Saturday, January 31, 2009

Chirst's coming, 2011????

Im a born and raised Seventh Day Adventist Christian. Those of you who have never heard of the religion we believe that the 7th day, Saturday is the day God designated as the day of rest from all forms of work, it is the day that we are suppose to rest and reflect on the wonders God has done in our lives. We believe in Christ's second coming and the New Jerusalem.

While driving to work this afternoon I often like to listen to 94.7 WFME Family Radio in Noth New Jersey, it is a Christian radio station that I grew up listening to every Saturday morning while getting ready for church. Theres this one segment called Ministries from the Bible with Harold Camping, theres actually a tv version. So Mr. Camping and the entire Family Radio station has complied some information in a book stating that the end of times is near and the second coming of Christ will be in the year 2011. Now I dont know about you and your religious affiliations and beliefs but I grew up knowing that, no man knows the day nor the hour of his coming and Im just really confused to hear of this man on a nationally syndicated program stating false facts. You can check it out for yourself in Matthew 24:36 but if you have time read the entire chapter. God speaks about how false prophets and people will be talking about his coming but how we must stand firm in our beliefs. God said not even the angels in heaven know when his second coming will be, so how could any human proclaim such a thing? We just have to be ready. Do you believe in the second coming of Christ and do you believe that God has revealed this date to us?

Too tired

After work on Friday nights I usually come home and do my hair for church the next day. I am a born and raised Seventh Day Adventist, btw. So lastnight I wasnt really able to do anything with my hair, as Ive said in a previous post I have a 15wk old son and for the last couple of nights he hasnt been sleeping through the night like he normally does. IDK y but I just have to deal. Add the restless baby on top of just coming in from work and running off of a combined 10 hrs of sleep from the last 3 nights= not doing my hair for church. What I was able to do was douce my hair with some EVOO and Suave Tropical Coconut conditioner, donned a shower cap with a headband around the border to keep the cap in place and called it a night.....yea right, we didnt go to sleep till about 4 30 this morning and only because his father put the tv on a channel where it "snows" and the white noise lulled him to sleep.
I didnt get up this afternoon till about 1 45pm, mind you I had to be at work for 3pm. What I was able to do since my hair already had conditioner in it I just wet it some more and began to detangle it added more conditioner as needed. I jumped in the shower and washed it out, did the final rinse with ACV and squeezed out excess water. I added Giovanni LID followed with Jojoba Oil. I wasnt really sure what I wanted to do with my hair and I was pressed for time so it was loojing like an afro day, so I added some S-curl activator gel then realized that I had aloe vera gel and that would be better so I added some of that to my wet hair as well. Then I saw some white residue Im guessing from the S-curl/Aloe mixture in the front which was not sexy, needless to say I rinsed that out. I used the blow dryer and finger diffuser on cool in an attempt to not go outside with sopping wet hair. Once it was just about dry I put some more Jojoba Oil in my hands and formed the afro. Ill put some pictures up tomorrow as I am currently at work now.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Shea and Mango Butters



Im so excited I just placed some orders for 100% natural unrefined Shea Butter, Mango Butterand Monoi de Tahiti oil, all of which have great moisturizing properties. in the pictures the first is actually refined Shea butter and the second is Mango ButterAlso I went to Curlmart.com and order a jar of the CurlJunkie Coffee-Coco Curl Creme. After such a great product review from ManeandChic Im going to go out on a limb and try it and also a big THANK YOU to Ms CurlyNikkii for the discount code. Ive been looking for something that will define my curls so lets see whats going to happen

Time wasted

Ok so this last week has been a little hard to maintain my routine and be a mother to my 15week old son. Im back at work which is going well, but by the time I get home, get the baby to sleep and do my hair stuff, its about 1am and thats too late. So what Ive been attempting to do is cowashing on Suns, Tues, Thurs and Fri nights. On the in between days Ive still been moisturizing with a mixture if castor oil, aloe vera gel and a couple drops of rosemanry eo in a spary bottle and spritzing my hair in the morning and evenings and sealing my ends with EVOO and coconut oil. Im still trying to get the hang of balancing everything in my life

