Styling experiments with Ecostyler gel

Hello peeps, hope you’ve been good. Over here in Lagos, it’s been raining everyday for the past 3 weeks. No exaggeration. This morning, let’s just say almost everyone in Ikoyi had a swimming pool. On some streets, the whole road was a communal pool of sorts.

Oh well, lots of moisture in the air, yay!!! No complains about dry brittle hair right now. J

Been doing a lot of experimenting of late. Still searching for the products my hair needs and wants. Yeah, there could be a difference when you think about it.

Experiment 1 – Wet and Go (WnG) using Ecostyler

Still trying very hard to love ecostyler, not sure I’m at that level yet. The first time I did a wash and go, I probably used way too much gel, cos I carried white, I mean white hair for the whole day. I kept saying it would soon get absorbed into the hair. Oh no, that didn’t happen. By evening, I wiped off all the white goo with paper towels.

Results

On the second day, it actually looked nice. Carried it well. However hair was crunchy and stiff.  I had defined coils. I’ll post pictures up later. I got 3^rd day hair out of it, by pineappling. Had to do about 6 pineapples because my hair is very short. Being still in TWA stage. But by day 3, most of the definition was gone. I’ll try a WnG again before I conclude it’s not for me.

Lessons learnt:

1.     Not to use too much gel next time

2.     remove excess gel after setting but before it dries. Will try rinsing off the excess gel with water next and see how that plays out.

Experiment 2 – use of  Eco  curl custard

After washing my hair normally, I allowed to dry. By next day, it was well dried. Though I must say, the drying bit was actually just per chance. I wore an afro puff the day after wash day. Immediately after washing I usually  put hair in braids to let it dry and stretch.

It was the day after washing I happened on the eco custard recipe from curly nikki forum. I was searching for a homemade curl definer recipe.

Basically it’s 

1 cup Ecostyler gel,

1 table spoon EVOO,

1 Tablespoon EVCO and

1 Tablespoon AVG.

 give them a thorough mix till you get a smooth custardy consistency.

A little note: I made the curl custard and applied to my hair late in the evening. Had gotten home quite late as a result of the usual Lagos traffic.  Round about  8-9pm. I’m saying this because I believe the results were affected by this.

So I whipped up the curl custard, felt impressed at my mixtress skills. And used it to do a braid-in. The plan was to have a braid out the following morning.  This time around, I used much less product than I did when I used ecostyler alone. I did a light  LOC though before using the custard.

Results

The following morning, the braids had not dried. They weren’t anywhere near dry. All that moisture in the air (rains) didn’t help matters much. I picked the hair out into an afro. Since I’d worn an afro the day before, didn’t want to wear an afro again. So I took a blurb of the custard and rubbed on my hair and used the flat of my palm to rub my hair in circular motions. Attempting to get some curl definition by all means.  Absolutely didn’t like the result. Had to take the hair like dat to work though cos I was running late. A definite bad hair day!! like that wasn’t bad enough,  I had serious shrinkage. Since the hair was still very damp, it didn’t stretch out and my ‘palming’ it got it even smaller. Did I get definition? Not really. Hair was all frizzy.

Lessons learnt

1.     allow time for a desired style to set. If not enough time, don’t do style

2.     not to use too many products at the same time. Had done LOC before using curl custard.

Conclusion

Experiments are good, but if the right conditions are not met, desired results should not be expected.

I was done experimenting for this week. The plan for yesterday evening was to co-wash and just do my basic simple style. Moisturize and style with whipped shea butter. Buuuut, got home late again and was just too tired to wash my hair. All I did was to lightly spritz it and flat twisted it all back.

This morning, I picked it out and went to work. Hair is stretched out, the definition I got didn’t last 2 hours, but it’s okay.

I have come to realize something, in the Lagos humidity (been 98% for a while) I shouldn’t expect to see curl definitions as well as what I get when I travel outside Lagos.

So I’m no longer putting emphasis on getting my curls defined. If it happens, great, will enjoy it while it lasts. My focus now is to grow long healthy hair.

So peeps, thanks for reading this. Please leave your comments, criticisms are also welcome.

Cheers!

Jamaican Black Castor Oil & Bentonite Clay

I did another chop on Monday, so my hair is looking very twa at the moment.

