Note to Self…

…if you’re a napturalista, do NOT ever wait longer than two weeks to wash your hair. Not only will your hair be pissed off at your neglect but knotted beyond the usual level of knot tolerance. Luquisha had small knots. Large knots. Knots on top of fucking knots. What a pain in the fucking ass.

I started my hair around 20:15CT last Tuesday night which lemme just say I hate washing my hair during the week. It’s sooooo dern timing consuming as it is but it just seems to take up so much more time on a weekday. But regardless of the time, I neeeeeeeeeeeeded to wash Luquisha so bad. She felt so über nasty and grimy from all the product and sweat buildup. Ugh why did I wait three weeks to wash my damn hair?! Such a stupid idea!

I washed Luquisha with the SheaMoisture Jamaican Black Castor Oil Strengthening, Grow & Restore shampoo. I leave mixed feelings about this shampoo. It cleanses my hair well buuuuuuuuut it feels like stiff and rubbery when I rinse after an intense scratching session. I dunno. I need to figure out how to tweak it a little bit because it costs too damn much to not use the entire bottle. Maybe I’ll add some coconut or olive oil.

Speaking of olive oil, I used it for the first time well intensively on my hair last night. I mixed it with the the ACV rinse as well with the SheaMoisture Coconut & Hibiscus Curl & Style Milk and the Miss Jessie’s Leave In Condish. Oh man Luquisha was so easy to detangle with the olive oil. I definitely recommend adding olive oil to your regimen or even just when you’re detangling your hair. Of course, let me just say, it might not work the same on another naturalista’s hair. For me, being natural takes a lot of trial and error, start, stop and repeat. I’ve yet to find a regimen or method that Luquisha likes for more than four or five months. rotten needy heffa

Anyway… Luquisha is somewhat happy now. I woke up early Thursday morning to moisturize her before getting ready for work. Thank gawd Luquisha still likes everything coconut oil based cuz I’m not quite sure what I’d do without it. It’s like crack for the hair or some shit. I’m thinking about deep conditioning her triflin butt today! I need to cuz it’s a fucking minute but we’ll see how lazy I’m not feeling later. Don’t side eye me you understood exactly what I was saying.

 

Thanks for reading….

 

The Southern Yankee

So I Did a Thing…

Sooooooo as you guys know, this is my second stint at being natural. I started my transition in January 2013 and big chopped for the second time in May 2013. If you go back through my posts between then and now, you’ll notice Luquisha has grown quite a bit. In fact, she’s growing far faster than I ever than I thought she would. Of course, I think a lot of her rapid growth is due to me actually taking care of her and being mindful of what she likes and doesn’t like.

I’ve also stopped being so dern lustful over other people’s luxurious kinky/curly/coily ringlets. Yaaaas I said lustful. During my first attempt at being natural, my biggest downfall was wanting hair like my then co worker. I want big hair that covered my ears in the winter and that I could put up in a bun during the summer. I wanted the soft bouncy curls my baby sister has currently and so many others I saw out and about and on the blogs.

I didn’t realize or shall I say I didn’t want to realize that every natural haired person has a different texture. Seriously, if no two strands of my own hair was the same how could I expect to have hair like the next Napturl? So I promised Luquisha that I wouldn’t get to outta control with the hair envy and that I’d be more patient. And I have uhhh for the most part.

Buuuuuuut then I did a thing. It’s important to mention that I don’t do this ummm thing often nor would I contemplate doing this thing more than maybe twice a year; primarily because of cost. Look at the picture below. See the top right picture labeled “after”? Yeah. That happened two maybe three weeks ago.

My baby sister got married on January 3rd and I wanted to do something different. I also wanted to see exactly how much Luquisha had grown in the last year and months. She’s pretty dern long. At least long by my standards.
The back is right below my collarbone. The sides are almost to the middle of my neck. And my bangs reach my top lip. Yooooo shrinkage is REAL! It amazes me how shrinkage that sounds so durty makes natural hair appear so much shorter than it is in actuality.

For two solid weeks, Luquisha had bounce, flip and moved effortlessly in the wind. Miss May trimmed her into layers which looked nice and defined prior to leaving the salon. But once I left, the wind sorta destroyed the definition. Stupid Texas weather really put a damper on my little hair straightening experiment. It was nasty and/or windy all the way up to the day of the wedding. I wore beanies and hats throughout the two weeks but they didn’t really prevent the moisture from frizzing out my hair.

