This is where all my hair findings/discoveries/experiences will be located!

My Latest Hair Regimen

By AIR | February 6, 2015

Hello everyone!

So probably the most overwhelming/exciting/confusing parts of moving into your natural hair journey is figuring out what your routine should be and what your hair likes. I remember after I decided I was going to go natural I was so overwhelmed with all the information out there on the internet. Everyone would talk about how it was important to develop some kind of routine and how it would be different for everybody, but what does that mean?? I wanted product names, I wanted to know how often people were using what, etc. So I want to make sure that I provide people with some options and some names just to start out with, and maybe you can use that as a starting point. OR…if all else fails, do what I do and head over to the natural hair section and sniff around. When it came down to it, after I saw some of the brands mentioned online by other naturalistas, I made my decisions off of what I thought smelled the best. That seems kind of silly but, it was important to me that I liked how my hair was smelling. Okay! On to the good stuff!

1. Anti-breakage Keratin Oil from Organix, $5.49 at Wal-Mart, but also sold at Target, Walgreens, and most other drug stores.

This wasn’t a part of my hair care routine until the 2nd month, but oh my goodness, I LOVE this stuff! I got my sister to start using it too. It’s from the Organix line, which is one of the more expensive lines sold at drug stores, but their stuff is great so it makes sense! I’ll talk about the line more when I get to my conditioner that I use, but you’ll notice that this spray is of the same line within Organix. Organix has multiple lines of products within their brand, I’ve seen naturalistas use the argan oil of morocco line, coconut milk line, or brazilian keratin therapy line, but again, I based my choice off of smell. Y’all…this stuff smells amazing, almost like perfume. So not only will you be smelling nice, but you’ll be giving your hair an extra Keratin boost. Keratin’s important because it’s a protein that helps define the structure of our hair, and, when hydrolyzed, Keratin has moisturizing properties. So this product is great for making the hair stronger and moisturized (two things your hair needs to not break off, hence, anti-breakage in the product name). I spray this product in my hair after my moisturizing step in the morning, but I know my sister uses it after straightening her hair. I had initially heard about this product from the glamtwinz on YouTube and they would just carry it around and spray it on their hair during the day when they needed a moisture boost. All of these are great options!

2. Coconut oil, $6.98 and up at any grocery or health food store

MY HAIR LOVES COCONUT OIL. If you’ve done any kind of google search looking at natural hair products and things I’m sure you’ve seen a ton of girls saying “I’m in love with the coco” because it’s just. that. good. Coconut oil is like magic. You can eat it or cook with it, use it on your skin, and now I’m telling you to use it on your hair! My hair drinks this stuff up like its nobodies business, and I love smelling like a coconut all of the time. When creating your natural hair regimen it’s not just enough to moisturize, you need something to seal in that moisture, that’s where oils come in. Putting an oil on your hair after moisturizing helps your hair retain that moisture and seals it in by producing an extra oil layer over your strands. There’s scientific evidence that this is true and blackgirllonghair talks about that study here. So I chose coconut oil, but there are many other oils to choose from including almond, sunflower, grapeseed, and jojoba. I use coconut oil as my last step every night after moisturizing. I used to also do it in the day time but I found that my hair seemed greasy, or oily rather, so I moved it to my night routine only so my hair could absorb while I slept.

3. As I Am Double Butter Cream, $25.19 at Sally’s with a Beauty Club card

MOISTURE MOISTURE MOISTURE is so important for getting you hair to a healthy place and making sure it stays there. One of the hardest parts of figuring out my routine was finding a moisturizer that I really felt like my hair liked. I started off with an olive oil spray but that didn’t really feel like it was getting it done to me so I asked my old trichologist and she suggested this product and it’s all I’ve ever used since. I think my hair likes it because it’s of a thicker consistency and my hair is super thick and just drinks up moisture. They have another moisturizer in their line that I haven’t used, but if anyone else has tried both of the two, let me know what you like or don’t like about them. I use this product twice daily as 1 of 2 moisturizing products that I put on my hair.