Can’t wait for it to grow out again. Ain’t gonna believe this, I now envy people with long hair. Can’t wait for mine to be long. Patience, patience I guess.

I have started a number of new things since my last post.

To begin with, I now keep a journal of what I put in my hair and how it reacts every day. Yup!, everyday.

Even have one for my face. I had to start this journal because there was a morning, my hair looked sooo gorgeous, fluffy, well stretched out and I had a nice bob style. And….. it stayed that way the whole day!!!. despite the high humidity from the rains that fell that day. buuuuut, I didn’t pay attention to the products and quantities I applied to get the effect, so I wasn’t able to reproduce it. Felt so sad. So decided, would document all products, steps, quantities, (maybe) I apply to my hair and face. 

Another new thing was, I got Jamaican black castor oil and bentonite clay from natruralnigerian.com . I had read so much about how wonderful jbco was. How it made hair long and full. Well, thought I would give it a try.  The first shocker I got was how small the bottle was.  Dunno what I was expecting,  since I was told the quantity was 8 oz.  I should have known it was the size of a large baby feeding bottle. All the pictures I had seen of JBCO online had looked huge. Well got over the shock of seeing a teeny weeny bottle. Note to self, mentally  relate sizes to real life. Whatever that means, but guess you get the picture of what I’m saying.

Bentonite clay also had good reviews. My hair had been looking a bit lackluster of late. And felt a good cleansing mask will do the trick.  You can imagine the excite with which I received the package in the mail.  As soon as I got home, I applied the bentonite mixture to my hair and face.

Looked a site, but didn’t mind. Then I washed off the mask about an hour later, and then conditioned using tressemme natural.  Couldn’t really say if it worked or not yet. My hair was quite short and so didn’t get the long falling hair I’d seen in reviews.

I used JBCO to oil my scalp, and applied olive and plain castor oil to my damp hair, sealing with shea butter. Braided and went to bed. The following morning…..oh my gosh!!!! My hair was super soft and moisturized. I believe it even looked clean and bright. No dull looks. I just picked it out to a teeny weeny afro and added a hair band. And voila, was ready to go out.

In the evening, it was still moisturized, didn’t have to add any products to the hair. Only oiled my scalp with jbco and braided. The following morning, it was still super moisturized and soft. Basically, since washday I haven’t moisturized my hair. Unlike when I used to have to moisturize at least once everyday. Even at that my hair would be thirsty, and dry.

Dunno, maybe my hair has started to cooperate, or I now understand  better how to moisturize.

One thing for sure, beginning to love my hair journey.

Ciao  peeps!

Ecostyler - Morrocan Argan oil

hi and thanks for stopping by.
hope you are all doing great. family, work, school? all great i hope.

been a while since my last post, and do i have stuff to write about!
despite my promising myself not to buy any more products till I'm done using what i have........
you are not going to believe this, i succumbed to temptation. awwwww!!!

last weekend , i casually strolled into a shop and saw, drum roll please, Ecostyler gel. okay, to put this in perspective, i live in Lagos, and the norm here is to have chemically relaxed hair. so the beauty shops store products for permed hair. wearing natural hair is still strange to many people. i walked into CasaBella store in the Ikeja City Mall, and found amongst other things, quite a number of stylers for natural hair.
Alas, they don't sell oils and the raw, organic butters. oh well, will still patronise on line natural hair supply businesses.

back to what i was saying, saw the Ecostyler gel, the really huge tub. they had run out of the smaller ones. i had read so much about how naturals use it to define their curls and bring out their curl patterns, so it caught my attention. though a bit sceptical, because i still have a tub each of Organics root stimulator  locs and twists gel  and  ic Fantasia thick and shine gel. both did nothing for my hair I'm afraid. did not see any sort of curl definition.
well, i bought the Ecostyler and tried it as soon as i got home. i wasn't patient to wash my hair before using it.
the following day, Sunday, i took out out the two strand twists i had done before. there was definition. especially on the relaxed tips, (remember i am still transitioning, yet to cut off all the relaxed ends).
i got better wist out results than i had gotten all along. got compliments on my hair. (probably a first)

i'll continue to use the Ecostyler gel and look for who will take the ic Fantasia  and organics stimulator gels off me.

in my next post i'll talk about a new discovery, Aloe vera gel.
Till then,
keep smiling, it's the best acessory to wear with any outfit.

cheers