Anyway for the wedding, lower left picture, I did an up do with a right bang scoop. The scoop was on point… before I left the house. But outside the house, it didn’t stand a chance. I put the remainder of my hair into a faux bun by putting it into a high ponytail then tucked and pinned into the shape of a bun. It was quite cute. I wish I had remembered to take pictures of it tho. It was really really cute. I was so proud of myself for thinking of it because Luquisha wasn’t going to behave if I wore her in a bob. It was just too windy that day. Plus I wasn’t trying to use too much heat on my hair as I didn’t want to have heat damage later.

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So let’s discuss the pros and cons having my hair flat ironed.

Pro: allows for a pretty accurate length check

I get my hair trimmed maybe once a quarter (every three months). In doing these quarterly trims, I am able to see how long she is but she’s not completely laid and she shrinks back up after a day or two. So by having my hair flat ironed, Luquisha lays flatter so I can really see the actual length without any assumptions.

Pro: flip and bounce

If there’s one thing I absolutely loved about having straight hair was the fact that Luquisha had flip and bounce. My hair is soft, light and very airy when it’s straight so I love flipping the ends and having bounce when I walk. Don’t judge me. Luquisha can be very bougie sometimes.

Con: frizzy pointy ends

Ugh! Luquisha was LAID everywhere else but the ends. As soon as I stepped into the moist air, my ends went wild and crazy. It was annoying as fuck. Plus when I’d have on a beanie or hat, my ends would make my neck itchy. You know what I mean. Don’t you? They weren’t as soft or laid as the rest of my hair. This prolly could have been rectified with product that would coat the hair enough to make it heavier but I didn’t want too much buildup.

Con: product placement

So it’s been a good five minutes since I had straight hair. I forgot how to maintain straight hair. The majority of my products are water based and I was afraid the water would cause Luquisha to revert back to curly. So I used mostly oils the week of the wedding. I found some KeriCare oil moisturizer in my product basket as well as apricot oil and the Garnier Fructis Marvelous Oils I bought a few months ago. These worked for a little bit but caused slight buildup.

Con: cost is a muthafucka

I’m sure what I paid is nothing compared to how much some women of any ethnicity and hair type pay to get their hair done. My beautician is employed by JcPenney Salon and is a Master Stylist. So the cost is going to be pretty comparable to getting a relaxer because she shampoo/deep conditioning, blow drying, trim/cut and flat ironing are all separate costs. A regular appointment for me costs around $40 with tip. This appointment was $100 with tip but I knew it was going to cost a lot so is by far not a complaint. But if I wanted to get Luquisha straightened more often it would end up totaling the amount I would spend a year on relaxers which is not an option for my wallet anymore.

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There were some other pros and cons but those mentioned above are what really stood out to me. Despite the cons, I would probably get my hair straighten again because it’s a way for me to see my hair’s true length. Well at least until she gets longer and heavier. Like I said, the shrinkage is so very real and Luquisha looks so much shorter than in reality. The good news is when I deep conditioned my hair the other day my 4c coils came back almost instantly. I couldn’t believe how quickly Luquisha soaked up the water. Cheeky heffa was prolly waiting for me to wash her. Grrr… Anyway stay tuned for an updated regimen post as I had to change how I moisturize Luquisha because of the frigid spastic Texas winter.

Thanks for reading…

The Southern Yankee

Random Babblings From Yesterday

It’s 17:48 and I’m still trying to figure out what to write today. So I’m just going to ramble on until I find a stopping point.

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Webinar Fail

Today, I listened to a webinar about advanced pivot tables. Not worth my time whatsoever. It wasn’t anything I haven’t learned from other people or other more informative webinars. But it was free and at least I add it to the list of training classes I already have in my personnel file.

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Drama at My Sister’s

So without airing all my sister’s dirty laundry, I’m just going to say that I would like to ring my brother in law’s neck. I hate when my other sister tells me stuff about him because honestly, I really like him at one point in time for my sister but ummmm he’s turning out to be a class A misdemeanor by texas law that I don’t need in my life. Look I’m very protective of my sisters. They all know that too. Not only do I act like the oldest but I’m the meanest, angriest and most hostile sister. yeah man i have ABG issues. WHAT? I just hope he gets his act together because if I have to drive to the middle of South Central Podunkville, I swur I’m going to be all kinds of stupid hostile.

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Luquisha Hates Me

I haven’t washed/conditioned or moisturized since Boo and I went to Dallas two weeks ago. There are times when I go longer than I really should without even spritzing water on Luquisha. I went to Target to purchase some shampoo and maybe a deep treatment masque. I really shouldn’t have because I was in Stepford. Stepford dunno shit about ethnic folks much alone they hur. So Luquisha is gon stay pissed off at me until I get home. Hopefully, I have enough product to get me through to Saturday when I can pay more attention to her.

