My Hair :)

Hello people!

So, I have taken down my 5 month long protective style. Oh me, oh my! I have never kept a protective style in for that long before!

The shed hair has been pretty crazy. I'm surprised I still have hair on my head! Actually, it's not been that bad for 5 months. I used to get more shed hair than this in a week back when my natural hair journey started.

Anyways, I am blogging from the comfort of my bathroom. I just finished washing my hair and decided to just not leave here while my hair is deep conditioning  because I feel too lazy to. I mean, to leave, I have to open the door, make myself busy in my room, walk back in here.... too much work. Haha! Jokes.

So, what products have I used on my hair this fine day? What are my plans for my hair?
Okay! So, after taking down my crochet braids, I went heavy with the coconut oil and detangled my hair a bit, putting it up in bantu knots as I worked section by section then I donned on two plastic bags and an old T-shirt tied over as a turban as I went down to the kitchen to make my first batch of flaxseed gel EVER and to stuff my face with some fruits too :)

About 2 or so hours later, I went back up to wash my hair. I started off by taking down each bantu knot and giving my hair a really good rinse (by the way, I wash my hair every now and then while protective styling especially because I work out often and sweat when I do). Next, I used some of my BeeMine Botanicals Shampoo on my hair (I divided my hair into 4 sections while doing this) and after rinsing it all out. I possibly would have needed to go over one more time, but instead of using the BeeMine Shampoo, this time, I used the Terressential Mud Wash in the Cool Mint version on my scalp and the Lavender version on my hair itself and let it sit for a few minutes while I took a nice shower and body brushed. After rinding out all this wonderful smelling mud, I worked some of my Shea Moisture Restorative Conditioner into each of the 4 sections, but didn't go heavy with it as I wanted to use some of the Shine Conditioner I got from Midas Natural. So, I used the Restorative Conditioner and then over it, the Shine Conditioner and then donned on a silver Conditioner Cap my mum got for me about a year ago (but I never used till today). And well, here am I, blogging with a silver cap on my head.

Anyways, I'm going to rinse this out any time soon and after that, I will seal in the moisture with some extra virgin coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil or both and maybe some shea butter too and then working in small sections and using my flaxseed gel (ohmigosh! I made flaxseed gel!), I will try to define my curls and I'll totally work some short hair today as it seems like although my hair is past armpit length, my shrinkage is still SO REAL that my shrunken hair is around neck level (yeeeeaah).

So, today will be short hair day and because my friend's wedding is on Saturday, I am probably going to thread my hair to stretch it out and I may or may not rock a twist out or a bantu knot out to the wedding.....or I could rock a braid out. I haven't done that in years.

Anyways, those are my immediate plans for my hair and what I've done with it so far. I am going to get a protective style done again soon (next month), but I will be taking it out in July as I have protective styled A WHOLE LOT for the past two years and I just want to spend more time to my hair and take this glorious birds nest of mine to uni :)

So, that's it for now! Expect more blog posts from me soon. I'll start blogging more frequently.

~Sammy

p.s My tools are my fingers. That's what I've been using to detangle my hair so far. :)

Update on my hair

Picture from De Piramide

Heyo!

Sorry for totally being M.I.A on this blog. I'm here now, so.....UPDATE TIME!

Yeah, so, my hair is actually past APL (ArmPit Length) now. It's not quite ate BSL (Bra-Strap Length) yet. I'm so excited by it's length, though! Eeep!

I am currently stretching out my hair with some African threading which is awesome. I started stretching out after washing out my deep conditioner and showering and then before going to bed, I undid some of the threaded hair, separated it and rethreaded it for that 'super stretched' effect. My hair looks practically straight and like, y'all know I love big curly hair to bits so, I guess I probably will add a bit more texture to it before the New Year's party tomorrow (it's now the 30th in England) by bantu knotting it or something. Maybe I might even try out a new hairstyle.

So, yeah, here's what I've done with my hair post-take down (in case you forgot, I had crochet braids in and I normally would keep them in for about 4 months before I redo them):

