For the Moms ;)

Written by Emily (aka Bobi) of Bobi Curls

This post is for all the Caucasian mom's who have no idea what to do with their mixed daughters hair. First of all, let's tackle the hair!

Here's a simple step by step hair routine you can follow:

Step 1. Drench hair

Step 2. Gently apply conditioner into the hair and scalp. Massage the scalp to cleanse, rinse and then reapply the conditioner and detangle with a comb or your fingers. Separate the hair in sections and start from the ends to the root when detangling.

Step 3. Rinse hair with cool water and apply a little of that same conditioner again. When you scrunch the hair you should be about to hear that squishy sound the wet hair and product makes.

Step 4. (This step is optional) Apply your styling product and scrunch the hair a little again.

Step 5. Drying: you can let the hair air dry or if you are in a hurry grab a t-shirt that you don't use anymore and scrunch the hair (starting from the ends up).

Tip: Don't do your daughter's hair everyday because it will always be damp and damp hair is not healthy. Try doing it 3-4 times a week.

Secondly, and I believe this is most important, encourage your daughter A LOT about her hair. Don't just put her hair in pigtails or ponytails! Do fun styles with it so she can really see how beautiful her hair is. If she doesn't have any friends with hair like hers show her some blogs like this so, she can see all the different kinds of curly hair and the people that are confident with their hair so she can become more confident too :)

Caring For My Mini Twists.

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Hey!

So, I've had my twists in for a week and a day now and I thought I should just talk about what I'm doing with it.

People tend to neglect their hair once it's in a protective style like this especially when done with extensions. I do not have extensions in. This is because they believe that they don't have to do as much as they would normally do to their hair and as the name says, it's protective.

Mini twists are protective, but in order for them to actually be a good protective style, they have to be properly cared for. They have to be moisturised and it's best for them to be stretched.

I moisturise my twists every morning and evening with my new homemade product (which I love to bits). I'm not putting its recipe up because I plan on selling the product in the near future. I usually use the products on my twists after a shower (with my twists held up) or after running damp hands through my hair. I can use the product without doing any of those though. So, I work it in in a "praying" motion - moving my hands downwards with the twists between my palms. This keeps the hair in a pretty good shape. Remember, moisture is like one of the main keys to healthy hair growth.

I stretched my twists immediately after they were installed because my hair got reverted at the salon. I held all the twists together at the top of my head with a metal-free ponytail holder and secured the sides bobby pins so all my twists are properly stretched. I had my hair up like that till Monday. Now, I take it down at day time and style it in a low ponytail, do twist outs on my twists, do a tuck, roll and pin, et cetera, BUT every night, my hair goes back up to keep in stretched.

Many of us dread wash 'n' goes or simply just wearing our hair out in afros or puffs. Why? Tangles. Due to the elements our hair shrinks and because of the fact that our curls curl up without thinking 'bout the curl beside it, our hair tangles and excessive tangling can lead to huge knots that have to be cut out or simply just breakage. We keep our hair stretched usually to reduce the amount of tangles we get. So, by keeping your twists stretched at all times, you are preventing the hair twisted up from tangling and being a horror to take down.

I haven't washed my twists yet, but I might some day soon. I have washed my hair with twists in (With extensions) before so I'll tell you how I did that 'cause that'll be the same way I'll do it. I lightly braid sections of my twists and secure the ends of the braids with pony tail holders or rubber bands (rubber bands only if I have extensions in that are longer than my hair length). I dilute some shampoo mixed with olive oil and a bit of a conditioner with water in a bottle and shake it all up then get some of it on my fingers and work it on my scalp. I leave it on for about a minute and rinse out thoroughly then get conditioner in my hands and scrunch it into the braids I created. I leave it in for a few minutes then rinse it out. Use an old cotton shirt to scrunch out excess water and leave my hair in the braids till it dries fully (or till it's at least 80% dry). Gotta keep your scalp clean and be able to breath and let out its sebum.

Okay! So, that's it for now. I'll talk more about my twists after I take them down (dunno when that's going to happen).

~Samantha

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.' :)

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. :)

Twists with extensions tips, care and stuff

Hey,

So, I don't know if I told you guys this, but I had a bad experience with those twists with extensions,so, I'm never using extensions again. However, I learnt a couple of things from them.