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Christmas Time

This time of year has always been rather hard for me. First of all, I don’t remember any Christmas celebrations from my childhood. I don’t remember a whole lot in general. Bits of pieces of things but definitely not in great detail. I don’t remember if Papa would dress up as Santa Claus. Hmm well perhaps he did but that was when we had Christmas programs at church.

Secondly, I suppose I somewhat boycott Christmas. Well the shopping and the commercialization of Christmas and how people at during Black Friday sales. That baffles me to no end. It baffles me that stored will start putting out their Christmas stuff in July and August before we can even make it to Labor Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Lastly, even though I have Boo, I sometimes feel very lonely at Christmas. I can’t explain it fully without fumbling over my words. I guess what it boils down to is I really just wish I could… Perhaps even if I could….

Forget it this isn’t going to end well.

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A New Wine

I bought a new wine tonight. It’s called Apothic White. I prolly won’t pop the cork until my birthday or the weekend after but I love the Apothic Red. The red is soooo very smooth and rich and goes well with my version of spaghetti. So I’m hoping this will prove to be just as good.

Thanks for letting me babble….

The Southern Yankee

Naptural 101: How To 3 Strand Twist on Natural Hair

I’m keeping it simple today guys. I saw this video on YouTube today and I thought I would share.

Hope it is helpful!

Thanks for reading…

 

The Southern Yankee

Sunday Funday Washday… NOT

So I surprised myself today. I completed wash day in record time. Usually by this point of wash day, I’d still be in my bathroom detangling, moisturizing and twisting my hair. Mind you that’s if I start the process of wash day at a decent hour i.e. noon. If I start any later then I might as well not even begin wash day because I wouldn’t get done until well after 23:30. that’s 11:30PM for you non military or broadcast media types.

But today was different somehow. I did indeed start my wash day routine around 12:30 this afternoon. The Houston Texans offense was playing like they ain’t never played a lick of football before and rather than sitting in the kitchen yelling at the TV I decided to do my hair.

So first, I clarified my hair with apple cider vinegar, distiller water and coconut oil. This helps to get rid of a month’s worth of product build up as well as start the process of moisturizing my hair. Some naturals let the ACV H2O mixture sit on their hair for a few minutes. I can’t get past the smell even though today I noticed the smell wasn’t too incredibly bad.

Next, I deep conditioned my hair with a packet of Creme of Nature Argon Oil Intense Conditioning Treatment. I absolutely love this product. Not only does it make my hair soft and shiny but I love how easy it is to detangle Luquisha with this product. Since I didn’t have a lot left over from the last time I deep conditioned my hair plz don’t ask me when that was I had to get creative because I have an over abundance of thick hair. So to make this product stretch, I added a few drops of Garnier Fructis Marvelous Oils to each palm full of the deep conditioner. Once I finish working the product through my hair and pinned the sections, I put on two plastic shower caps and a bonnet and let the deep conditioner stay on my hair until the middle of the second quarter of the Broncos/Dolphins game.

Next, I thoroughly rinsed out the deep conditioner and began the process of washing my hair. I bought a bottle of SheaMoisture Baby shampoo thinking it might be good for Luquisha since she is at a stage where she is getting tired of the shampoo I’m currently using. Yeah no! It made my hair feel so rough and rubbery. That was a waste of time for Luquisha and I. But it will not go to waste because I’m going to get it to boo’s sister to use on my nephew’s hair. Talk about a head full of soft curls. Thankfully, my Herbal Essences Hello Hydration conditioner reversed the rough rubbery feel caused by the baby shampoo. I had to drown Luquisha in conditioner but at least she didn’t feel like wet rubber anymore.

Okay home stretch! Are you tired yet?! cuz I am!!

So at this point, I’m outta the shower and drying off but I didn’t towel or t-shirt dry my hair. Since my hair is so thick, it tends to dry out faster when I towel or t-shirt dry my hair. Plus I want to be able to work the Miss Jessie’s Leave in Condish through Luquisha easily and quickly because I want my hair to still be fully damp when I layer the SheaMoisture or Carol’s Daughter hair milk for added moisture.

As I said, on a normal wash day occasion I would still be twisting and pinning my twists at this very moment instead of blogging about it. So today, I decided to twist my hair into chunky Bantu knots. Not only did this allow me to get done HOURS faster a whole four hours to be exact but the Bantu knots should stretch my hair out pretty well. Unless it’s still damp when I wake up in the more which then shrinkage that sounds so dirty will take over and there will be nothing I can do but rock a cute fro with a bow.

So there’s my wash day. How did your wash day go my naptural bruhs and sistas?!

Thanks for reading…

The Southern Yankee