Tiny update and Haul

So an update.

Well I got paid on friday and practically broke on this wintery tuesday. I was tempted by all the Black friday sales, I finally caved in and spent money on much needed hair products. I recently ran out of Aussie moist so I went to Target and decided to tRy Tresemme Naturals. I also sat my butt down at the computer and went to oyinhandmade.com and ordered some Whipped pudding which I ran out of so fast but really enjoyed so I got it again. I wasn't for sure if I wanted to get the Burnt sugar since I didn't want to go too broke because I wanted to buy more stuff that wasn't hair related but after a few days of pondering I gave in, went to curlmart.com and got the Burnt sugar pomade and two products I have been eyeing. Darcy's Botanicals, Madagascar Vanilla styling cream...or something like that and Jessicurl weekly Deep treatment conditioner whatever lol. All products shipped today so I shall review them soon. :).

Hair Length check somewhat

My hair

I don't know why my head looks so small and thin here...anyway lol. I wasn't planning on flat ironing my hair or even posting a pic to do a length check but hey why not. The last pic I took was of my hair after being straight for like two weeks and a real hot mess. So I flat ironed and here we are. My hair has grown, which I was surprised about. I am pleased with the sides of my hair have grown and are down my my chin. I've had issues with those forever it seems lol. 

I've been trying to cut back on flat ironing and not really doing much to my hair. I never flat iron a lot to begin with,I usually wash and leave my hair curly for two weeks and sometimes more, but with the cold weather coming and my hair being dryer than usual I need to add more moisture rather then taking it out. So as for my hair that suffered most from Ponytail and flat iron damage it's still not that great at least to me, so I've decided just to wait at least six months, continue trimming my ends which I plan on doing the next time I wash and just see how that works, If I don't seen any improvement I might just have to get a haircut.

So as for now my hair seems to be doing alright. I went to the store recently and bought some Tresemme Naturals conditioner, since I ran out of my beloved Aussie Moist. I have yet to try it out so I'm hoping when I do it doesn't disappoint. My goals for this month are two

1.Flat Iron less(even less than I do now)

2. Try to stay away from ponytails, they are all I have ever know for like 10 yrs and it's a hard habit to break but I need to.

and

3. Trim my ends, the last time I did was September 28th, So I'm due lol.

Late night blues plus some more rambling!

Well it's 2:30 am and I'm sitting here in a dark living room at my uncles house, trying not to freak out. I'm here dog sitting/watching my 14 yr old cousin while my uncle and his wife are out celebrating his late bday. As much as I think their house is nice, I have a huge problem with staying over night at other people's houses. Last time I was here was around March and I was here for a whole week by myself watching the dog and that was one of the hardest weeks ever lol. I spent almost all night up til 6am because I couldn't sleep. So here I find myself in the same situation. Oh what to do?...granted I'm only here til tomorrow which can't seem to come fast enough, but it's gonna be a long night. I slept fantastic last night for the first time in months but had a rough morning due to my house being filled by children.

So since my last post I bought flexi rods and tried them out. I can't say I loved the results but I will have to try them out some more and master them because so far they've come out only as a frizzy mess. As for the condition of my hair, it's growing. I finally flat ironed it after about two weeks. It was quite dry im guessint due to this cold soon to be winter wonderland weather.  I've run out of my Oyin products which I need to purchase more of. I have been deep conditioning with coconut oil mixed into my conditioner and I have to say it's quite amazing!. Loving it lol. Anyway my tiredness is kicking in but I can guess I won't fall asleep for another three hours:( goodness! lol. Oh well I hope tomorrow comes fast so I can leave and then sit in a move theater drooling over Robert downey Jr.

Flexi Rods,Shrinkage?unevenness,Ranting, gaaaah!!

Rant!

So. It's been quite the week. The whole week I've gotten absolutely no sleep, for some reason sleeping at night has not been happening for me and it's beginning to wear on me. I go to bed,toss and turn and don't fall asleep until almost 4 or 5 in the morning. I took some Midol PM last night despite not having my "monthly gift" to try and make me tired. It kicked in about an hour and a half well into me watching Justin Timberlake on Jimmy Fallon singing Rap songs from each decade.  I eventually made myself into my room. I laid in my bed headphones on trying to finish my Netflix dvd of The Shield. I eventually felt tired enough to turn it off and sleep. Tossed and turned and didn't fall asleep for maybe an hour. Got really hot ,started itching?? and tossed and turned waking up all night. UGHHHHH! I was pissed. Woke up at  noon which is better than One, Since I've been trying to wake up earlier, I hate sleeping the whole day away. Still wasn't good enough though. I need to find a bedtime routine to help me sleep, relying on sleeping pills aren't that great of an option.

Shrinkage?unevenness

You can visit a million natural hair blogs everyday and you can find numerous people posting and saying "Own your shrinkage" or "Love your shrinkage", I'm having a really hard time owning and loving a piece of hair that shrivels all the way up into my brain. That's annoying and stretching my hair constantly is annoying, but that's not even the big issue, the biggest issue I have with my hair as of right now...well for a long time is the fact that the middle part of my hair that was damaged when I was relaxed and still shorter than the rest of my hair. My hair grows longest on the bottom while the sides taking a little longer than the bottom, my bangs grow it seems "normally" and that hair in the middle seems to just sit there. I never went natural to gain length, I couldn't give a flying chicken about long hair, but I do want even hair, I've finally accepted that hair grows at different lengths and sometimes it will always be that way, but the middle part of my head is killing me. I don't know if it's because I've been paying to much attention to my hair lately and focusing on that part of my hair but it seems like it's not growing. I mean I can only really tell when I flat iron but ever time I wash my hair and see that part of my hair I get pissed off. UGHHHHH!!!! again!!!!. I don't know what to do. I don't want to cut my hair just so the bottom can grow longer once again so I'm just trying to nurse that part of my hair and take care of it. Anyway. My hair has been annoying me like crazy this week so I'm sure I'll be normal next week and not so pissed at sections of my hair. I'm just having one of those weeks that we all go through and the best way I figure clearing my head it to write it down to get out of my head to stop thinking about what's going on, on top of my head. So yes... sigh...