• I took down my hair yesterday (day before yesterday) and it like took less than an hour to get all the extensions out and my hair down which was awesome. If you need tips on this, let me know 'cause like it took 30mins, if not less to take down my hair and it usually would take me over an hour to do that.
• I worked some Extra Virgin Olive Oil into my hair as I detangled it using a wide toothed comb straight after taking down my extensions. I still had my spray bottle of coconut oil and water nearby, but I didn't use that because, I experience A LOT of shrinkage when my hair gets wet (like my hair can shrink up to my ears) and, well, it's easier to detangle my hair when it's stretched out although I could easily hand-stretch it while combing or melt the tangles away with the water as my tangles melt away easily. However, I had a little it of dirt in parts of my hair from not washing it out as often as I should've with the extensions in (got way too busy with school and work and stuff) and I didn't want dirty water dripping everywhere.
• I put my hair in random twists, donned on a plastic bag covered by my satin scarf and went to bed. So, basically, I prepooed. I did this for three reasons. 1) I was lazy and didn't want to bother with my hair anymore that night so I decided not to wash it then, 2) My hair takes almost a full 24hrs to dry especially if I decide to wear it in a wash and go (which is rare for me, but....) and 3) I felt that prepooing will help melt away any tangles that might still be in there and make the washing process easier.
• This morning (yesterday morning), I woke up and went straight to my bathroom where I washed my hair with my BeeMine Botanical Shampoo (sulfate-free, 100% natural and organic ingredients) twist section by twist section. This made washing my hair much easier, faster and ensure that every inch of my scalp and hair was clean 'cause as y'all know, some times, people wash their hair and don't wash it properly so there are like a few random parts that have lint in them or something or parts that can make your finger feel sticky or your nail get dirty ("I ain't about that life").
• Next, I conditioned my hair with three different conditioners. Yup! I did. I first used my BeeMine BeeLovely Conditioner followed by some of the VitaNourish conditioner that was sent to me (to review) by Midas Naturals. I worked this in my entire hair and then rinsed it out. Why did I do this? No reason, really. I like MidasNaturals' products and I liked the results I got from them when I initially used them (for the review) so I wanted to use that HOWEVER, I was sent a small bottle of the product and I have a lot of hair so....yeah. With the BeeMine conditioner, I brought a practically empty bottle home with me and I hadn't used that product in a while so I decided to just use it too combined with the MidasNaturals conditioner. Moving on....
• After rinsing out the conditioner combo going on in my hair, I used some of my SheaMoisture Restorative Conditioner to finger detangle, further soften and condition my hair (I just felt that my hair needed some tender loving care). I worked in the conditioner and finger detangled twist section by twist section and then I rinsed it out without taking out the twists to rinse then retwisting. Why? 1) Too much work and 2) I'm not so big on thoroughly rinsing out conditioners from my hair especially when the conditioner contains just natural ingredients.
• After the whole process my hair had undergone so far, I decided to treat it to one of my favourite products and the only deep conditioner I have ever used on my entire head of hair since I went natural (y'all know my and my 100% natural ingredients thing so, yeah, I always made my own deep conditioners prior to trying this one (for the review) and I only used this on my entire head of hair back then because I liked its ingredients list (normally, I'll use <1x1cm section of my hair to try out DCs or products I'm sceptical about)). I used the MidasNaturals Shine Conditioner. I absolutely love this product! Its consistency is on point, its smell is on point and its results are ON POINT. A little goes a long way with this product. I don't have a lot of it left as I got a small jar sent to me (looking forward to purchasing a larger jar of it) and like I've said before, I have a lot of hair so, yeah, I was glad that I could still get awesome results from just using a little of it.
• I left the conditioner in for a little over an hour before rinsing it out. This was because I wasn't in the mood to get back to the bathroom to rinse it out as my head had been feeling weird and I had woken up feeling terrible (I think I had my scarf on a little too tight when I slept or the heat going on up in the plastic bag combined by temperatures rising here while I was asleep and under a thick quilt (aka continental quilt, duvet, doona or comforter) messed up with my body). So, yeah, I got some breakfast (at around 3:11pm), chilled on a teddy bear that's almost my height (and I am much taller than the average height for women here in England), listened to a friend and my cousin play the drums (at first, I couldn't stand it because of how I was feeling and then when I started feeling better, it became more appealing to me), texted a friend and then I went to rinse out the DC and have a proper shower (and change out of the weird clothes I had been in (disappointing combination)).
• After rinsing out the DC, showering and changing into sweatpants and a comfortable top, I began to take down the twist (I forgot to mention, I rinsed out the DC with my hair still being in twists (I applied the DC taking down the twists first, though)) and African thread my hair to stretch it out because like I said before, my hair shrinks A LOT and up to my ears. I'm not a fan of horridly shrunken hair on me, neither was I up for wearing a wash and go or having to detangle my hair again any time soon. So, yeah, I threaded my hair.
• Before heading to bed, I took down the threads individually and separated my hair using just my fingers before rethreading to get my hair from collarbone length to almost APL without being 100% straight.

So, yeah, that's it.

I probably will leave my hair in the threads all tomorrow and in the morning of the day after to avoid manipulating my hair often and to retain this stretch for as long as possible (also, I need to be able to study and not worry about my hair).

I will be reinstalling my crochet braids (with new extensions identical to the old ones) before I head back to the west country (basically, back to college) and my aunt will be reinstalling them for me which is a process that makes me rather nervous haha (the pain!). I probably will go over to her place with my hair threaded to minimise the pain when she combs with a fine toothed comb (don't know why she does that) and does whatever she needs to do to install the extensions.

Anyways, it's really late now.

Gotta sleep.

Adios!

~Sammy

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 :)

My New and Improved Regimen

Hi,

I know I haven't written in a while. I'm actually at school, at the moment, and I've got a couple of things to post, but I'll do those when I get home. I've actually been kinda busy, exams at school, exams and interviews at other schools in different parts of England (and just so you're sure, yes, I wore my natural hair proudly to all of those).

