TalulaZoeApple

Heat Damage - Natural Hair

Being natural is rewarding and frustrating simultaneously.

My curls were not as buoyant as they had previously been so I decided to get my ends trimmed. I went to a hair stylist that shall remain nameless to have her straighten and clip my ends.I opted for heat straightening to get the most precise cut possible.

I most preface this by saying I do not go to hair salons because the typical mentality of a traditional hair stylist is the antithesis of my natural hair mentality. In my experience, traditional stylist think kinks, naps and curls are the devil and will do anything to get your stresses bone straight.

Needless to say, as always, the stylist over processed my hair. By over processed I mean used too much heat. A couple of times. I felt my hair adhering to the flat irons. Now I have a couple of straight spots that will not re-curl. This is a sign of heat damage.

The stylist was not bad. The cut and style were beautiful. It is just that the method was flawed and left me with slightly damaged hair.

I, now, need a non-heated technique to clip my ends. Will update when I find one that works.

I Bought A Wig and Named It Carmen

I am a natural girl. I AM a natural girl. I AM A NATURAL GIRL. . .but I have a confession to make. On Saturday night, I wore a wig out to an event. I am talking a big, bouncy curly Beyonce-esque wig.

I LOVED IT. lol

Granted it was a pretty benign event. Not a real opportunity to whip my hair back and forth but I did get a wobble, wobble in.

Before the big wig event, I took my wig on a trial run. I wore it to work on Friday. I got some pretty good feedback and boost of confidence.

 It is a little peculiar how changing one aspect of your appearance can affect the totality of your look. I swear that hair took fifteen pounds off.

My new hair is a keeper. The hair gave me a pass to be a newer me.  In return,  I named it Carmen.

 

Natural Hair Is The Stuff That Grows From Your Follicles

PERIOD.

Your hair does not have to cascade down in abundant shiny spirals or coils. It does not have to be in a perfectly coifed 'fro or fade.

If you go into a natural hair journey looking to achieve some "look" and not just to embrace a healthy hair regimen, you will fail. You will cry your tears of defeat and go running back to the creamy crack A.K.A "The Relaxer".

This woman made me laugh but also saddened me. She clearly has not learned to love her hair just as it is. This constant search for the right product to give you some elusive curl pattern is illusive.

Natural hair is about being. . .natural. PERIOD.

 

Jill Scott on the Tyler Perry Show

I love Jilly from Philly. She inspires me to be bold in my full figured-ness and my natural hair-ness. I really cannot wait to see this movie.

 

 

Another Hair Post - Carol's Daughter

I am SO disappointed. I SO wanted to like this product line.

You may know the story. A woman made some concoctions in her kitchen for hair, started selling it, made it big. Now she has big-time sponsors, Jada, Mary J, Oprah - so I HAD to try it.

I ordered the Hair Milk, Hair Butter, and Herbal Mint Shampoo from Carol's Daughter.

HATED IT!

OMG. The stuff reeks. I mean it smells like the girl in class whose hair wouldn't grow so her mother put that awful Sulfur 8 hair grease in her head. Then gym came and the poor girl started to sweat and, well, you know the rest.

It left my hair soooo oily and grimy looking. I cannot believe it. I wanted to try this over Miss Jessie's product line because Carol's Daughter has natural ingredients and Miss Jessie's uses petroleum. However, Miss Jessie's actually works and Carol's Daughter was a big disappointment. Plus she charges prices equivalent to Aveda brand and uses cheaper ingredients like corn oil. Who wants to use corn oil on their hair?

Maybe she makes products for people with relaxers because they don't work well with my natural hair.

Has anyone used CD and had a different outcome? Please share. 

Why You Should Wear Your Natural Hair - Part 1

#1 Wearing weaves makes you delusional. You start to think that a hundred pounds of yaki looks good. It's summertime! You know your neck is hot. lol

Resuscitating the Afro - Natural Hair Care

"Pick you afro daddy, because it's flat on one side. If you don't pick your afro, you gonna leave one side high." Erykah Badu

My afro was DRYYYYY ya'll. I mean dryyyyyy. Everything I did, did not change this fact. I was THIS close to slapping a perm on it.

Then I whoosaaahhed.

I had to go back to fundamentals. It is soo important to condition people. I bought some cholesterol conditioner and had to get to work on it.

I love my natural hair but like all thing we love, sometimes I take my curls for granted. I don't condition properly. I don't wrap my hair in the satin scarf. I don't plait my hair to reduce tangles when I know I am not going anywhere for a few days.

I did not get a perm. I just conditioned and moisturized. Here is my hair on a good day:

 

Freshly washed with Miss Jessie's Babby Buttercreme. Style: 'Fro Hawk

If you are natural, please share your hair care tips in the comments. Thanks.

