My first twistout!

Me being me, I have been getting a little bored with my hair, so I thought I would experiment and try something new. I was sitting on the couch messing with my hair, and I did a couple of sections in two strand twists. Then I thought, well let's get crazy and do my whole head! Because as you know it doesn't get any crazier than a twist out. I'm such a daredevil!

I took a lot of breaks and it took me about two, two and a half hours to finish. Here is a picture of my hair in twists. They turned out pretty big but I think I did an ok job keeping them uniform:


This was done dry, on a two day old wash and go, and I didn't use any additional products on it as I twisted it. I put on my satin bonnet and slept on the twists overnight. The next morning, I took the twists out, using a little Jane Carter Nourish and Shine to separate and fluff. I wasn't too sure at first but I kept working with it and put on a headband and ended up really liking it:



My coworkers were all "your hair is longer!" I didn't want to try to explain the whole stretching thing to them because they wouldn't get it anyway so I just said I did something different with it. Anyway, now I feel confident to try some different things so who knows what I will come up with in the future.

On another note, look how much my hair has grown since I got my highlights last month!

My Denman brush revisited

This morning I pulled out my trusty Denman brush and decided to use it to shingle my hair with the Kinky Curly Curling Custard. Thought I would try something different. I kind of had forgotten about my brush... hahaha.

I washed, conditioned, and applied Knot Today as my leave in. I sectioned my hair in four sections and clipped each section. In the section I was working on, I separated smaller sections, brushed with the Denman, then applied a small amount of KCCC. I repeated this over my entire head.

I used the same amount of product I usually do (maybe even less), and it didn't really take much longer than it usually takes me to do a wash and go. And here are the results:

Cute! Curls are poppin', but the shrinkage is killing me! It blows my mind looking at that picture, that I can pull my hair back into a ponytail.

Anyway, it's almost time for me to get my Carribbean on. I'll post again next week when I return!

Slowly but surely

So I'm still doing my running evening though I have not really given an update. Oops! I just finished Week 3 of the Bridge to 10K. That was a tough one. It actually took me four sessions to finish instead of the planned three sessions.

I am going to start Week 4 on Wednesday, and I am going to TRY and keep it going while I am on vacation later this week. Week 4 consists of a 5 minute warmup walk, run 18 minutes/walk 1 minute, repeating this three times, then a 5 minute cooldown walk. Week 3 was 17 minutes of running, so hopefully I won't have too hard a time with this.

What I haven't been doing is running outside like I should. It's just so hard! My whole body hurt last time I did it a couple of weekends ago. I need to get back on track or I'm not going to be ready for my 5K I have planned next month.

I use Nike+ to track my running, and I made it to the Green Level, which means I have run a total of 154 miles. Go me! To celebrate my accomplishment, I think I might treat myself to a new pair of running shoes. Any excuse to shop! Plus I won't get to the next level until I get to 620 miles. WOW.

Hair/progress pics

Today was deep conditioner and wash day, so I thought I would take some pictures of my hair while it was damp so I could see how it looked before shrinkage. Here is one damp hair shot with some leave in conditioner:

Here is a different view. Please excuse my brows. I am going to get them done today, lol:

Here it is after I've applied my KCCC:

And here is the back:

Shrinkage is something else. You can't tell from the pictures, but my hair is now long enough to pull back into a small ponytail. Definitely long enough to attach a phony pony if I want to go back to that as a protective style. I think I am making great progress! Also, looking at my roots, I think I have gained about a half an inch in length since I got my highlights which was a little less than a month ago. I'll take it!

Finally, when I had my big chop almost three months ago I went out and bought the KCCC. I balked a little at the price, but I am happy to say that I am still on the same jar that I bought three months ago. And I probably have enough to last another month or so. So definitely worth the money in my opinion.

Perfecting my flat twists

I had today off from work so I have been playing around with my hair while I was lazing around on the couch. I really want to get my flat twist technique down, because I want to be able to do this style:

I think I've got it down, I just have to practice more. I would love to be able to do it for when I go on vacation in 9 days, but knowing me, that's not going to happen. I would just love not to have to fool with my hair for a few days. Maybe I can talk one of my friends into doing it for me :-)

Wave Nouveau... really?

This morning at work, in the crowded breakroom, a natural haired coworker looked at my hair and then asked me (loudly) "Hey your hair is really cute. Do you have a wave nouveau on it?" Ummmmm... what? I smiled and shook my head. She then said "Oh a texturizer?" I told her, no it's my natural hair. She looked at me stankly and said "THAT'S your natural hair? What do you do to it to get it like that?" I told her I washed, conditioned, and applied a little styling product. She just looked at me like "Yea whatever bish, if you say so" and went on her way.

What in the world? Do they even still make Wave Nouveau? Apparently so since she thought I had recently put it on my hair. And I wish this was something that happened rarely. Just yesterday another coworker asked me if I had a texturizer. When I told her no, she actually complimented me instead of acting like I was lying, so that wasn't quite so bad. Seriously though, at least once a week, someone asks me these type of questions. Not too long after I did my big chop, another coworker claimed I was not being real with her about what I was doing to my hair, because she tried using Kinky Curly on her hair and it did not yield the same results as it did on my hair. Yes girl, I am holding out on you so your hair won't look like mine. Are we in f^&%ing high school?

Don't get me wrong. I love talking about my hair, and giving advice to anyone that asks me. What I don't appreciate is people implying that I am lying about the state of my hair. Are people that ignorant about hair that they don't realize that different people can have different textures? Mine is curly. Ok, so what? I tell you I am not one to always accuse people of being haters, but a friend told me today, what else could it be? And I don't get it. There is nothing special about my hair. It's just hair! What is there to be jealous of -- especially from another natural as was the case in this morning's situation.

Every time I think we as a people are finally moving forward from all that foolishness with our hair and our skin, someone says something to make me realize that nothing much has changed at all.

Caring for my dyed hair

Because I have made the decision to dye my hair, I know that now I have to give my hair extra TLC. But what kind of TLC, exactly? This is what I have spent this weekend trying to figure out.

One of the main things I have seen is to make sure your hair is super moisturized. This is something that I generally very good about. Every morning I spritz my hair with my moisturizing braid spray, and then I seal with either whipped shea butter, or Jane Carter's Nourish & Shine. I think I will up this to evenings as well, and baggy my hair overnight.

Also, I think I need to be more diligent about deep conditioning. This is something I try and do every weekend, but sometimes if I have a full weekend planned, it just doesn't happen. I made sure I did it yesterday, using ORS Replenishing Conditioner. I applied it last night, baggied my hair, and kept it on overnight. This morning my hair was very soft and felt great. I am going to do this once a week going forward. I am also open to deep conditioner suggestions!

I have read that putting heat on your hair while it is dyed is also risky. I haven't straightened my hair since my big chop, but I still want the option to do so in the future. Since it's not something I do -- or am going to do -- often, I'm not totally writing off straightening yet.