A Rastafarian Gets Interviewed by a Natural Hair Vlogger 1/2

I'm NOT Ignoring You Guys!!

Ok, so to any of my lovely YT subbies who may occasionally stop by my blog, I am NOT ignoring you.  Right now I'm having technical difficulties in the form of a non functioning laptop.  I can't get it to cut on at all, and it doesn't even recognize that there is a charger plugged in.  I've been wanting to make videos for a while now, but I just don't have any way to upload them unless I do quick videos from my phone and upload directly from there.  It's not an ideal situation, but that's what I'm working with.  I may do a direct upload later today because I've been missing you guys so much!!  I need to update you on everything that has been happening with my hair, school, and life in general.  I'll be posting this to my Blogger blog and Tumblr as well, so I hope that gets the message across.

I miss you guys terribly and I promise to upload like 5 new videos as soon as I'm back up and running.  Till then, HHG!! :-*

Coastal Scents Shea Butter

I Love My Hair

My hair is healthy. My hair is sexy. My hair is beautiful. My hair is alluring. My hair can be challenging. My hair is rewarding. My hair is wondrous. My hair is natural. My hair is a labor of love. My hair is unique.

As you can tell, I could go on and on about my hair. At this point in my hair journey, I've come to have such love, pride, and admiration for my hair. I never knew it was possible. Who knew a little water, sealant, and delicate handling could make such a tremendous difference. I can honestly say going natural indirectly lead me to change my major, setting me on a path I never could have predicted. I've actually sat in the mirror and cried because I was so in awe and thankful for my hair. Yes. I've cried. Compared to some other journeys, my road has been pretty smooth. Thus far I haven't had any major setbacks. I know my hair very well, I don't have any issues retaining length, and people ask me about my hair all the time. I can honestly say I love it.

A few weeks ago I was at work with my hair in a high puff off to the side. I happened to walk past a mirror and stopped for a second when I caught my reflection. I fluffed my hair a little bit and said aloud, "I love my hair." My manager, who happened to be walking with me shook his head and told me I'm conceited. Offended, I asked him exactly how am I conceited and he said, "you just said you love your hair," as if that was all the explanation required. I don't know about you, but I think that was a pretty stupid assessment on his part. How exactly does loving something about one's self make one conceited? In my opinion, it's not an unhealthy love or obsession, more like a passion. I don't denigrate others while lifting myself up. I try to help people as much as I can. I keep a generally upbeat attitude. So I don't see how conceit even could have been perceived from my statement. I can't love a part of myself?

Maybe my manager said that because he's not used to seeing black women who actually have a healthy relationship with their hair. Maybe he thought he might come off as joking. Maybe he's just a tool. Either way, I thought about it and there's no reason for me to feel bad or stuck up because I proudly proclaimed my love for my hair. It's not going to change any time soon and there's nothing wrong with it.

Just thought I'd make that PSA for anyone out there who might be wondering how they come off when talking about your hair. If you truly love it, that will come out when you talk about it whether you say it explicitly or not. And if the people around you don't know how to take it, forget about them. So long as they don't have control over your wash schedule or your product selection, they can go kick rocks. That's just my opinion. :-)

"Some People Need A Relaxer" - My Thoughts

I didn't do any editing just because I didn't really feel like I needed to. Please leave your thoughts and your comments. :)

The High Bun I've Been Rocking

OK, so for the last three days I've been wearing my hair in this big high bun. This serves as a great visual proving how much my hair has grown since my big chop. I love the size of my bun! When I was relaxed, the only way I could get a decent looking bun was to use the sock method and my hair was so short and thin that many times you could see the sock through my hair. But now my bun is way bigger and Fuller than it ever was in that state and no sock is necessary to get it big and beautiful like this. :-)

You guys truly have no idea how proud I am of my hair growth thus far. It's amazing to me that all it took to get my hair to this point was a little knowledge, dedication, and patience. I haven't even reached my goal length yet but I'm loving my hair so much!

16 Months Natural

Looking back, the decision to go natural was not a well thought out one for me. I happened to stumble upon the natural hair YouTube community and decided the best way for me to grow my hair long (something I've always wanted) would be to stop relaxing my hair and let it grow naturally. I mean, it makes sense right? Stop breaking down the chemical bonds in your hair and let it grow the way your genetics dictate it should in order to give it the best chance of making it to long lengths. But I didn't stop to think about whether or not I might be able to continue relaxing my hair and still grow it long. Now I wonder if I had known it was possible to grow long relaxed hair if I would have taken the plunge to go natural.