Chris Rock's Good Hair

Chris Rock has a movie debuting at Sundance this week about black people's hair and the big business that fuels the weave/perm craze.

The documentary was born from an innocent question his young daughter asked. Rock tells of how his daughter Lola came to him crying asking, "How come I don't have good hair?" Rock who states that he felt telling and showing his daughter he loved her would instill her with the self-esteem needed to avoid such self-loathing pitfalls set out on a journey to answer that question for himself - and "Good Hair" was born.

 

If you are a frequent reader of TalulaZoeApple, then you are well aware that I rock my natural do. I am not militant about it and don't feel that women who chemically alter their hair are self-loathing. I do, however, know women who HATE, literally hate their hair texture and are in a never ending quest to achieve long flowing "Indian Hurr".

I have seen women with bald sides, alopecia, ratted ends still weaving/perming it up when clearly these practices are hurting them physically. Anything to keep from showing their nappy roots.

I was sitting in a church on Sunday, in a congregation of about 500 or so people. A good 90% were black women. Out of this 450 or so women 3 of us wore our hair natural. Every other woman had a "phony pony" or wig or sew-in. I know I should have been concentrating on the Lord but this seriously disturbed me.

I cannot wait to see Chris Rock's take on this phenomena. Oh, BTW, Al Sharpton makes an appearance. I have ALWAYS wanted to know the lowdown on his 'do.

Hair Guide - Part Deux - The Hair Chart

There is a ratings scale for hair texture that exists to help natural girls navigate the wide wide world of hair products. I have included the types with pictures. I hope this helps.

Type 1 is straight hair. Type 2 is wavy hair. No need to include these.

Type 3b hair is very diverse with many subcategories. This is the realm of mixed-girl hair. Or for those of you with "Indian" in your family.

Type 4 and its subcategories are kinky/afro type hair.

 

3b1

 

3c

 

3c2

 

4a

   

4c

Now most of us are somewhere in between these categories, or in my case a mixture of about two or three. Most hair care products for natural hair use this guide. I hope this helps.

Accepting Your Hair Texture - The Nappiness Guide To Happiness

I have been on a natural hair journey for about 4 years. Having relapsed about twice, I have now been natural for over a year. Meaning no perms, texturizers, and a big chop.

My initial venture into natural hair ended in a relaxer due to my own ignorance and insecurity. It is difficult to gather courage to wear your hair in a way that has been vilified by the people closest to you since you can remember.

My father's side of the family is said to have 'Indian in the family'. Okay, right! My mom is said to have Indian in her family too. **insert sarcasm** With all these Indians in my family, how come I have never been to a Pow-Wow? I'm just saying.

My aunts and uncles on my dad side would fawn, literally fawn, over my sister's hair. She looked more liked them with a straighter grade of hair. I thought this was the dumbest thing an adult could do. I, on the other hand, looked like my mom with big thick curls that needed the fear of God to be put in them to behave. lol

As a child, I hated to get my hair combed. I had really long, thick hair. I, also, had a fear of the dreaded straightening comb. How damaging is it to come at a child with a searing hot iron, talking about, don't move or I'll burn you? That's some Penny fom Good Times abuse. lol. And I hated it.   

Then came the perm at around age 13. Whole other story.

So natural felt good. Except for my family, who daily told me I needed to perm my hair. There were jokes and ridicule. Finally, my brother, who wears locks by the way, told me my hair made me look old. I felt so bad, I relaxed my hair again.

Then I moved away. Without the daily put downs, I found the courage to go natural and have never looked back.

One day while waiting on the train, a black girl looked at me and said, "You have really nice hair. Is it natural?" So I said "Thank you", feeling good about my natural choice, "it's natural." The next thing she said made me sad again. "Man, you are so lucky."

Lucky? That word brought me back to my child hood and my Indian hair having relatives fawning over hair texture like it gave you superpowers or something.

So I am including a Nappiness Guide for all of you texturally challenged folk looking for the courage to go natural.  

1. Expectations - Don't expect Tracee Ellis Ross' hair, if you don't have Tracee Ellis Ross' genes. Be happy to be nappy.
2. Learn to love your kinks - Stop calling it curly-kinky or curly-afro. That's just a way to distance yourself from your hair's Africanness. Put an 'Indian Hurr' twist to it.
3. End of an era- You cannot use the same kind of shampoos, conditioners on natural hair that you have used on relaxed hair. They are incompatible. I like Miss Jessie's products and natural oil concoctions I make myself.
4. Have fun. Try different styles, accesories, and scarves.
5. Find online communities and blogs that support the natural hair thing. It's not so hard. You are on one now.
6. Share your hair stories. There is healing in sharing so drop me a comment.

I love my hair because it is my God given gift. I wanted to add a picture but the flash put gold lights in my hair and you could not see it clearly. Oh well.