Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Curly Baby Hair Care



Hi Everyone,

So, that's my nephew above (isn't he so cute!). He's 1 now. In that pic, he was just about 3 months old. He's got super curly and beautiful hair.
So, I was thinking and I decided to make a post on natural hair care for curly babies.
Okay! So, here it goes:

  1. Shampoo is a no-no: Shampoos, especially sulfate containing shampoos are an absolute no for curly babies. These shampoos dry out the hair and scalp and strip them of their nutrients. If you must find a way to clean your baby's hair and scalp, co-wash or use a sulfate-free shampoo. Also, it is best to opt for a shampoo or conditioner that doesn't contain chemicals (or a large amount of chemicals). Recommended sulfate-free shampoos for babies:  BeeMine Botanical Shampoo, Curls: It's a Curl: Peek-A-Boo Tearless Baby Shampoo, BurtBees Baby Bee Shampoo & Wash.
  2. Don't be a product junkie with your baby's hair: Putting so many products on your baby's hair might cause an irritation which will make the baby uncomfortable (and the baby will let you know he/she is uncomfortable....). Try out a few products (over a period of months), and it's best to ensure that they are 100% natural or organic.
  3. Keep the Vaseline, Pertroleum Jelly and Baby Oil (mineral oil) away: These prevent the scalp from breathing and might lead to a stunted hair growth in the long run. They are had to wash out and might cause some serious build up.
  4. Don't scratch at the scalp or pull at the hair while manipulating: This will cause the baby a whole lot of discomfort and most likely will hurt the baby's scalp and do some other things that I'm not sure about (damage the follicles or something like that).
  5. Avoid tight hairstyles (this applies to toddlers too (all these apply to toddlers too)): I have had a problem with some Nigerian mums who believe that when their kid's hair's not growing, they should braid or thread the child's hair really tight to pull out the hair "that is staying in the child's head and not coming out." Little do they know that they are causing a whole lot of damage. I have seen little kids with something like traction alopecia. Why?
  6. Opt for finger detangling: It is better to finger detangle than detangle with a comb or brush.
  7. Moisturise: Make a hair spritz with water and coconut oil (or fav. condish) or anything you want and spritz this lightly on your baby's hair or onto your hands then massage into your baby's hair for moisture and to promote growth.
  8. Never show your annoyance no matter what to your child's hair when it seems to not be coorporating with you: If you show your annoyance, you might give the child the wrong impression about his/her hair. Kid's and baby's notice things. They're smarter than we think.
  9. DO YOUR RESEARCH!

I hope this can help somebody!
~Sammy


p.s if you have anything to add, please fill free to do so in the comments below and I might add it to this post.. :)

p.p.s if you're a curly mum willing to host a Curly Baby Hair Section on this blog, please write to me at 'SammySingally@gmail.com.' :)

I'm Tired.....

*sigh*

I'm getting bored and tired with my hair. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely still love my hair, but I've been so stressed out and sleep deprived. This last year of HS has been horrid. So much homework, so much studying to do, I'm up till midnight, 1am or 2am doing homework....on Friday night, sometimes, I forget to DC and when I remember, whip up my DC and get it into my hair, it's some odd hour of the morning and I've got to be up to study early the next day. *sigh*
I cut my hair last week. I got fed up with the single-strand knots and few spilts and my stylist....she won't  cut my hair. So, I was like, "I've had enough!" I washed my hair at night on Sat (I usually wash in the morning, but I forgot to DC and I was so busy). After the wash, I was like, "it has got to go!" and cut off a bit of my hair (less than an inch, though). My hair feels much better now.
I'm worried about dry scalp and my hair breaking and stuff and my length not really showing, I'm worried that I won't reach my goal or anything near it by June so, I've started this new thing of wearing in flat braids and twists (flat braids till hair lifts off the scalp then twists to the end) and keeping them in for as long as possible, but I feel like washing my hair! I have done a light co-wash, but still.... By the way, I keep my hair looking neat when there are flyaways by getting some BeeMine BeeHold Curly Butter onto my hair then tying a scarf down on it and sleeping with it. By the next morning, my hair looks as good as new.
I don't have the time to moisturise daily and stuff and I can't seem to find a good spray bottle anywhere so it's not like I can make some moisturising spritz or whatever. I can try finding a spray bottle again no matter how tiny, I don't know, if I have the time, whip up something and put in it and leave in my locker at school and on my table at home.
I just remembered that I made a batch of rosemary extract and oil over a month ago.....x_X (don't worry, it doesn't go bad quickly).