Anyways, here's my new regimen.

1. I take down my hair on Friday.
2. I deep condition every Friday night (overnight) with either coconut oil or a mixture of the BeeMine BeeLovely Daily Conditioner and the BeeMine BeeLoved Hair & Scalp Moisturiser. *Sometimes, I detangle before doing so, other times, I detangle in the shower or just before I hop in.
3. At around noon on Saturday, I wash with the BeeMine Botanical Shampoo (sulfate-free, ofcourse), then I condition with the BeeMine BeeLovely Daily Conditioner. Braid or twist my hair with the conditioner in and shower then rinse it out. *My new trick that minimises shrinkage while washing is to flat braid your hair in two and work  on a section at a time, rebraiding when done with each section.
4. I scrunch my hair up with an old t-shirt
5. I work some BeeMine BeeLoved Hair&Scalp Moisturiser
6. I  rake the BeeMine BeeHold Curly Butter through my hair and flat braid in two or twist or bantu knot, but I prefer to flat braid first then when my hair's about 80-90% dry, I twist or bantu knot till whenever.*Sometimes, I used the WonderCurl Butter than love pudding. I use it how I use the BeeHold Curly Butter. The WonderCurl actually defines curls and styles a bit better, in my opinion, but the BeeHold Curly Butter leaves my hair so soft!
7. I leave my hair in the flat braid, bantu knots, or twists practically all day (sometimes, I do leave them in all day, if I don't have to go out to somewhere important or that I have to dress a certain way to. Please not that I don't bantu knot or twist in an orderly or neat way. I pick whatever section my hand touches and that's it).
8. I slip on a satin casing
9. In the morning, on Sunday, I shower, dress up, pass a stretched out elastic head band over my head down to my neck, then comb my hair out into an afro with a Boots Afro Pick then I pull the head band up to achieve the perfect puff (sometimes, I braid out a section in front as bangs, pull up then undo the braid, comb out and hold off to the side).
10. In the evening, still on Sunday, my mum braids my hair (flat braids) in about 12 or so braids.

 
Detangling Tools

• Boots Shower Comb
• Tangle Teezer
• (Sometimes, I use an afro pick, but usually after the shower comb)
• A paddle brush (always after the tangle teezer or shower comb. I usually use this after the whole washing routine is over)

Hope this was a good post.
I'll talk to you when I get home
~Sammy

p.s Sending interview questions to a curly mum at my school this evening! Her hair's like so GORGEOUS! Interview would be up either tomorrow, on Sunday or next week.

Guess what?

Okay! so it's a quick update!
I finally got them! And they're arriving most likely tomorrow!
Yippee!

Wait! do you know what I'm talking about?
Okay! incase some of you haven't figured it out, it's the BeeMine products I've been wanting and well, we've ordered them (yesterday). We ordered them from BritishCurlies.co.uk (incase you want to know where I got it from). If you live in the UK, you'll get your orders within 24-48 hours. And just so you know, I wasn't asked by anyone to advertise or mention BritishCurlies. I just wanted to let you guys know about it.

I am SO excited!
I'll let you know on the 29th or 30th how they worked out for me.

I should have my extensions down by then.

Anyways, like I heard a kid say, "love you curlies!"
Zbogem!
Talk to y'all later.
~SammyWithTheBigHair


p.s I saw some lady at the mall the other day rocking a FIERCE afro! Oh . my . days ! :)

Hair cut

Okay! So, it didn't happen and I'm pretty upset (so wasn't my fault). My mum spoke with the stylist on the phone and she was supposed to be there to get my hair cut (by the way, she's also the owner of the hair salon). Anyways, we got there and she wasn't there neither was another lady there that I might have let do it instead. There were 2 ladies and the salon owner's sister there. She then told us that her sis had gone down to London for the Olympics. So, I eventually just got my hair put in twists with extensions and I'm having them like this till the end of the summer.
I got to the salon at around 3pm and left at almost 9pm. At some point, 3 people (a lady and 2 guys) were working on my hair at the same time and it still took forever to finish even though one of the guys was SUPER fast! Never seen a guy twist that fast. I've never seen a guy twist, period!
The guy walked in, looked at my hair and started touching it (the lady working on my hair originally had stepped away for a second) I seriously felt like saying something like, "you don't touch a black woman's hair!  But 1. I'm only part black and 2. I was curious to know what this guy was up to. Next thing I knew, he was sectioning out my hair and then he picked up some of the extensions and about a minute later, this guy was twisting my hair perfectly, pain-free and so fast! The lady who was originally working on my hair was fast, yeah, but if I can still make out your fingers, you're not fast enough. Anyways, the twists she did hurt and when I asked her if she could stop making them so tight, she said, "no!" (and she calls herself a pro-braider/twister).
Anyways, totally lovin' my twists (can't wait till my hair's as long as they are lol)
By the way, my twists aren't tiny.




So...I'll talk to you guys later. Maybe when I get my BeeMine products :)
~Sam






p.s I want to stumble into some BritishCurlies members this summer :)