I need to stop trippin on gin and juice and relax. But that's easier said than done. I decided to posts picts of my unevenness and hopefully in the next few months post pics again to see if there is any change. I also went to the store and picked up some much needed vitamins which I have to go back and get more tomorrow, those seem to help with hair so maybe I'll have a smile on my face the next time I post pictures.

Flexi Rods

So with my trip to go get vitamins tomorrow I plan on trying out some flexi rods. As a style handicapped person who can't seem to achieve any styles especially with natural hair,I've been you tubing it up lately watching vids of how to put in flexi rods and so far I'm liking what I see. I've been dying for curly big hair forever now...my natural state of hair isn't that big yet and definitely not to my liking See Rant above for information.

So tomorrow I plan on going to target and getting some and trying them out. I  think I will try them out on damp natural hair first then when I eventually flat iron try them out on my hair then. I can only pray that they come out right. I seem to screw up the easiest styles ever and Flexi rods seem super easy and simple but like I said I am style handicapped so I will probably screw them up be pissed that I spent money I could have used for some new jeans from H&M. Ugh!!! I hope I won't screw them up, I will pray, If I can get this style right and it actually looks right, it will make my horrible week seem a whole lot better.

So I guess that is all for now, I'm all ranted out and it's after 2am,  I shall retire to the bedroom to suck at sleeping and a couple of episodes of family guy and a big glass of ice water :).

until next time.

Hair length check

So I decided to start doing length checks because I can never tell when my hair grows and the best way is by photo! hooray!.Anywho, this is my hair, a flat ironed hot mess about to be washed so that explains why is looks...well a mess lol. My biggest problem with my hair is the fact that the bottom part of my hair hair grows faster so my hair is an uneven mess of unevenness. I figured I should cut it but it would just grow out longer than the rest and cutting it would be a waste.

So here we go the first of my length checks. I'm not really looking for length on my natural journey I just want the middle part of my hair to grow out because right now it is so not cool, so I will be patient.

Oh and uh

Look at that crazy cloud! this is right outside my apartment. About two days ago it rained completely sunny out and I caught this pic right before it did.

Ahhh the last of the summer rain. It's already feeling like Fall, I love Fall but I hate Winter, wish I could skip over it!.

Negativity and Natural hair.

Good hair.

That term is a term that I think is completely ignorant.

Growing up all my life I have heard that term good hair. I honesty wish I could say that I grew up in a household where the term"good hair" wasn't used. My mother who was half Native American had hair like chili from TLC, Anada Lewis or Amerie...yes Amerie the most haha.

 Anyway, my mom never told me I had bad hair, in fact I never even heard her mutter the words good hair or bad hair. I don't think she believed there was such a thing. Growing up my hair was always relaxed by my aunt, my mother was quite sick and couldn't really do my hair so my aunt took care of it.

Fast forward to the present. I hear comments from my grandmother who I live with btw that I have bad hair. Just the other day she was telling me about her great grandmother and how she was light skinned but she had hair like mine, she didn't have... "good hair".

I know that people just say when you hear things like that you should just brush it off but when it is your own family it's kinda to brush off what they say. Whether we like it or not what they say we really take to heart since they are the people closest to us.

It hurt me only a little when that was said, because believe me that isn't the first time I've heard it. Does it make me ashamed of my natural hair? Does it make me regret going natural? does it make me want to go back to relaxed? the answer to all of those is a big no. In fact when I hear it I get irritated but then it just fuels my fire to continue on NOT relaxing my hair. It just baffles me that Black people can sit up here and say things like this. It's like you have Black people hair do you think your hair is ugly? do you think God made a mistake when he made our hair? there is not such thing as good hair in that way. Good hair is healthy hair. I wish this term would be destroyed, I hope that future generations can forget the term and never use it. It's so negative and ignorant it's ridiculous that people still believe it. My advice for any of you who have family members, friends or even coworkers that make you feel bad about your hair. Say screw you. The best way to keep up your journey is to look at other women with natural hair and be inspired by them. It's one of the best ways to keep yourself going. 

Natural hair is beautiful hair.

My Routine?

My hair

I wish I could say I have a set routine...I did once:).

So my current regimen is

Once a week or once every two weeks I wash my hair with Aussire moist shampoo or Organix Vanilla silk or Shea Butter Shampoo.

I then condition with Aussie moist conditioner or Herbal Essences Hello Hydration.

Since I don't have a deep conditioner at the moment I just use my reg conditioner as a deep conditioner. Lately I have been leaving my conditioner in overnight. Since I usually wash my hair late at night Leaving it in  helps when you are too tired to wash it out.

Soooooo I put the conditioner in, or should I say load up on it? detangle section by section with a wide tooth comb and then use ouchless binders to put my hair in ponytails...or curly puffs lol. I then ,whether I leave it in overnight or just a half hour I rinse with cold water and then throw in either some infusium23 repairologie or Oyin whipped pudding and Oyin burnt sugar pomade on the edges slap on a headband as you can see in the pic and I'm good to go.

My routine always changes and I'm trying to set one and stick to one because I had one a while ago which I stuck too so yeah...