New Year, New things

So as you can see, in the pics above. The twists are back in and I have on Red lipstick. Life is good.

So it's a new year and by it being January this is also the anniversary of my last relaxer that was put in my head, almost 7 years ago.

It's crazy to think about the last day I put that relaxer in and started my long hair care journey. I never thought it would be 7 years later and still no relaxer. I am so glad to have made that decision.

So any who, it's a new year and I'm ready for change. To reflect back on my 2015. I have to say it was an interesting year. Lots of self growth and learning. It started out dreadful but finished nicely I would say.

I also finally and officially enrolled in school. Its something I've been wanting to do forever. I've have my blog plus my other blog for years and I always talked about enrolling but life always got in the way. I did go to school back in 2012 but I haven't worked in the field I went to school for. Typical, but that's okay I'm glad I did. I made it a goal to start school this year and so here I am in Spring semester doing homework...well not right now of course but I will be...later. I have to say I'm very happy that I  finally did it. It may not seem like a big deal but I procrastinated for years. YEAAAAAAARRRSSSS. Last year when I turned 26 I just didn't feel happy with where I was at in life and knew I had to make  change. I always knew I wanted to pursue a degree I just needed to push myself to do it. I know If I could go back in time and start school earlier I wouldn't have simply because I wasn't mature enough. I'm ready now and doing what I wanted to do. Anyway, I need to go. I work in about three minutes. My goal this year keep up with my freaking blog!!. Until next time.

The Twists are out. Rambling like always

So It's now September and nearly 3am and I find myself up with a cup of peppermint tea deciding to go ahead and blog in my blog that I forgot about every 8 months.

So my twists are out, yes, finally out. After about three months they were just done for.

I kept them in that long its because I was debating on whether I was going to take them out and put them back in. New ones of course. But I decided nah, And bought some new Camille rose hair products. So I was eager to try those out. I would obviously need my actual hair to test them out.

So I enjoyed the twists and I'm thinking of putting them back in soon. Perhaps I'll give it a month and then I slap those bad boys back in.

Something has changed with me since I got the twists. As cheesy as this sounds I feel less fearful of trying out new do's. I feel almost fearless and ready to take on new things. I have never been able to flat twist,

I vowed that once the twists were out I would learn how to flat twists.

I learned within a few minutes. The hairstyle above is a result of that. After YEARS and I mean YEARS of not being able to do it and giving up I bucked down and learned and was so pleased I put on my new MAC Men Love Mystery Lipstick and started feeling myself.

Anyway...back to the twists. The takedown was quite the hassle. The hair washing and conditioning and detangling was a pain. I took them out slowly taking out maybe three to four twists at a time during the week, so that way, Thursday night since I'm off on Fridays I could wash then and condition this hair of mine.

Detangling...ugh..I don't know if it's because it had been a while or what but I swear the struggle was real...as real as it gets. It just seemed like my hair was trying to twists itself into a million pieces. I re did my twist plenty of times while they were in to keep them fresh but I did notice a small amount of tangling/matting in the back. Which I blame leaving them in for long on. So I know better next time.

Anyway. That is all my ramblings for now. It's late and I should get to bed. Every day I've woken up to blew skies in the morning which are making me soooooooooo freaking happy. I even dreamed about Nick Carter last night...I woke up feeling happy by the blue skies and my crush since I was 8...Yeah...until next time.

And here we have Marley twists! and a long overdue update!

I have been extra terrible with updating my blog. Absolutely, terrible. Just outstandingly terrible.

The last time I updated was December of last freaking year. Ugh.

Anyway, it is now August of 2015 I'm sure the next time I update this thing it will be 2017 and I'll be 85. That math isn't right of course but who cares. Any who...where do I even begin.

Hair related. I've been trying out all kinds of products, being less product junkie and mores just curious buyer and trying out new stuff when I run out.

My last post was about my dry/ product buildup hairline in which I haven't had a problem with since discovering my life months ago now.

I did realize my hair was quite dry last winter, so I began cowashing every week in..January or February. And shampooing once a month with a regular shampoo.

