Hair Shears and Trimming Ends for Growth

Hey Again. No the Braiding video isn’t up…I have to find a suitable camera to film it. I’m going to keep bringing it up, so that you all know that I haven’t forgot…and that it’s coming.

Anyway…

ATTENTION PLEASE

I HAVE NEW HAIR SHEARS!!!

Oh my goodness am I super excited for this! And why? Why did you buy the shears? I’lll get to that.

Utopia Care 5.5″ Hair Shears
http://www.amazon.com

Quick healthy hair lesson:

What some of us may or may not know is that split ends are detrimental to hair growth. Split ends are a sign of damaged hair. This is caused by things as simple as daily hair styling, over-processing your hair with chemicals such as bleaching, or putting significantly high levels of heat on your hair strands.

This is why you’d hear hair dressers say things like: “If you cut your hair, it’ll grow.” Which in theory is true but logistically doesn’t make sense. Your hair grows from your scalp, not your ends. So obviously cutting off your ends doesn’t make your hair look longer, it’ll look shorter!  Huh? So what the hell do they mean then???

Since your ends are damaged, that split in your hair will travel up the hair shaft, making it look weak and thin as it’s breaking off your hair. This is part of what you see in your hair brush and combs when your hair sheds.  If you don’t cut them off, your hair will go through this vicious cycle where it’ll keep growing from the root but break off at the ends. So it grows a little and then breaks a little, grows a little and breaks a little. This gives the illusion that your hair is not growing at all. But it is.  Having them cut off will eliminate the split from traveling up the shaft. SO you’ll retain more length. So when it grows…no breakage at the end because the hair is not splitting.

So back to my shears purchase:
Purchasing these shears is one step closer to ensuring that my hair is retaining length which is why my hair shears so exciting. Because…for the past two years since I’ve been on this hair journey, I have only gotten my hair to a certain length…and it stops. TODAY. Usually when I go back to school. I have no one to trim my hair. And you can’t cut your hair with paper scissors because those aren’t designed to cut the hair shaft properly.  So uhn-uh! So I bought some for myself and I’m super duper excited..because my hair might grow now. I’ve got EVERYTHING I need to keep my hair in good condition through school until I go back home for break. And we’ll see….we’ll see some growth this time. If you read my last post about me not having the right hair care products to make sure my hair is okay you’ll understand my frustrations and the ‘yo-yo-ing’ pattern of my hair growth.

So let’s go! It’s gon’ grow. Uh-huh. Oh yeah. I’m not backing down. No more “Black-girls-hair-doesn’t-grow shit! (That’s a real-life negative stigma that is commonly said about black women’s hair and one that heard throughout my life!) But not today! Mmmhmm. Watch me! My hair gon’ retain some length!
…alright.

Here we go.

I’ll post some pictures of the mini twists I’ve placed into my hair Later.

Until then…

=)

I Bought New Products..!!

I just went to Sally’s Beauty Supply Store and purchased some products for my hair and…I’m totally stoked! Look:

I got the Silk Elements and the Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Masque for free as well as a $5 off coupon for my next purchase. And let me tell you. This was expensive. The total cost for all of this came down to a whopping $53.25 with my Sally Beauty card. The most expensive product here is the Miss Jessie Baby Butter Creme. It’s such a pain in the ass to purchase but I LOVE what it does with my hair when I style it!! Keeps it moisturized and leaves a beautiful sheen and I haven’t found another product that does that with my hair…yet.

I’m still on the hunt for another cheap styler/moisturizing product that works with my hair so I don’t have to kill my wallet with every purchase. But in my experience this product does wonders with my hair. So it’s a good purchase for me. They’re all good purchases for me. If you’re a consistent reader you’d know about my hair products deficiency and you can see why I’m excited.

If you’re newly natural and looking for what products to use in this massive wide deep ocean of product choices: Take every suggestion with a grain of salt. I use to be like you, new and not quite sure which product was right for me. And I wanted my hair to grow and that was only possible if I bought the right products. And money don’t grow on trees. So! I did intensive research and looked EVERYWHERE to find them.

If I saw a natural hair guru or hair blogger with hair that kind-of-sorta-looked-like-mine-but-not-really-sure using a certain product, I’d buy it. I even got caught up in hair-texture-typing for a while and would go on naturallycurly.com (good site by the way) because they match what kind of products are suitable for your hair type. That was a real hit and miss for me because although my hair texture would rule out tons of products that weren’t suitable for my hair, hair texture isn’t a COMPLETE indicator as to what products are good (or bad) for your hair.  I’d even buy products that had the most consensus amongst tutorials and my favorite naturalistas. Wouldn’t work for my hair.  (By the way anyone want my Eco-Styler Olive Oil Gel? It’s still sitting there).

So I’ll let you know how my new hair products works out for me! And tell me if you ever were a product junkie or how many trial and errors you had until you find the right product. Comment below!

Until next time guys!

~P.S. I haven’t forgotten about the braiding video…I’m still working on getting a camera. It’s coming! I’ll surprise ya 😉

The Struggle of Being Natural and a College student.

Hey guys!