What was my bad experience?
I lost over an inch of hear in front 'cause of the twists. They suddenly fell out, I took out the extensions that fell out, undid them and voila! my hair was in them. I hand-stretched the hair in front that had been below my lips and they were like nose-length. Not funny. I also lost quite a lot of my nape hair which I had managed to grow out till it had started going down my back I had like just stubble or what left when I hand-stretched it to see its new length.

What type of extensions did you use?
Synthetic ones

Aaaah, must be why. You should've used human hair extensions.
I would never use those

Why?
'Cause the hair....like....where did it come from? Either:
1. The heads of dead people, or
2. Temples (used for sacrifices)

I can't use hair from any of those on mine and like none of us really know where those human hair extensions came from by just looking at the pack-thingies they come in. All we'll see is something like,"Malaysia" or "Thailand," "India,"or something. We won't know that someone died, their hair got scraped off and sold or some person went to a temple for tonsure or something, their hair got shaved off, some person went over to the temple, took the sacrificed hair and sold it.

Oh.... that makes a lot of sense, but quick question: didn't the extensions dry out your hair?
No, they didn't. I was extra careful with taking care of my hair while I still had the extensions in to prevent them from drying out my hair.

So, you knew there was a possibility of them drying out your hair?
Yes, I did. I actually just found out about it a few days before I got the extensions 'cause I was chatting with Chris-Tia Donaldson (founder of ThankGodI'mNatural) and she mentioned it.

Okay! So, please, please, dish on the care, tips, and need to knows. I need to know them.
Here we go, then!

1. Installation: When getting your twists done, make sure your hair and scalp are clean and moisturised and work some combing conditioner into your hair prior to installation. Make sure the twists aren't done too tight especially around the name area and edges. Don't use a lot of extensions on a tiny portion of your hair. If you do, it'll weigh down your hair giving it a reason to fall off. *Ensure you start the twists from your roots and you don't start them by braiding at your roots first. Also, hot water isn't needed and you don't need to trim the hair down the length of the twists after installation. Hot water's not good for your hair and the trim's just going to unevenly cut your hair off.

2. Washing: You don't need to wash your hair or scalp every single week. I washed mine only once and I had my twists in for 2 months. I guess because your scalp isn't as exposed to the air and all the pollution in it, it doesn't get as dirty as fast. Anyways, to wash your hair, all you need is a bottle, some water, some shampoo, some conditioner and some extra virgin olive oil (or whichever oil you prefer). Pour about a teaspoon of shampoo into the bottle, followed by about a tablespoon of conditioner. Add a teaspoon of the oil to it, shake the bottle up a bit then fill up about 3/4 of the bottle with water. Shake it really well till the shamconoil (don't ask why I suddenly made up that word) has totally dissolved. get your hair into about 6 sections and braid each of them securing them at their ends with either hair bands or rubber bands. Wash your scalp well getting some of the washamconoil on your hands and working it into your scalp. Leave the washamconoil in for about 2-5 minutes then thoroughly rinse it out using warm water. In a scrunching motion, squeeze out the water from the braids you made then leave your hair in those braids till it dries or is 70-90% dry before you let it out. Some people might just let it out after washing, but that's just going to get everything, including you, wet.

3. Night Routine: All I'll say is, Satin bonnet or scarf. Remember your hair's still there, it didn't magically disappear when you installed those twists. So, ensure you always sleep with a silk or satin bonnet or scarf on. Also, ensure your hair's held up in at least a loose ponytail before doing so..

4. Care: Every few days or once a week, work some extra virgin olive oil into your scalp and hair (about a 50p coin size in total). Never pull at your hair. Don't fiddle with it much. If it hurts anyways, you take it down. After about 3-4 weeks, take down the hair at the edges and at the napes. Detangle and twist your own hair (alone) and style it whichever way you want with the other twists. If your hair is shorter than the other twists, you hold you hair up then tuck your own hair sorta behind the other twists in a way that it still blends in if you know what I mean. You don't want the hair around those places falling out.

5. Take Down: Below where the ends of your actual hair, turn the twist in the opposite direction of how they were installed or get your finger through it. When you have an opening, gently pull the extensions apart then gently finish up the take down.

6. After Take Down: Get your hands wet work them around sections of your hair at the roots to make sure any possible lint has been dissolved (I didn't have lint, by the way). Detangle your hair starting from the ends with a wide toothed comb (your hair should be sorta damp during this). If you can, run a tangle teezer through it then wash it out how your normally would on a wash day and leave it to air dry whichever way suits you best. For at least a week, do not braid or twist your hair, even if just alone as a hair style. Let your hair and scalp rest, okay?