The Shampoo I used being Shea Moisture's...Honey and Manuka oil line. Co washing with As I am Coconut Co wash and a variety of Hair masks by Shea Moisture mostly, my favorite being from the JBCO line

I do have to say so myself, since I've been natural the amount of natural hair products or at least prouducts geared to those of us who are natural have tripled. I remember if I needed a product I would have to order online at curl mart. Everywhere I go now I can find an abundance of products for us Natural ladies and I couldn't be more excited.

So anyway back to dry hair. I started co washing to keep my hair feeling like butter, I realized I wasn't retaining as much length as I would like.

Now don't get me wrong I do not care to have super long locks but I do care if my hair is dry and breaking. I had looked at old photos of myself and realized from 2011 to...well 2015 the beginning of I had not seen much growth.

I know the product buildup obviously caused my hair to take a giant GIANT hit!. So right then and there I had to correct it. 

So coupled with the co washing, every night or every other night I would moisturize and seal

Which brings me to now. I'm still doing that but I also decided to get some Marley twists in my life and boy oh boy.

             

So a few months ago, I had looked into Marley twists but quickly forgot about their entire existence. Fast forward to this summer. I went to Louisiana and saw a relative with these gorgeous twists in. From that moment on I became obsessed. When I got back home, I researching the living daylights out of Marley twists!. At first I was going to buy the hair and then have someone install it but then I came across so many videos where practically all of the girls did them, themselves...so I was like well what the FRENCH!. I realized a salon would charge 150+ to instal them which nobody and most certainly me does not have time for.

So I educated myself from youtube. Watched every video there was until I felt like I could do it.

Marley braid hair brand YA MAN!

Once I got the hair, that night I washed my hair and tried to install them. I failed hardcore donkey butts. HARDCORE!. I almost gave up. I literally questioned my entire existence. 

But after freaking out, almost crying, regretting life. I watched one more video which helped me with the hand coordination. 

I woke up at 9:53am and immediately started my hair. I finished around 8:00pm. My body ached, I officially hated hair but my hair was finished.

I loved it. However, my hair was way too heavy, it was toooooooo LOOONGG!!!. ME working in a hospital running around all day simply could not deal. I used one and two strands for my hair, and finished with three packs.

Then came the trouble.

My ends would not seal, the hair was took long.

So I cut it,

An cut it too blunt which resulted in them not sealing with the boiling hot water method

So I ended up burning the ends which is the short hair pic above. I dealt with it, but hated it. I hated the feeling of the burnt ends, they also snagged at the twists which was a giant pain.

About a week later I washed my hair and wanted to re do a few of the twists. Long story short and five episodes and five hours of Graceland down the drain. I ended up redoing  my entire head with the remaining packs of hair I had. But this time using one strand of hair on each hair. Which resulted in lighter less heavy and bulky twists. I still had quite the challenge sealing my ends, but I was not and I repeat NOT about to burn those ends again. I couldn't enjoy my twists because of those crunchy burnt things!!

So my very first pic, pictured above is my second and final results. I absolutely love the twists and so happy I was able to do them myself and save money and also learning how to to them for the future. I currently am debating on how long I want to keep them in for and if I'll install more after I take these ones out, we'll see. Anyway until next time, it's 1:15am and I have a 72 dollar face mask on my face that should have been off hours ago. Goodnight.

Dry Hairline nightmare!!!!

These have saved my life.

(Shoutout to Bath and Body works 3 wick candles holla)

Let's go back a little, to...2012

I have always had a dry spot on my hairline. I noticed it when I was relaxed oh so many years ago. But never paid much attention to it, a little grease and Boom done.

However that problem persisted. Now lets go to 2012, I did jump back like 8 years, anyway!.

In 2012 I noticed my hairline was super dry, I started to get really annoyed because around May, I noticed the one dry patch that only occupied the right side of my harline had spread to my entire hairline including my temples. I was furious. I tried exfoliating my entire hairline with my face wash which contains salicylic acid, which seemed to help but for some reason after my hair was freshlty washed I could rubbed the only to dry skin forming again. Shea Butter,Coconut oil, Jojoba, various other oily things and balms would not stop my dried up hot mess of a hairline.

This continued until the summer of 2014. I ignored the dry hair line and just accepted it as something I would deal with for the rest of my life. It has gotten so bad it looked like I was in a constant snowstorm.