The Routine

Ok so I made my better hair care vow about 3 weeks ago and since then I must say that I have noticed a difference in my hair. There's a lot less breakage when I detangle or even when I touch my hair to "freshen" it up. Before it use to look lack any type of luster now the color is more vibrant and alive. I dont know what took me so long to get it together but Im working on it. So Im gonna share with you guys what I bought and what Ive been doing for the last 3 weeks. I went on a big shopping binge and spent like $200 getting products...thats a lot for someone who's still on maternity leave and not getting paid, but I see it as a much needed investment for my hair. So I went to Whole Foods and my local Beauty Supple Store and got the bulk of my starter products. I didnt really know where to start to so I went on a couple blogs and hair site to see what were some common items used amongst naturals.
Whole Foods:
Coconut Oil ( food grade)
Avocado Oil
EVOO
Castor Oil
Vegetable Glycerin
Rosaemary EO
Peppermint EO
Lavender EO
Giovanni Leave In Direct
Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV)
Aloe Vera Gel

Beauty Supply Store:
Suave Tropical Coconut Conditioner
hair clips
shower caps
wide tooth comb
application bottles
spray bottles

So what Ive been doing is daily cowashes with the Suave Tropical Coconut, sectioning my hair in about 6 twist and detangling twist by twist, adding more conditioner as need. I completely rinse that out and in one 8 oz applicator bottle I add about 1.5 oz of ACV, 5 drops of Rosemary and Peppermint EO each and fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water. With my hair still in twist I pour the ACV mixture all over my head, massaging it in. I squeeze out the excess water then put about a palm size amount of Giovanni Leave In and massage that in, do whatever style I feel like doing and then I seal the hair and ends with some coconut oil and castor oil, one after the other.

Like Ive said just from doing this the last 3 weeks Ive noticed such a difference in my hair.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

My Story



This is my first blog and I was inspired to start a blog of my journey being natural after reading several other blogs. It seemed like a great way to not only track my hair progress but also an outlet to interact with other naturals and learn off of each other trials.

I contemplated going natural since I was a sophomore in high school, but never really acted on the thought of doing so. For as long as I have known myself my hair was always relaxed. From what my mother told me I had thick hair and it was always a struggle to do it so she decided to relax it to ease the pain of doing my hair. As the new growth would grow in I knew what she said was true as my hair would be very thick and coarse. I would go to the salon and get my hair relaxed and doobied like clockwork but it would never grow past the top of my shoulders. One day I was with a group of friends walking in NYC standing on the corner about to cross the street. As we were walking I saw a big head of hair coming towards me and I was in complete awe. Here was this lady with the biggest Afro I had ever seen and I just had to stop her. She was very nice and we briefly chatted about her hair and from that day I was over relaxing my hair and wanted to be natural. Just as I was about to graduate h.s. I thought that since I would be beginning a new chapter in my life I would do so with my hair. The summer after my first year of college, I decided that July 2006 would be my last relaxer. At the time my hair was dyed red and I grew the relaxer and color out for about 6 months, at which time I grew tired of the straight red ends and decided to do The Big Chop and haven't looked back.

I was always a fast learner and with no formal training, I quickly learned how to style hair and that was my side hustle even to this day, but this year for some odd reason I realized that I don't really know how to "take care" of my hair. Yea it has been growing but I never really did anything to it, except for the once every 2 wk washes and braiding it up. As this year began I realized that I needed to do some research on hair care and Ive come across a plethora of information that I never knew existed. To be honest I feel ashamed that I never thought of doing this before, but its better late than never. Now I have vowed to myself to learn to what my hair needs to flourish and to take better care of my hair, so this marks my journey.................