That's all I have for now.

Wow! That's a long list!
No, not really

I guess. It looks long, but it's pretty simple.
Exactly

So, with this, you are guaranteed healthy, soft hair?
Well, like I always say, what works for one person just might or might not work for another. This worked for me and I hope it works for a lot of other people.

It was nice to talk to you about this.
You too.

I hope all you've said helps someone out, Sammy.
I hope so too, Sammy.

Bye, for now.
You too.

ZBogem
ZBogem.

I'm Back

Hey!

I'm back. Didn't tell y'all, but I was away at a sort of camp thingy for about 3 days. It was fun! We line danced for over an hour at night on Sunday (we did the ELECTRIC SLIDE! :) ).

So, so, let's talk hair!
I rocked my signature style - the puff - every day and oh my days, did I look good! :) I have to say, I did have a bit of an issue with:

1. Shrinkage,
2. Hand In Hair Syndrome (HIHS) <---- not my hand, and
3. Tangles

Shrinkage: It rained during an activity and well, the boys didn't want to give me their shirts (said they were protecting their hair (stubble) and one wiped off some dirt of his hand on his shirt that had been hanging on his belt hole then was like, "oh, I'm using it") and the other girls (mainly the curly haired) had their scarves over their hair to keep the shrinkage to a minimum.

HIHS: Like I said, it was not my hand. People were like, "can I touch your hair?" or their hands just went straight into my hair which led to....

....Tangles: All the hair touching and pulling and shrinkage caused A WHOLE LOTTA TANGLES! Like I couldn't get my fingers through my hair easily (finger combing) or do anything with my hair.

What'd I take with me:

1. A shower comb,
2. An afro pick,
3. A slack head band (for the puff)
4. 2 gorgeous looking head bands (I have on in right now) to hold down the front (actually, to spice things up a bit!) <----- ended up not using them
5. A claw clip (which I also didn't use), and
6. Ouchless Hairbands. (I don't remember using these either)

So, during my first night there, a friend helped me braid up my hair at night to stretch it out a bit. During my second night, my hair had shrunk so bad 'cause it had rained and you know the story, anyways, so that and the hair touching gave me terribly shrunken and tangled hair. All the girls in my room were scared to touch my hair apart from one who's got lovely kinky hair. She sat me down on the floor by her bed and helped detangle my hair and braid it up before I got some sleep. By the next morning, I got some help taking out the braids 'cause we had to be out before 7am. So, when I combed my hair out into an afro and held it up, it was big and curly and gorgeous. People stared at my hair, some were like, "is that actually your hair?" and I was like, "noooooooo," (heavy sarcasm there). People touched my hair, my room mates said that my hair was alive and well, some said the annoying bit, "you've got the second longest hair  here apart from Enem (the kinky haired girl) and we didn't even know that till your hair was pulled. You should TOTALLY get your hair (......wait for it......) relaxed. It'll look so nice!" Oh my days! Anyways, pushing that aside, people L.O.V.E.D my hair! Yesterday, Wendii was like, "I love you hair! I want you hair! and I am going to get your hair!" and then her hands went in my hair! Someone was like, "you should be scared" when they heard that Wendii said she was going to get my hair.

I totally felt like some sort of celebrity. :)

So, yesterday night, I slept with my hair wrapped up in a satin scarf, I was way too tired that I couldn't be bothered with detangling and stretching over night (rained yesterday....). So, today, I mixed up some conditioner (Tresemme Naturals), bottled water and some oils (real lil) and worked the mix into sections of my hair (totally dissolved those tangles. From the comb practically breaking to get through my hair, it just slid through. Then I braided and twisted my hair till I had to head out (didn't wash out the condish I should add). My hair wasn't thoroughly dry, but it was okay when I took down the braids and twists. I got some coconut oil onto my hair, combed it out into an afro then held it up in my signature style before heading out. My hair feels so moisturised!

I love my hair! I love my hair! And Wendii wants my hair! haha :)

I'm glad I'm not getting so many hands in my hair now that I'm home, but I sorta miss all the attention (if you know what I mean). I was like the girl with the gorgeous hair back there and now, at home, my parents don't give a care about my hair!

Haha!

Anyways, the whole camping thing was fun!

A couple of featured posts coming up in a bit,

~Sammy....WITHTHEBIGBEAUTIFULGORGEOUSHAIRTHATWENDIIWANTS!

(I should totally change the name of this blog to that!)

:)