DON’T YELL AT ME!! I didn’t forget.

I’m still working on the Conrow Braiding video! Yeah I know It’s been a while but I promise, it’s coming up next! Literally. The next post will be the link to that video I promise. *pointing at you through the screen* You’re hold me to that.

However, in the mean time, Can I vent about how difficult it is to be natural with a low maintenance college budget???

It never made sense to me  in high school. I didn’t fully understand.

How is it that college kids are broke all the time? Well…

1) YOU are the supplier of ALL of your finances.

Unless you have a job…you ain’t getting no money from your ‘rents because all of your parent’s money is going to that 30K+ tuition. So when you don’t got it, and they don’t either. (Unless your parents can still afford to give you money here and there, that’s a plus…)

2) Everything seems more expensive at stores.

Depending on where you go, you can find stuff for cheaper prices. But I go to school up in the sticks, where book and convenience stores are far and if you don’t have a four-wheel vehicle, you have to pay extra shipping prices to get the things you want. (Amazon & E-bay have become my best friends)

3) Eating Out.

You’ll get sick of the dining hall food, FAST. And if you want something that doesn’t taste like pig slop at the troth, you’ll splurge a little here and there for some real food.

4) You’re still a student.

You have classes, you need sleep, you have to study, you have to read, you need YOU time whether it’s kicking back with your friends or simply just being alone watching netflix. With all those hours being spent, it’d be nearly impossible to work under 40 hours a week without seriously sacrificing some self-love and care.
With all these money sucking situations, that leaves a small window of being able to afford natural hair products. Let alone (doing your hair) And for me, this continuous state of being broke has put a serious detriment towards my natural hair journey. I can’t buy the products that I need and that are (most importantly) good for my hair.

So my hair length has fluctuated often and continuously keeps stopping right at the nape of my neck. So, last year I did a huge trim:

Hair Before Cut on May 21st

My Cut:
2-3 Inches Off!

And I finally got myself almost back to the same point I had before the cut.
Take a look at the ‘over-the-years- photos:

Around December 22, 2013

Cut on June 27th 2014

11 months later: May 20th 2015

I go through this vicious pattern. When summer time rolls around, I run out of products to use.  Then I don’t have any of the ones I know are good for my hair. And we all know: there’s good products and bad ones! I also…as many of us do…loose patience. It gets dry over a period of time and it becomes tough to comb and then I don’t have any products to use…so then it spirals into a huge mess!

My hair ( and I have come to terms with this)…grows at a very slow pace. About 2-3 inches a year maybe. (that’s a really wild and off guess…I’ve never measured). OR maybe it doesn’t! Maybe that’s all I can retain because my routine is constantly changing!! And for us afro-textured ladies who are trying to grow our hair…every little thing counts! You stop detangling. You stop wearing your satin cap at night you switch your products up too often or use too many….all plays into our hair looking short and like it’s never growing.

Because of the constant struggle of not having the right hair products and being too broke to buy any, I am always and forever just out of moisturizer…or out of this and out of that. And I switch to different products that I’ve had lying around due to my trial and error stage.

And let me say something that not everyone understands, (that I’m STILL trying to understand) Afro-textured hair is NOT like any kind of hair. You can’t be rough. It’ll break off our hair. You can’t use a blow dryer everyday. It’ll break off our hair. You can’t leave it tangled, un-moisturized, and not protect it at night. (Unless you want crazy knots). You can’t constantly roam your fingers through it every ten seconds. That can break it off too. It needs low manipulation if you’re trying to grow it out.
It’s time to understand that we won’t see our hair grow AT ALL unless we are consistent in our good hair practices. Because our hair texture and makeup constitutes the most delicate, tender-loving, care to see proper growth.
Now hold on, before you go crazy here, I’m not saying one day of not caring for your hair will ruin everything you’ve ever worked for. Or you can’t flaunt or enjoy your hair. No no. Relax.  Just be cautious (unlike me) One day of bad hair care habits can turn into 2 days, then 3 days, then 4…and then…well–you get the gist.

I’m trying to maintain a consistent wash day routine that still fluctuates around my schedule but at least it’s still gets washed regularly. I’m working a lot now…so I plan on buying back some products (and hopefully backups) slowly and surely. So I don’t have to worry about my hair becoming subject to staying in a forever short state.

I may even make a video focusing on Natural hair maintenance in college. Don’t crucify me! I’m hoping I can get that video out too!

Until next time guys!

~Jasmine

Learning How To Cornrow!

Helloooo!!!

The semester’s finally over, but my passion for natural hair (thankfully) is not!

Get This!

I spent some time learning how to Cornrow Braid Hair!

My best friend became certified as a professional makeup-artist about a couple of years ago. One time I was talking her ear off about how much I wanted to learn how to cornrow (because I’m young and have afro-textured hair and it’d probably help me out if I had some braiding skills). I couldn’t exactly hear her when she offered a few mannequin heads because I was so mad she already knew how to cornrow!  So she let me borrow some of her heads (heads…?) that she had from the makeup academy to let me practice.

Let me tell you something…Cornrow braiding is difficult.