I'm not going to go back to relaxing or texturising my hair, but I'm just tired and stressed out! (*sigh*)
What should I do?

Friday, January 25, 2013

Considerations....



I'm considering a couple of things....
  1. Changing my regimen (tweaking it a bit)
  2. African Threading (ghana plaiting) for at least two weeks (I would've flat braided part of my hair, though)
  3. Keeping in styles longer and learning to wash better with braids or twists in.
  4. Flat braiding only up to the middle of my head ('cause the back feels a bit thinner than everywhere else so, I want to give it some rest and let it thicken up and grow out)
  5. Going back to being a mixtress - partially
  6. Creating a new signature style
  7. Getting some 'certain' hair things
  8. Creating a hair shopping list for myself so I have everything set for Sept. when I won't be living with my fam anymore.

Keeping styles longer and the African threading are at the top of my last. I guess they'll help me with my growth challenge.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

My Hair Story 2.0

Incase you don't remember, here's my hair story from last year:

I'll start by saying, my mum has never known how to take care of hair, I’m not talking bout just natural hair, I’m talking about all hair types. My mum has naturally curly hair, but ever since, like, well…err….for over 19 years, my mum has had relaxed hair, she gets perms and all that because she doesn’t know how to work with curly hair. Okay! so she married my dad and then my brother was born then some years later, I was born. My bro and I weren’t born with hair manuals and like we both had curly hair so…you can guess. My dad always makes my bro cut his hair so low that it’s hard to guess that it’s curly, because my dad thinks his hair is unruly. When my bro moved out, he grew his hair out and like had a HUGE mass of curls, when he sat in a car, his hair was practically touching the top of the car. So, my dad made him cut it all off. My bro doesn’t know how to take care of his hair, I might add, but still… Okay! so me, I had natural curls till I was….err…7? My parents had always complained about it, my grandmother (dad’s mum) tried whatever, but they were just doing everything wrong. Washing my hair with (harsh) shampoo often, getting petroleum jelly into my hair, combing from the roots to the ends, pulling at my hair. That combing stuff made all the combs in the house break apart from my dad’s so, I asked my dad to help me detangle my hair once and his comb broke so he asked my mum to take me to a hair salon to get my hair relaxed which she happily did. I must say,then, my hair was well…if I wore a bra then, I’d say bra strap length at the back and the hair at the front ended below my chin.
When I got my hair relaxed, I started suffering from breakage. Yeah, it was easier to get a comb through, though combs still broke (even with relaxer in my hair! My hair’s extremely thick and people just don’t know how to comb it!). So, when I was like 8, I got a BC (big chop) and grew out my natural hair till I was almost 10 then, my parents relaxed it again because they still didn’t know what to do with it. My hair broke till it was like shoulder length (or a lil above) and never grew longer than that because as it grew, it broke. My mum relaxed my hair once a whiff of natural hair showed up at my roots, but when I turned 14 (or a few days before my 14th birthday), I told her that I didn’t want that anymore, I told her that I wanted to transition back to natural. She was like, “you don’t know how difficult that is,” “you’ll give up after a short time,” “your hair is so tough,”  she brought up the prom thingy about how I won’t be able to style my hair easily and what’s not, but read this, if you can style super straight hair, what stops you from finding a way to style curly hair, or even, the curly hair already looks great, so you can choose to or choose not to style. She started complaining and stuff so I told her, “just leave my hair alone, I’ll take care of it by myself,” which I did. While transitioning, I stumbled on a treasurefortots blog and saw pics of a little girl’s hair and her mum talked about how she cared for her daughter’s hair and the products she used. That led me to another site which helped me out too. I kept mental notes from when my natural hair starts growing out again. Then, I stumbled onto tightlycurly.com,  Teri LaFlesh’s website and learnt a lot too. I went through her Ingredients page and