4. Anti-breakage Keratin Oil Conditioner, $5.74 for 13oz at Wal-Mart, but also sold at Target, Walgreens, and most other drug stores

So within the natural world there’s this thing called co-washing, where you can do a pre-poo before hand, or not, and you just wash your hair with conditioner. Shampoos have drying agents that aren’t the best for natural hair, so many naturalistas use them sparingly. I’ve never done a pre-poo but I wash my hair once a week with this conditioner. It smells exactly like the spray (a.k.a. AMAZING) and I was so shocked how soft my hair was after using it. Like I said earlier, I had heard about the Organix line from some other naturalistas online, but before I bought it at the store I was reading the label (make this a habit when buying your natural hair products! The first ingredient should always be water, and you need to make sure there’s no secret bad stuff that you’re going to be putting on your head) and it said that it had methosulfate in it. All these red flags and bells and whistles went off because I have been trained that all sulfates are bad. So of course, I did a quick google search and apparently a lot of other women had the same concern I did. Apparently, this methosulfate isn’t really a sulfate at all, and has amazing detangling properties that are so mild on the hair that they are often used on babies! Curly Nikki (LOVE her) goes into more detail about that here. Then after using the conditioner for the first time, I was amazed at how detangling it was! This is super important for natural kinky hair that so easily tangles. I fell in love. I was already in love, but that just sealed the deal. So again, I use this once a week for a wash as my shampoo and my conditioner.

5. Cantu Coconut Curling Cream, $5.99 at Sally’s with Beauty Club card, but also sold at Wal-Mart and Walgreens.

So while perusing the web, I saw a lot of people mentioning things about getting something to define your curls. There are so many products that do that, so for the time being I just went with this one (I currently use something else that I LOVE, and I’ll post that in product reviews). As winter in New York rolled around, my moisturizer wasn’t enough to keep my hair’s thirst quenched, so I started adding this in as a second moisturizer and my hair really responded! I’m not sure if I’ll continue to do this as temperatures warm up, but we’ll see. So the product is intended as a curl definer and it really does do that. Every time I put it on I can instantly see my curls become longer and more defined. So as a moisturizer or as a curl definer, this product does its job!

6. Cantu Leave-in Conditioner, $11.69 for one with a pump at Sally’s with a Beauty Club card, or $5.49 for the one shown in the picture at Walgreens.

Deep conditioning is an important part of the natural regimen because it really helps to keep your hair moisturized and give it that extra oomph! The frequency in which you deep condition is up to you, and I’ve heard people do it multiple times a week and some people who only do it once or twice a month. I just deep condition every week after my wash. After I get out of the shower, I put on the deep conditioner and then a shower cap and sit under the dryer for 30-45 minutes, then I rinse out. It’s definitely a bit of a time commitment but it’s an important step in getting your hair to where you want it to be, which is at its healthiest!

7. Mane ‘n Tail Hair Strengthener, $5.49 at Sally’s with Beauty Club card

I’m a little upset with how pricey this is, but it is completely worth it. This is the product that I credit with getting my edges to grow back as quickly as they did. I forget where I heard about this, I’m pretty sure I read about it in Nylon but I went to pick it up and I’ve used it ever since. It’s the first thing I spray on my hair every morning before I begin my moisturizing routine and it does a good job of kind of loosing up my curls that have dried up and gotten packed together over night. In fact, this product is so important to me, I think I’ll do a review on it. So…tbc.

SO TO SUM UP MY HAIR ROUTINE:

MORNING:

1) Mane ‘n Tail hair strengthener

2) As I Am Double Butter Cream

3) Cantu Coconut Curling Cream

4) Organix anti-breakage Keratin oil spray

EVENING:

1) As I Am Double Butter Cream

2) Cantu Coconut Curling Cream

3) Coconut Oil

WASH-DAY (x1 a week):

1) Wash with Organix anti-breakage Keratin conditioner

2) Condition with Organix anti-breakage Keratin conditioner

3) Apply Cantu Leave in Conditioner and add shower cap. Sit under dryer for 30-45 minutes.

I hope y’all find this helpful. Share your routines with me down below!

1 Month Update

By AIR | January 20, 2015

Hi guys!

So my initial plan was to post monthly pictures to show any progress or new growth that I was experiencing and so far I have only done it for the first month after my big chop (whoops). Granted, I’m only two months out, so it’s not like my plan is completely foiled but now it’s protective style season so my hair isn’t really out as often to take pictures. I think what I’m going to do is take pictures after I get my braids out in a week, which will then be almost 3 months post B.C., and then maybe do an odd number series like 5 months out, 7 months out, etc. I also need to be more consistent with how I’m taking the pictures, so I’m going to work on doing that for you guys. SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO..