In some ways I think having really short unhealthy processed hair made it easier for me to do the big chop. I wasn't cutting that much length off and I convinced myself that I couldn't deal with blending the two textures anymore, even though I'd only been doing it for about 4 or 5 months. Initially my "transition" started due to pure laziness and lack of finances. I didn't want to give myself perms anymore and I didn't have the money to have them done professionally on a regular basis. So I invested in a really good flat iron and heated my hair into submission on a weekly basis.

But when I learned about healthy hair practices through YouTube I got really excited thinking about myself being surrounded by big, fluffy, healthy, natural hair and the flat iron was basically left to collect dust. Then, 16 months ago I sprayed my hair down with water, grabbed the brand new pair of hair shears I'd bought a week before and started hacking off my relaxed ends. I asked for help from my family but everyone pretty much refused. Whether their refusal was due to fear or uncertainty, I can't say. But I felt really angry and slighted. Couldn't they see that I needed help and couldn't do it alone? Didn't they care? No matter what the case was, I was on my own.

The final results were not... let's just say they weren't pretty. I was really excited that I would be able to do wash and go styles and convinced myself that my choppy cut would look better once my hair was actually done. And it did help but I knew I was in desperate need of a professional cut to even out the areas I couldn't see and the overall shape of my hair. Four months later I did just that and went to a Deva certified salon in DC to have my hair cut.

Since then my hair has grown out significantly and so had my mind. I no longer blame my relaxer for the poor state of my hair, but to my own lack of knowledge and maintenance. For some reason I thought I shouldn't have to really do anything to my hair for it to grow and be beautiful. Now I know better. And I have a greater sense of pride in who I am as an individual and a black woman. I recognize and celebrate the fact that my hair type is unique to my race and don't let negative opinions affect me anymore. I understand that not everyone can see the beauty in natural Afro-textured hair, and even if they can that doesn't mean natural hair is suitable to their lifestyle. There's nothing wrong with that. I've learned to let others be.

I've learned that "good hair" doesn't only belong to people of mixed race or of Latin or Native American decent. Good hair is any hair that is healthy and well maintained. Even people with loose ringlet curls can have bad hair if they don't know how to take care of it. Trust me, I've seen it for myself.

Those are just some of the things I've learned on my journey thus far. When I decided to embrace my natural hair and learn how to properly care for it I never could have imagined how many other things that decision would expose me to. And I'm so glad I stuck with it. I look forward to the next sixteen months of my journey, retaining more length, and learning more things.

GHE Side Effects

I've been doing the green house effect in my routine fairly regularly since I first found out about it around a year ago. It definitely helps retain moisture, even in the cold winter months. I'm not consistent enough with measuring my hair growth to really attest to whether it increases growth rate or not. But I can say what other side effects I've seen from using this method.

Firstly, since this method is intended to create a warm environment for the scalp and hair, I think it makes sense that the rest of my body would reflect the increase on temperature. Whenever I'm doing the green house effect I notice that I feel hotter than usual. It's probably from my head and maybe therefore my brain being warmer than usual and distributing the excess heat through the rest of my body to avoid overheating. I don't know. Just making educated guesses.

Secondly, I notice I get very very thirsty when doing this routine. So much so that I have to keep a glass of water by my bed during the night. I guess this isn't necessarily a bad thing because water intake is always good but it is something I've consistently noticed. I thought it was something worthy of mentioning here.

Thirdly, this observation doesn't always happen but sometimes the GHE makes my scalp itch something fierce. I don't know if this is because of the heat, excess moisture, or increased sebum production. I just know it does.

I'm sure the heat and moisture do something good for my hair, even if they don't make it grow faster. But it also does some other things too. However, I have no intention of abandoning to green house effect altogether. Stay tuned. :-)

The Word of the Day

The word of the day is genii.
Noun
Pronounced [jee-nee-ahy].

Definition: the plural form of genius.

I felt so out of place standing in a room full of mathematical genii. The convention seemed to go on for days.

Chunky Twist Outs

So, think I may have finally mastered my chunky twist outs. At first, I was using 8 twists to set my hair with four on each side. But the problem with that method was that the two top twists always seemed to be a little too chunky. They would leave the roots a bit too puffy for my liking because there was just too much hair in each section. So now, I've stitched to 10 twists instead. The two top twists that were giving me problems have now become four. This also allows me a little more freedom in how I can part my hair.

I'm still using the shea butter plus conditioner method to set my hair and right now I'm waiting it to dry. I'll update the results once I take my hair down. :-)