So one night I was googling as I do and I was googling reasons for a dry hairline and of course it's always the worst outcomes, its a staph infection!, it's eczema!, it's a virus and plenty of other random things. I'm no hypochonriac so I ignored all of that.

I finally found using vaseline aka petrolatum Jelly to lock in moisture could help.

I  bought some and spread a laying over my hair line after washing and BOOM, no more dryness.

About a week later it came back which really made me angry.

So I said maybe it takes a while.

And this is when I made my discovery.

I had been using ecostyler gel every day on my hairline, I was in school at the time and didn't give a crap about my hair. Eco styler ponytail, bun and done.

So one night I washed my hair, sat down on the couch about to apply my deep conditioner when I scratched my head in the back. When I pulled my hand away, underneath  my finger nails was still a bunch of product!. And the light bulb turned on!.

I realized with all the crap I was putting into my hair was causing serious build up. My moisturizing shampoo just wasn't cutting it. It wasn't removing jackcrap!. I realized my hairline was still being coating in the crap and that was most likely the reason for my constant dryness which was basically dryness and product still left on my hair.

I went out the next day and bought some good old Suave, cheap, plentiful and most importantly got the job done.

So what I did was wash my hair twice with the suave and then deep conditioned for about 45 min to and hour because Clarifying shampoo does dry your hair out like Caaaraaaaazyyyy. So I was sure to get some moisture back up in this piece.

After I was done I added my typical moisturizer and applied the vaseline to my hairline and I experienced no dryness. It was officially over. So for months I had a hairline free of anything.

However...Fast forward to now in December and I've noticed my hairline being a little dry however that is from winter air and typical dryness which I can combat.

The worst dryness I ever experienced was in the summer, full of humidity yet hairline dryer than the Sahara.

I am very pleased with finding this super cheap products to help my hairline. My hairline has never looked better,.

Until Next time.

What I've learned about my natural hair...plus my new macbook

I've been natural for about..four years. Since I did a slow transition I don't really remember the date when I became fully relaxer free. So I just say four. Four sounds about right. Anyway, in my journey for healthier hair and trying to become a person who takes care of their hair, I've learned a lot about natural hair. 

When I was fresh off the natural boat I learned  of the evil mineral oil and sulfates and plenty of other chemistry equations and words that were all bad for my hair. I hated chemistry in school, worst subject ever.

I watched countless youtube videos and read plenty of blogs, researching ever single product before I purchased. Watched twist out videos, bantu knots, flat twists...and everything else in between. I had a natural head full of knowledge and felt like I could take on the hair world.

But I couldn't, I learned that my hair wasn't like anyone else's and I would never ever become one of those girls who was good at doing their hair. 

Obviously I learned to take care of my hair and am still nursing my hair to it's healthiest potential but I've learned my hair does not listen to me, my hair always looks it's best, feels it's best 15 seconds before I wash it. I cannot flat twist and have given up trying. I will never be happy with my shrinkage and own it, it will always annoy me. I realized I love the color of my hair, how it looks even darker and shinier when I make the effort to take my time and style it.

I've learned I need patience and don't always have it.

Conditioner is heaven.

My hair truly is unique no matter how many youtube natural hair beauty gurus I watch.

It's been quite a journey and I still feel like I have a long way to go but that's mostly because I feel like I want to reach a point where I can style my hair the way I want and it just works but that may just be wishful thinking.

Overall the best thing I've learned is to just...Do me. Do what works best for my hair, there is no set rules...well maybe a few but for the most part a healthy hair journey is self discovery or whatever else kind of cheesy nonsense.

In other news...I got one of these bad boys

My first laptop ever. A lot of freaking money for a freaking Macbook air but it's all good in the hood.

I currently type on it as we speak.

So that it all, until next time.

I don't get a good bun like that often... sigh

I decided to write about my Texas trip that I took last summer because believe or not next summer will be another trip. 

