Wear Your Hair Curly Day!!

Since yesterday was wear your hair curly day, let's celebrate!  Actually I kind of forgot til today, but since I'm wearing the same hairstyle as yesterday, here is a (photo) reenactment of curly hair day!!!

 

It's my go to afro, held back by a scarf that I tyed around my head.  I normally try to use some type of gel in an effort to make some curls pop.  But since that don't really work (one day I will have visible curls, waaahhh) I just did the L.O.C. method for moisture.  I used Sta Sof Fro moisturizing spray, my homeade oil mixture, and Beautiful Curls Shea Butter leave in cream.  My hair may be more 'fro than curl, but at least it's soft!

Happy Wear Your Hair Curly Day @ :-P      (the at key is my afro on top of the smiley).

Final Length Check (DAMAGE) and Big Chop...Bring on the 'Fro!

So I was sick to death of dealing with two textures of hair, especially with the relaxed ends being disgustingly DAMAGED.  I waited as long as I could, 7 months post-relaxer (transitioned) and Big Chopped on 7/27/2013.

These are the last photos of my relaxed ends.

This was my hair wet, looking super sad and stringy.  The relaxed ends are so thin, damaged (or gone) that you can clearly see through to my 'fro at the roots.  This is just so pathetic looking I hate to even show these pics (burn them all!) but hopefully it's helpful to someone.

This is my hair dry, luckily looks less sad and pathetic but still DAMAGED.  At least there seems to be a lot of new growth.

Then I parted my hair in the middle, clearly there's no hope in trying to see through to my scalp.

The view looking down onto the part.  Still can't find scalp (bring on the 'fro).

The back of my hair just looks like a rat's nest.  That was my attempt at parting all the way to separate hair in half.  Clearly didn't work.  Freaking RAT'S NEST!!!

I definitely can't take this hair any longer!!!

 

Looking like a troll doll (who remembers those?)

Before I went too crazy, I cut the crappy relaxed ends off!

The main event: DIY Big Chop

Half done with my big chop.  Took about an hour.

Oh yea, shoulda made this my new style.  Others would have totally copied the trend (yeah right!)

"Oh my, my hair is gone!" face.

You can do the math and figure that it took about 2 hours to big chop my full head (because half my head took 1 hour times 2 halves equals a whole...).

There's the hair, on the floor.

Hair from round two of the chop, hadn't cut down far enough and still had some stray straight bits.  (Currently on round 4 or 5, darn those straight bits [shaking fists]!)

Fro shots with conditioner in it.  After my big chop I co-washed my hair.

The day after the big chop:

I rinsed my hair and tried this ecostyler gel that every natural hair guru's always talking about (I used the Olive oil kind).

2 days post big chop:

I did basically the same thing as the day before except for 1 added step.  I rinsed my hair, added coconut oil, and then ecostyler gel (olive oil).  The gunk in my hair is the gel which had not yet dried.

From what I can tell so far, ecostyler gel doesn't necessarily define my curls (my hair mostly just looks afro'd, there's random curls in my hair [that I love] but not many, I'm hoping that this is scab hair and after a while all my hair will grow out like the curly bits) it just tames my 'fro.

I took these photos, then I totally put on a scarf (tied like a headband) and went to work.

So there it is, I now have natural hair!  I can't say that I like my twa (teeny weeny afro) on me (can't wait until it grows big enough for a proper puff), but it's definitely much more tolerable than transitioning, and hopefully I'll be able to keep my natural hair much healthier than I could my relaxed hair.  I'll keep you posted :-)

*Natural since August 2013 (rounded up)

**Relaxer free since January 2013

Product Junkie-ville: CVS

HEY!  I found a CVS with not only a lot of black/curly hair care product, but a lot of NATURAL black/curly hair care products!  There's about half an isle of products, and the isle is long so half of it contains PLENTY.  In addition, there's even an endcap full of natural hair products, YAY!!!

Here are some pictures:

 

and East Liberty CVS:

 ***I'll post more from the downtown CVS later...

These are of the large downtown Pittsburgh and East Liberty CVS locations.  Downtown has the most products and end cap (my guestimate, I didn't take any actual measurements or count each different product) but East Liberty has a lot of stuff too.  I haven't found any other CVS pharmacies with quit as many as these, so all locations aren't equally as product-centric.  But you can usually find some good products in any CVS, just not as big a variety as downtown.

Also, if you sign up for the CVS extracare card and make an online CVS account, they send you coupons to use specifically with the card (which is a free discount card).  So right now they sent me a 30% off entire purchase coupon for use with my card, guess what I'm going to buy?  I'm definitely going downtown to get some natural hair products with my 30% off coupon.

There's some CVS codes at Retailmenot and Dealigg, but they seem to just be for online purchases.  I'm not sure how great of a black/curly hair products selection CVS makes available online, but it's worth a look for 30% off.

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August 14 is Wear Your Hair Curly Day!!! Garnia Fructis Go Curly for a Cause

I just found out that Garnia (gotta love the smell of Fructis) has decided to announce a Wear Your Hair Curly Day (caps because to me it's a holiday :-)  All those who pledge to go curly will make Garnia donate more money.

Simply go to Garnia's site, click on Pledge to Go Curly, and you've helped up Garnia's donation for kids to go to rock camp (is that like Camp Rock?)  

No this is not an ad, I'm not being paid***
I'm personally just happy that someone made a Curly Day because I plan on cutting my relaxed ends off and being naturally curly just in time for this August 14, 2013 Wear Your Hair Curly Day. 

See, sometimes you do find good information from clicking on ads, especially at naturally curly's website.  Here's a link to another video about it from naturally curly.

I wonder if they'll give out free curly hair products or announce a natural hair line on that day?  Here's to hoping!

YAY FOR CURLY DAY!!!

***almost 7 months post relaxer, almost time to big chop...

Deep condition in public without looking crazy

So I was washing my hair and was just about to put in my deep conditioner when I got a text from a friend inviting me out to lunch in an hour.  Ahhh!!!! Was my 1st thought, my second thought was, Ain't nobody got time to fully deep condition, then try to tame my mane (which is what my hair really looks like with all this new growth) and get dressed to go in an hour!

Think think think!  So I thought, if I can deep condition while I'm out and then just wash it out when I get home from lunch that'd be perfect!  Maybe I can wear an open knit hat (because a closed knit hat in the summer is odd) with a shower cap under it and no one will notice.  Furthermore, I can't wear the hat pulled down on my forehead to fully cover all my hair (cuz I'd look weird), I'll need to wear it back some, slouchy style.  So hopefully the conditioner will be clear so no one can tell that that is what's on my exposed hair (which means I can't pile the conditioner on as much as usual).  These were all my thoughts in trying to make public deep conditioning work.

Here was the outcome...

As you can see, I managed to wipe off the white bits of conditioner on the exposed hair, and since the shower cap was clear, it wasn't super obvious unless you tried very hard to see it.  The bottom picture has a flash which is why you can see the shinyness of the cap underneath, but even still, that doesn't look crazy at all. 

So actually I think this is a pretty good idea in warm weather (because in cold weather your hair would freeze).  You are getting things done or having fun while conditioning your hair, and if it's hot outside, that's just like sitting under the dryer with your conditioner!  Good thing I made this hat in many colors, and I will be making more because they are a necessity, especially while transition to natural hair.