeks ago i wanted to do something different while washing my hair. was in somewhat of a rut. so, checked online and saw honey for hair. kaching!!!! i knew what new thing i was going to try out that day. honey for my hair as a pre-poo treatment.

i'd been using coconut oil regularly as prepoo, so thot why not add honey, this a i did.

i finger detangled my hair, which by the way is growing. will take some pix soon and post. i never use a brush on my hair. at least for now. maybe later on, i'll be confident enough to use one to detangle.
sectioned my hair into 4 parts. working in sections, applied the coconut oil + honey mixture which i had thoroughly mixed and was a smooth consistency. loosely braided each section when i was done.

i then used clingfilm to wrap my head and went about my normal house chores.
i've been a bit lazy of late i  guess. i didn't go under the dryer or anything. after about an hour or so, i washed off the treatment with conditioner.

i then sealed the moisture with oil and sheabutter and styled.

frankly speaking, i didn't see anything fantastic about my hair after this wash day. it was just normal looking.

i'll continue this post in Part 2

Encouragement

got a boost yesterday. was crossing the road when the driver of a car honked at me to draw my attention. the lady gave me a shout out telling me she loves my hair. wow!!! was taken aback. had to go round the passenger's side to see her hair. guess what, she also had natural hair!. from the look of things, she must have had a big cut recently. though her hair texture was different form mine (must be a type 3 hair), we had similar sized hair.

very nice to know a few people out there appreciate not putting chemicals on one's natural hair to paermanently alter its natural texture.

you go girl!!!!

hair photos

here are a couple of pix i promised.

was excited at the way the back view looked. hadn't realised my hair had grown this big.

back view of my hair 

top view. you can see the two textures

this evening i did the LOC while flat twisting.

did 4 big flat twists going all back. hoping the hair comes out as desired.

LOC method for moisturizing type 4 hair

It’s been a while since I updated this blog. Been quite busy, and weekends have not been any better.

Will try make up for it with a nice long interesting post.  I got a colleague at work to help take some pictures of my hair, from different angles.  The first thing she asked me was, do I feel I’m look so fantastic that I want to take pix? Told her that wasn’t the case,  that the pix were for my natural hair blog. That impressed her, and she snapped away. She liked my phone, spent a couple of minutes admiring it before she took the pix though. Then, she told me my hair needed combing. Cheekily told her I don’t use a comb on my hair, use a pick or my fingers. Ehm, the rough look is what I was going for. That shut her up and she concentrated on being a photographer, all be it for 5mins. Oh oh, the positive thing from this encounter is she talked about her own hair. She’s got some sort of perm with coloring going, and she said, not exaggerating that she might consider going natural. I did show her how thick my new growth is compared to the thankfully getting shorter brown texturized upper portion of my mane.  (ehm….the mane would roar like baby Simba being a twa, a mane all the same J J)

Enough chit chatting, lets talk about my hair and what its been up to since the last post.

Just last week,I joined curly nikki chat forum. I’d been a regular reader of the Curly Nikki blog but never really got round to joining the community. I saw something I wanted to contribute to and so had to register and join the forum. That was how that happened.

Any way there was a thread on how to moisturize effectively type 4 hair. That caught my attention.

I have type 4 hair. Don’t know if it’s a, b or c. but definitely a type 4.

I  moisturize everyday, using water, and sealing with oil or butter. Usually at night before bed time. I would also flat twist it. (In another post I’ll discuss the different protective styling methods I use).  But no matter what, by the next evening, my hair is crispy dry and have to wet and seal again. Just felt I wasn’t doing something right, so the thread piqued my interest.

I heard about the LOC method for the first time. At first I dismissed it, thinking, not another acronym again! But when I read, the type 4 hair remains moisturized for days after when the LOC method is done, it held my undivided attention. Is this what I’ve been missing?

I googled LOC method, and there was so much info on it.

A method of moisturizing that basically locks the moisture in with oil and cream.

L – Liquid

O – Oil

C – Cream or butter.

I was excited on Friday, my usual wash day, when I decided I would give the method a test run. I used the following  things. (Though I believe you could use products that suit your hair, but it’s using them in the LOC order that matters).

Liquid -  water

Oil – Olive Oil

Cream – unrefined shea butter

I did a pre-poo using coconut oil and African organics olive oil conditioner.  Used clingfilm to wrap the hair and put a plastic cap over it. Went about my chores for the evening, preparing dinner, sorting things out around the house. After a few hours, (didn’t really look at the clock to know how long exactly the hair was in clingfilm. Not more than 3 hours though) I washed with Aussi Miracle Moist conditioner.

Blotted the excess water with an old t-shirt and then used olive oil all over the hair lightly, followed by shea butter. Quite light coating actually.

I then worked in sections to flat twist. With each section I used the LOC method. Spraying on water when the hair got dry.

That was it.

By morning, I undid the flat twists and styled. It was okay. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos the next day. it was Saturday, and believe me, the whole weekend was hectic.

Today is Monday, and I haven’t put anything in my hair since Friday, and my hair isn’t dry or brittle as yet. I’m talking 3 days, without having to spray water, rub oil on my hair.

Still early days to conclude LOC method is the best thing that happened to type 4 hair. My hair was under wrap all of yesterday. maybe that’s why it’s still moisturized? Dunno, but will definitely do a follow up post on this by end of this week to let you know how the LOC method  went.

i"ll upload the photos i took this afternoon of my hair, day 4 after using LOC and leave you to judge the results.

stay tuned.....