Not the basics but, in the natural hair community, if you’ve never learned how to wash or style your hair on your own, you’d feel a little loss as far as doing anything on your hair.

Seventeen years of my life, I’ve been babied. I’ve been a ‘salon baby’ for 6 of those years. Having to deal deal with my coiled roots was someone else’s problem. Even though I’ve been ‘natural’ all my life, learning how to do my hair was as scary as being on an expert skiing course…and you’ve never even touched skis. So I’ve been practicing….a lot.

It’s frustrating when you don’t have anyone to teach you! I’ve had no one except the ‘randoms’ of the internet. As some of you know, most Youtube videos have the tendency to not be all that helpful. They either just start braiding or they have difficulty explaining the technique. There’s one channel on YouTube called ChocolateHairVanillaCare. If you watch that video on cornrow braiding, it does a phenomenal job at clearly explaining cornrowing. It taught me well and I thought: Hey! More than one video of a clear explanation will do some people some good.

So I’ve decided to start some tutorials.

A clear one.

That’ll hopefully benefit someone out there who has NO IDEA how to cornrow.

In my next post I’ll ping back the link for that video! So stay tuned! =)

BlackOut Day

Happy Blackout Day!

What is African Threading?

African Threading is a method used to stretch natural hair without using heat. Since afro-textured hair shrinks when wet, it can also dry in that shrunken state. Drying in in that shrunken state can create tangles and attempting to detangle it with a comb can create breakage!

…And I want my hair to grow.

SO! I washed my hair and wanted to try this hair stretching method. So here is what African Threading method looks like on my natural hair:

African Threading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

African Threading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The way I achieved this look is from taking a hair band and tying it around closest to the root of my hair. Then I loop the thread (I used sewing thread) in between one of the loops of the hair band. I don’t try knotting it because that’ll create difficulty in the take down. then I start going to down the shaft of the hair and then lightly tie it around the end.

The next morning my hair was completely dry and stretched. So this worked! I wouldn’t do it again necessarily because it takes too long! I like to either style my hair for the next morning or have a style I can do very quickly.

However, this is a pretty cool method to dry your afro-textured hair.

Where Did The ‘Hair Journey’ Go? (Where Have You Been?)

Okay! Alright, so I know what you are thinking! Where did I go? Why haven’t I been writing? (And if you weren’t thinking that, I feel the need to explain myself anyway). For those of you who do not know, I am a college student. A range of 30 cups of coffee, irregular sleeping patterns (and lack thereof) painted with the name of “Finals Week” have recently ended and the ocean waves of life started to rock my ship just a bit. However, I survived and I am back at home for the holidays and the semester is completely over. I am back in my element and re-programming my brain to some sort of ‘normalcy’.

Re-programming my brain,

myself,

my mindset,

and most importantly for this blog:

my hair care.

For those of you who read avidly here, my last update on my hair journey has been the installation of the protective style called crochet braids.

Here are some pictures:

Crochet Braids: FInished Look

Crochet Braids: Finished Look

Crochet Braids is a protective style that involves your natural hair braided in cornrows. Once your natural hair is in cornrows, you would need free loose ‘weaving hair’ whether synthetic or human and take strands of hair. You would weave the ‘free hair’ in between the braid. Once the hair is woven in between the braid, you create a knot to secure it around the braid. Repeating these steps all over your head creates a ‘full’ look that imitates a full set of hair.

Since your hair is braided and hidden underneath the other hair, it protects that hair from the elements (dry and cold air, wind, snow). This makes it an effective protective style.

I did this for about a month and since I choose synthetic hair, it started getting old creating a fuzzy worn-out look.

My hair DID GROW!

Check it:

These pictures were early progress. I haven’t taken a picture since I’ve taken out the crochet braids.

However, beforehand, when I got my hair cut I couldn’t tie it back into a bun.
6 months later I can.

Progress!

I just need to be more careful because when things got outta hand this semester, I stopped investing in taking care of my hair just a tad and it started breaking.

I think a protein treatment will do it some good.

I can and will show some pictures that demonstrate the length from when I cut my hair to what it looks like now!

Until next time. So good to be back in the game guys!

Crochet Braids!

This is the protective style. I’ve been wearing since the end of September.

Natural Hair is braided underneath.

Individual strands of hair woven in between braids.

Creating this look!

Where Did I Go?

Hello again! I disappeared off because I had tons of stuff to do for school. However I’m back and back with a new look!

I have to show you the difference the mini twists made on my hair and the NEW protective style I’m doing right now! *Gasp*.

Maintenance, Upkeep, growth!!

And any other interesting African American Hair “Dynamics” that comes to the minds.

Thank you guys so much for reading!

Until Next time!

Do the Mini Twist!

Here are pictures on how I’ve been wearing my mini-twists for the past couple of weeks. I’ll talk about  how I maintain them, wash them, and set them up for bed!

Look at That Texture!!

Twistin’ with the music.

Look at them twist-tangle together

Live.Love.Laugh!!
=D

I’m starting to really enjoy them. I didn’t think  would. =D
I’ll get into detail about how I’ve been maintaining them in the next post!