started checking the ingredients on products mum made me use (I stopped using them, because she was buying nonsense…. seriously, those products were full of harsh chemicals, I don’t know how I still had hair on my head after using those). Shortly after, I stumbled onto one site that has helped me the most - naturallycurly.com. I have a couple of inches of natural hair now (my hair hand-stretched is a little bellow collar bone length) and some (most) of the relaxed bits have weakened out and fallen out. I'm not getting a big chop or small chop or whatever anytime soon even though it looks kinda weird with the curly bits and then some straight bits. When my hair grows a bit longer, and is about say, somewhere down my back, maybe not mid-back or about that (almost there), then, if I still have relaxed bits, I’ll trim them off.
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 So, my hair's a couple of inches down my back (not midway to BSL yet, though). I love my hair so much right now. I never thought I'll love my hair this much. When I posted the above, I barely had much of my natural hair out. As a matter of fact, I heat damaged the little I had then because I didn't know much about the dangers of heat, I didn't know how to make the two very different textures work together, and the two textures just bugged me (yet, I didn't want to get a big chop).
Till summer, last year, I was a 100% mixtress. I made my own DCs, conditioners, scalp cleansers, tonics, everything! My hair sorta loved all the natural things going on it because I didn't really notice when my hair got this long or as long as it was before the summer.
I'm in my last year of high school right now (yay!) and well, I'm so busy nowadays. I ordered some BeeMine products during the summer, they arrived alright, however, when I was returning to Africa, I had to send them back home (I did a lot of shopping and the BeeMine products made every bag to heavy to get on the plane). I started using the Tresemme Naturals shampoo and condish when I got back. They were pretty good. The shampoo made my hair feel weird though. However, my hair seemed to like the conditioner even though it had ingredients I didn't like going on my hair. In November, I returned to England for a little over a week. I wore my hair in my signature hairstyle everyday and like I was the only person with hair like mine where ever I went then. However, I lost quite a bit of hair from having to braid my hair every night to stretch it then comb it out into an afro then hold it up in a puff. Once I got back to Africa, I went straight back to my weekly regimen of flat braids for at least 5 days every week and I gained some of the length back. I had picked up my BeeMine products and brought them back with me while I was in England in November. My hair loves those product. From the day I got back, I've been using them. I like the sulphate free shampoo and the condish. Some times, I co-wash, but not with the BeeMine condish because it doesn't help clean out my hair as much as I'd like so, I replace the shampoo with the Tresemme Naturals Silicon Free Conditioner then I use the BeeMine conditioner. Those together have made my hair so soft and nice. However, I noticed that I continued to lose hair. So, I tried out a protein treatment and now, most of my hair is staying on my head.

I finally trimmed my hair for the first time in 2 years on Saturday. It seems like my hair's thanking me for that now. As usual, I have my hair in my flat braids. I'm taking them out on Friday, giving my hair some TLC with my homemade avocado DC, washing it out on Saturday then wearing it in my famous puff on Sunday then on Sunday night, I'll be back in my braids.

My hair is a few inches down my back now. My goal is BSL by December, and, well, I'm getting there. :)

It's My Birthday Again





So, it's my birthday again and I'm um...teen years old. I'm OLD! GAAAH! Haha :)

So.... my dad forgot it's my birthday. Here, it's already 6:59pm and he still hasn't remembered.

Anyways, my hair is in it's usual flat braids, but I'm going to give a nice co-wash today (still in the braids) and work some BeeMine Moisturiser into it. I'm going to pamper my hair today.

I guess I need to co-wash twice a week now, cause it's really dusty outside and it's been like that for some time now. Dry, hot and dusty. When it's not like that, it's really humid, but still dusty. My hair needs some TLC if I'm going to reach my goal.

Anyways, I'll talk to you guys later.