So last summer in July we ended up back in Texas. I felt like a plane veteran this time around, same airport practically the same seats. This time however it wasnt just me and my dad, my aunt obviously my Dad's sister and her son my cousin tagged along. My hair unfortunately wasn't in the mood to be rocked au natural and to be honest this trip, this time around I wasn't feeling well I had this weird pressure pain in my stomach that had started a few days before and didn't go away until a few days after I left for Texas. Anyway this time around I wasn't broke. I did major...MAJOR shoppage before I went this time around so that made me a very happy camper. So it was a strange experience getting there. I actually got stuck working early that day which pissed me off I needed that whole day to pack on top of that my stomach issues were slowing me down. So I got off work, and went home to pack. I spent the whole day trying to get my things together but I had to rest because my stomach was dying. I eventually finished packing and didn't get done until around 1am I then forced myself to take a shower. It started storming out like crazy which I love but certainly a change from last years humidity filled air I left behind.

So after my shower my stomach still killed but I was exhausted I laid myself down and took Maybe a half hour to fall asleep and when I did eventually sleep it was for about 20 min and my dad was calling saying he would be there soon to get me. I'm like oh crap...fine I'll sleep on the plane.

He showed up I was a mess because of my stomach but I fought through the pain. My dad doesn't live in the city so we drove past Minneapolis all the way to mounds mn which I swear should only have been maybe less than an hour away but took  more than an hour. It was pitch black outside I was a bit delirious running on so little sleep. My stomach also not getting any better. Eventually we made it after a long journey out of the city into the boondocks all I remember seeing was a boatload of lakes..guess Minnesota earned that title after all.  We waited maybe an half hour for my aunt to show up, when they did I hopped in the backseat trying to stay sane with my cousin being a 15 year old boy constantly jabbering about whatever it is they jabber about. 

As we got closer to the airport the sky started getting lighter which made me kind of mad, I wanted to sleep and darkness means sleep!. 

Anyway got throught security and about am hour of nonsense we were on the plane, I tried to go to sleep I was stuck in the middle between my dad and some random lady. So that killed that plus my irritating stomach ache.

 So eventually we arrived in Dallas but spent the next three hours driving to a smaller town through the rain. The rest of my story isn't even remotely interesting, we ate plenty and eventually got to the reunion and of course mountains of food were presented to us. We had a few activities, put on talent shows, all in all it was fun. I got some really great sleep out of it. I missed my cats which usually doesn't happen, how evil do I sound. 

Anyway the trip went by very fast and we once again found ourselves back at the airport sitting in our identical place from the previous two years. So it was a fun time  however my stomach did prevent me from enjoying myself 100%. so I can only hope when we return next summer I will be much better. I made two personal goals for myself  to do before I return one has been accomplished the other working on it. So I'm proud. Anyway again,  I started writing this post in June and it's now September. Geez louise procrastinating is no good.  but it's late and work tomorrow. Summer is winding down I am not pleased but I do emit fall, ugh until next time.

A long overdue update.

So holy crap...it's been what, two years since my last post. Out of the blue I felt in the mood to revisit my blog and possibly start blogging again as an outlet for my thoughts whether natural hair related or not.

Where do I even start.  I'm still natural of course and still a natural hair styling newbie, I believe I won't have mastered my hair until I'm 65. I have however relaxed my product junkyism. I hardly research a product to death now before buying it because I've learned that I truly have to figure out what works best for me, I just look at ingredients and boom done.

My hair most recently.

My hair basically is...there I haven't realtime gotten the chance to experiment like I want with it do to life getting in the way. Which brings me to my life update. I believe the last time I wrote I was literally just starting school. I'm not even sure if I wrote about my internship, but anyway finished with that and working in a hospital now so that's pretty cool and stressful. I'm on the track to saving money for a car, I actually found a car I wanted but the payments were ridiculously high so I said screw that! And decided to take some more time saving. I've been at the hospital for exactly a year a few days ago so I would love to go back to school for something art related. Still undecided at the freshly turned age of 25. Yeah I'm old. I started this whole blog my original one to be exact when I was 19...oh boy. 

My hair  being frizzeld to pieces.

 My life lately has consisted of going to work everyday, babysitting and spending most of my weekends I have off out with...a guy shhhh whoaaa!! Yes. My dating life has been in overdrive the last couple of months. I'm just having fun if that's what you want to call it.

I had meant to blog about my second Texas trip which occured last summer. I always enjoyed writing and reading about my trips to wherever. I can relive the moments.

So that so far is my life update I hope I can get back into the blogging and stay consistent this time. Until next time...or my next blog when write about Texas.