So for those of you who missed it, or maybe just forgot, you can see what my hair looked like immediately after I took my tracks out as well as immediately after my big chop here. It might be hard for y’all to tell, but I already had a lot of growth after only one month. The sides of my hair had already filled in a lot and the top had grown a bit as well. I plan on eventually writing a post about the big chop experience, but for now I’ll just say that it’s super difficult but so worth it. My hair felt so much better immediately after and it just looked a million times healthier. It’s like I could hear it cheering “hooray!” and thanking me for getting rid of all the dead stuff that had been holding it back. The big chop was the step I needed to take to prepare my hair for all the amazing, new TLC that was coming its way, and it really responded as a result.

The first month was also like a trial period for me to see if I enjoyed the products that I was using and if I thought the regimen I had created was working. I can now say that for the most part, I only made a couple of changes (It’s in my nature to be a product junkie, but I’m too scared that I’m going to mess up my hard work to play around too much yet!!) and I really found something that worked for me! That regimen and the products I used in the first month are explained here.

I must also say that I had a couple of rough patches, where I would have moments of insecurity or doubt in what I was doing or feelings of being unattractive or boyish. I found though, that after reminding myself that society’s view of what’s “beautiful” is not necessarily true and that I had my own different, original kind of beauty, my negative feelings would subside a little. I also really relied heavily on the support of my loved ones and the fact that the people who really cared about me would support me and treat me the same, no matter what my hair looked like. I feel like all of these things I’m saying are so cliché, but it’s so easy to forget them. Just saying these statements to myself out loud was a good and necessary reminder that I was on a beautiful journey of self-discovery and I wasn’t alone!

Overall, the first month was incredibly exciting for me and I was embracing all of the new challenges and experiences that accompanied being natural for the first time in a really long time. It was crazy to see how much had changed since I was last natural (which was years ago, when I was like..12) and see all of the new developments and cool, yummy smelling products! It was also amazing to really delve into the natural community that I had no idea existed and find solidarity in beautiful women going through exactly what I was going through.

What were some of your biggest struggles in your first month? How did you over come these struggles? Comment below, I’d love to hear about it!

My Detailed Hair Story

By AIR | January 18, 2015

I’m not really sure where to begin because as I’m sure many females (especially those of color) know, a girl’s relationship with her hair is something that’s very intimate and complex; but, I guess I’ll begin with what I consider to be MY beginning. Since I was little, I’ve had this fascination with big, bold hair. I’m pretty sure it began with my mom, a gorgeous half-black and half-japanese woman with beautiful loose curls that at one time went all the way down to her waist. She’s chopped them off since then (I always tell her how much this still breaks my heart) and now rocks a really cute shoulder length cut that she can easily put up in a pony-tail, which is pretty much her one requirement for any hair cut that she gets, she has to be able to have a pony-tail. My older sister has hair pretty similar to my mom’s, except her curls are a tiny bit tighter. I was constantly comparing my kinky curls to her coils and frequently made it a point to say that she was so lucky that she got our mother’s hair, the “good” hair, while I was stuck with my thick, coarse less-defined locks.

I always hated getting my hair done because it was such a long, painful process and my mom pretty much felt the same way which didn’t help the situation at all. So the day of hair washing became something that was avoided and fought until my mom suggested I get braids, which were lower maintenance. I played competitive soccer in Texas which meant a LOT of sweat and salt going into my hair that wasn’t being washed as frequently as it should’ve been, which led to breakage. I turned 13 and started getting perms instead, which lead to even further breakage. My senior year of high school I began to see a trichologist who helped me nurse my hair back to health. I started seeing a lot of growth and progress while using a keratin treatment instead of a perm, and for the first time in a long time I was really hopeful. My trichologist also introduced me to wearing wigs as a protective style so I began to incorporate that into my routine.

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My freshman year of college, I went to a salon claiming they did the same treatment I had been receiving at home, but I could tell the woman didn’t know what she was doing. It wasn’t long after this treatment that my hair just started falling out, which, ladies I must say if this has never happened to you has to be one of the most horrifying/demoralizing experiences. In the midst of this scarring period, I was training for an acting, modeling, and talent competition, which introduced me to the wonderful world of weaves.