Love,
~Sammy

p.s I want to do some African Threading in my hair :)

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

How Ironic? (Something that happened today)

Hey everyone! :)

So.....today, I was in the arts dept. at my school when a girl and I noticed some crafts sticks. She was like, "ooh, these are ice cream sticks," I was like, "no, they're craft sticks," she was like, "no, they're the things that are used for relaxers," and I was like, "no, they're craft sticks" and she was like, "how would you know? You don't even have relaxed hair." Oh my, my, my.....

First of all, the pack with the sticks said, "craft stick," and I have had a relaxer before, many relaxers so I keep wondering why people think I'm so clueless about relaxers. Is it 'cause I'm natural and loving it, right now? :)

I have had many people make comments that seem like I'm the last person anyone should think knows a thing about relaxed hair and having relaxed hair. I've only been natural for two years and two days for crying out loud! I got my first relaxer when I was little (around 8 or 9). I had a relaxer about every 6 months since then till shortly before my 14th birthday. I know what a relaxer is, what it does, how it feels, and......how it smells (a smell I definitely do not miss).

Natural doesn't mean clueless. Relaxed doesn't mean superior. I know so much about hair, I've learned so much about hair that I'm not as clueless about hair types and processed hair as everyone thinks I am before I say a thing.

I still find it really funny though. :)

If you were ever relaxed, has anyone ever said anything to you to make it seem like you don't know a thing about relaxed hair?

Monday, January 14, 2013

2 YEARS NATURAL

YO!

Haha! Oh my days, it's been two years now since I decided I was going and staying natural. I'm so happy!! :)

Wanna know what I'm going to do for my hair this year? Invest in some hair shears! hah. I really need to. i've got to pamper this baby!

Since i started transitioning, my curls have gotten smaller and smaller and my shrinkage is like SO BAD! I have curls that are all type 4s now. They're pretty cool. Some are in spirals, some in s-shapes and some in z-shapes, some even have all the different curl shapes in them. Cool!

My hair feels good and soft and like, I love it. I have got to treat my hair to an Avocado DC soon, though or i might just opt for a palm oil DC, but that's so hard  to wash out. It works wonders, but that washing process is just my problem. I'm also planning on quitting swimming to prevent a drying effect on my hair and I'm trying to be less stressed and to eat and sleep better all for my hair. I'm back on taking vitamins and i might just go back to biotin and stuff, dunno, maybe not now. Y'all still remember  my goal: BSL by June (or as close as possible to BSL. Maybe APL).

I have some good news! My mum's transitioning! She has about 4 months of new growth! She's transitioning with twists (with extension). She's taken down the old ones and gotten new ones installed. She's keeping them in till Feb or Mar, not sure. Here's more good news: if you remember what happened around this time last year, you'll remember that.....my birthday's next Wednesday. Woohoo! and here's a little more good news. Wait for it, wait for it...... SAMMYWITHTHEBIGHAIR IS OFFICIALLY 1 YEAR OLD! How time flies! I didn't even realise!

Thank you all for reading and following my blog. I am really grateful for that. I check my audience stuff and out people from various parts of the USA, the UK, Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, Bahamas, Kenya, India, Germany, etc, are checking out my blog and that makes me smile. SHOUT OUT TO YOU GUYS! *Sammy shouts!* Haha!
I'm just so happy!

Thank you again, everyone!
Love you, guys!
~Samantha


p.s I'm thinking of making a letters to my mum section of this blog. It will totally be controlled by you guys. Y'all will go over to the contacts tab above and send me an email addressed to 'Sammy's Mum' in that email, you will talk about how amazing natural hair is and you'll give her tips and trick on natural hair and hair style idea, both formal and casual, pictures and vids are allowed. All what you send will be put up in that section and if you wish to remain anonymous, that's fine. We need to convince her not to go back to the relaxers.
I was going to write a book. You know, one of those 2 sided books. One side would've been called, 'SammyWithTheBigHair: My journey and the A-Zs of curly hair' and the other side would've been called, 'Stubborn Like My Mother: how to care for your relaxed hair,' Now that mater's going natural, I guess I'll just call that side, "Stubborn Like My Mother Used To Be" :)