Monthly Archives: June 2011

Kim Coles’ Grow Out Challenge

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I took the plunge! I kept looking at the blogs on the NaturallyCurly Website for Kim Coles’ Grow Out Challenge and finally decided to join. The challenge “dares you to forgo bad habits during this 6 month quest for BIG, healthy natural hair.” I kept reading the blogs and thinking that my hair was in such bad condition that I couldn’t possibly join. Then I thought about it and realized that that’s exactly what the challenge is about! So I’ll be learning and taking better care of my hair for the next 6 months and forever. My goal is to grow out the rest of my perm with minimal breakage. My hair has already suffered enough.

I wouldn’t say that I wasn’t taking care of my hair, but there’s just so much to learn about natural hair. When you don’t know, you just can’t do any better.

All that to say that I’ll be blogging here and there! So far I’ve been doing separate posts. I’m not sure that it’ll continue that way. I’m taking it one day at a time.

Now to the juicy stuff…

So everyone over there had been talking about this twist and curl, so I finally decided to try it this evening. Not such a great idea to try it in the evening because I’m not sure my hair will dry by the morning. I washed my hair and deep conditioned it with Organic Root Stimulator Olive Oil Conditioner with some added olive oil. I used to do this on my relaxed hair and it worked out so well. I’m not sure I really liked the results on my natural hair. It did look shinier, but it was very tangled. It didn’t give me that soft finish that my Shea Moisture Organic African Black Soap Balancing Conditioner does.

After I rinsed out the conditioner, I two strand twisted it and rolled it on these foam rods. Hopefully I get great results in the morning. If not… TRAGEDY!!!!

This is my 15 months of natural hair. I feel like it should be more, but such is life. You can clearly see the line of demarcation and how thin the permed ends are. Good thing I stopped perming. When I see pics like this, I get tempted to just cut off the permed part.

This pic is my twist and curl.  Tomorrow I’ll post pics of the outcome. I’m hoping for the best. Edit: Memo to myself…  don’t overlap the hair when setting it on the rod. It won’t dry! 

Vacation Hair

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I’ve been vacationing in the Dominican Republic for the past few days. While I usually enjoy my vacations, my hair doesn’t. It usually looks decent on vacations with my wash and go, but when I come back I’m faced with super dry hair and lots of breakage. I don’t know if it’s because of how I handle my hair on vacation, if it’s because my permed hair can’t take all of the washing, sea water and chlorine, or if I don’t use the right products while away.

I usually end up switching hair products when I go away because I don’t want to use any relatively expensive shampoos or conditioners since I’ll be washing my hair daily. This time around, I chose to use Kinky Curly’s Come Clean and Aussie Moist Conditioner. The shampoo I had been using for about a week or two and the conditioner I tested out before I left. I found that it left my hair very moisturized and it was inexpensive so I decided it would be a great pick for daily conditioning.

Surprisingly, I didn’t wear my hair in a curly ponytail for vacation, I stuck with my standard bun, which is really just my hair folded in half. It was less hassle, less product and less time to do.

I just got back last night and couldn’t be bothered with my hair. Today I washed my hair with DevaCurl’s No Poo and conditioned my hair for over an hour with my standard Shea Moisture’s Organic African Black Soap Balancing Conditioner. I have also been using Kinky Curly’s Knot Today regularly. It really makes my hair feel super soft when it’s wet. In addition to that, I use olive oil daily. Here’s my bun.