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Guys. I am not over exaggerating when I tell you that I. Was. In. Heaven. Weaves were so easy to maintain and allowed me all the versatility I had dreamed of having that my natural hair didn’t allow me to have (or so I thought at the time). AND. The best part about it was my hair was growing underneath! On one of my appointments my stylist suggested doing a half sew-in instead of a full, which meant relaxing a little bit of my hair and leaving it out.

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This became my sew-in of choice until I realized that my hair was starting to break off and thin from the perm. After seeing that I was balding on the sides of my head, I went back to full sew-in’s with lace closures so I could still achieve the look that I had so fallen in love with.

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It came time for my boyfriend to graduate and I couldn’t get home to my favorite stylist so I scoured the internet for a reputable salon that could sew-in some extra tracks for me at the last-minute and I found one that appeared to be pretty-well known and had even been mentioned on TV! I kept going back and forth on whether I should go and finally I decided I should just do it. Reflecting, everything after this point is almost humorous because it went so terribly wrong. The salon was in Brooklyn, so by the time I drove there I hit a TON of traffic, realized I didn’t have a charger for my dying phone that I was using for GPS, AND realized I was missing my boyfriend’s pre-graduation BBQ (how many signs from God did I need?!). After some frustrated tears, I pulled it together and was like, “you know what? This sucks but you’re going to look amazing and feel so much better after you get your hair done.” I get to the salon and I am put on a waiting list and wait for much longer than I was expecting. Once it’s finally my turn I receive horrible service…the girl doing my hair leaves in the middle of taking out my braids to have a smoke break, has to wash my hair twice because she didn’t get out all of the product she put in the first time, and braids my hair in a way that leaves a huge bump where my tracks won’t lay flat. I had arrived at the salon at about 5:30 and by the time I left it was almost midnight and I was furious, tired, upset, and felt sick. BUT. My tracks were in.

Fast-forward to a couple of days before my birthday and an entire Summer and Fall’s worth of suffering through having this sew-in grow increasingly worse in appearance over time..I had finally scheduled an appointment with my stylist to just…fix everything. It had gotten to the point where I either wore a hat or headband every day to cover up the mess on top of my head and I was SO looking forward to having some TLC from someone I trusted.

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From the first day of my birthday month leading up to these couple of days before my birthday I told myself that I was going to cut out my tracks the next day because they looked so horrible. So on October 11, 2014 I did just that. I could feel my head take a deep breath of fresh air and I’m pretty sure I heard it sigh with happiness and relief. It felt SO good to have a clear head.

I started talking to the Maverick about what I should do to my hair next and he suggested that I stay natural. This idea hadn’t even occurred to me and quite frankly terrified me a little..I had been running and hiding from dealing with and understanding my natural hair for my entire life. It never made me feel confident or beautiful like weaves did, in fact, it made me feel quite the opposite. The next thing he said actually rocked my world:

“Ok so it’s just like this. I’m in love with you, I love everything about you. I just want you to be you because that’s what I love!”

Y’all I lost it! I broke down in tears immediately and everything became so realized for me. I had spent a couple of decades fighting something so beautiful, and personal, and original that God gave ME and is such a key part of who I am. It’s different from the majority but I’ve spent my entire life trying to be different from the majority! I took some time to digest the idea and I found myself getting excited about the challenge that going natural presented!

So here I am, slowly but surely absorbing every little bit of information and tip that I can get my hands on. I’ve already learned SO much not only about natural hair and the community that accompanies it but about myself and my identity. I’m so excited to take on this journey and see what kind of insight God blesses me with along the way. He’s already blessed me with a lot.

These are the pictures I took as soon as all my tracks were out. You can see all the breakage, especially on the sides, and also how uneven my hair is.

This is the one picture I took after my big chop on November 1st. I forgot to get a picture before my finger coils 🙁 oops.

I’d love to hear about some of your experiences or any thing we might have in common in our journeys! Did you have some bad experiences? Where did you find your strength? Did your boo help you along the way? Tell me about it!

ARIEL BRIDGES

Hair

My Latest Hair Regimen

1 Month Update

My Detailed Hair Story

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