LilMsPuddles

Good day to you. Today is the first entry in my hair challenge blog. I am currently mid back length and need to get my ends clipped. I have been natural on and off my whole life but the last time I had ANY chemicals in my hair was April 2008. I am currently eco-friendly & trying to to go and stay all natural, organic, vegan and fair trade.
Today is the first day of my new hair routine I haven't hennaed in 4 months so I will henna today with BAQ from Yemen and Punjabi Prime from Empire(the store Nikki get the shampoo bars from), Shampoo with the Nettle/Peppermint bar from empire, Leave In with Knot Today and Seal with coconut oil from Whole Foods.
I am currently setting with Aubrey Honeysuckle Rose(The smell of my childhood lol).

Will update you later when I finish! Whish me luck....

Ok so since the last time I've had some tech diffs, so yesterday I washed my hair with the nettle comfy peppermint bar. I am less than pleased with how my hair came out, it looked like a puffy tangled stereotypical pre-civil war mess! I will have try again and see if it changes, I've never seen my hair look like that and never want to see it again.... Anyway..... I put the henna in my hair this morning before I went to school and now I'm waiting to rinse it out. I must say this is a lot heavier than I remember henna being, lol!

I let the henna sit for about 5 to six hours and I now have a gorgeous bright and vibrant red tint on my dark brown hair and wonderful red highlights (patches lol) on my red and lighter brown hair! My curls loosened on the sides and I got more manageability like the last time but it didn't undo the puffy mess on top. I am very pleased and I only used about 250 or so grams! definitely using this mix again

Some curl definition on the right

my frizzy poof mess on top

my hair almost straight on the side

the full view of me in all my silliness!

And because I couldn't resist myself about seeing how long my hair is I did a soft press.....Bad Puddles!(smacks hand)


Puff Tail!

Welcome!!! I love the color you have gotten with henna. What brand henna do you use? I can definitely see the results of it.

Thank you, I used the BAQ from Yemen and the Punjabi Prime(Jamila) from mehandi.com mixed together, about two parts Yemen for one part PP in back and then half and half in the front. I also mixed mine with straight orange juice.

Happy Thanksgiving to you passers by! I don't have much to be thankful for this year but I'm thankful for the little I have
Since I'm wearing the puff tail again I'm just going to oil myself down w/ coconut oil and call it a day

Welcome to the challenge!! Good Luck!

SheeTacular_Napps wrote:Welcome to the challenge!! Good Luck!

Thank you, you too! Happy Thanksgiving and I like following your journey.

Hey!! Welcome to the hair challenge...I love ur hair/color....and I look forward to your posts! Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

curly+kinky+fierce wrote:Hey!! Welcome to the hair challenge...I love ur hair/color....and I look forward to your posts! Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

Thank you. I admire that you named your hair, mine just has a gender lol! I was even thinking about it last night after reading some of your posts, "If my hair had a name...."!

Ok so it's 9 almost 30, everyone is asleep and I'm bored. More accurately I'm pondering; I hennaed my hair yesterday, now what?
Is there really a specific after care for hennaed hair? It sounds silly, especially to me because this isn't the first time I hennaed but I love playing with my hair and coming up with different protective styles. I also play with my hair alot because I always have to hide the fact that within two days of washing my hair the left side fall darn near bone straight EVERY dat burn time!
Any suggestions?

bored hair


me bored with my hair

Happy Black Friday , after Thanksgiving the holidays just don't stop. Well my hair is still straight(to my dismay) So I wrapped w/ my coconut oil last night before sleepy-byebye

Check the Awesome Henna Color! (BF hated it LMAO!)

But now I'm still stuck straight but parts of me wants to wear it to school like this just one time. But until Monday I'm still stuck like this

BORED! Oh well. Maybe the spirit will move me to go back curly

U said the left side always falls straight. Do you have heat damage that has caused it to be permanently straight? Does it stay straight even when you do twist outs or braid outs?

No heat damage. My hair has been like that most of my life. I have true mutt hair: 1 in back, 3b in front and 3c in the middle, the left side has and ever slightly looser curl pattern and I have more hair on the right side of my head.
As far as my twist and braid out my twist outs last about two or three days but by the fourth or fifth day left side is flat regardless of how I sleep. I don't really do braid outs that much but I think they do better in my hair than the twists.

I'm just checking in to say hi!
I haven't really done any thing today but put my hair in a high ponytail. although I did two interesting things yesterday:
I wash and conditions my 10 month old sons verrrrrry dry hair and it turned out nice before he got food in it! I also decided to look into making my own palm free soaps and shampoos(that should be interesting.....)
If you are wondering why I chose palm free, it is because palm oil is not environmentally friendly. Most if not all palm oil comes from SE Asia where they slash & burn orangutan habitats to make room for palm plantations. I like animals and when my son is old enough to see animals and know he's looking at them I don't want him to see a picture and go "Wow mommy those look cool. I wish I could have seen some, too bad their EXTINCT." In 2009 there is no excuse for not being able to live a peaceful coexistence with nature in all her being.

But thats just my opinion

Since it's a new week I'll do something I don't do and tell you all my life story.
As I said in my first post I have been natural on and of my whole life. In my early years I can't remember my hair being curly; when it was wet it was slightly wavy and when it was dry it was straight or my mother would set it to end up straight. By the time I was 10my hair I could sit on my own hair, it was still wavy and so dense, shortly after I would get my first relaxer to combat the density. this lasted for about 2years. After this first period of relaxing my hair broke off noticeably but was still about mid back length.
Strangely enough after those first relaxers my hair got curly. To make my hair more manageable for my mother, she would continue to press it until I was in the seventh or eighth grade and started doing my own hair. An interesting thing would happen during the time when I would stop getting relaxers and would start doing my own hair; I saw someone whose fearless and unique persona spoke to me

(Kelis when I first saw her)
I knew that one day I would wear my hair curly and I wouldn't care what people think!
My first year of high school my hair was still about mid back length and was only worn in flat twist and 2 strand twist hair styles of my creation. My second year of high school I took down the twists for my first homecoming dance and was pleasantly surprised to find waist length hair again! For most of that year I would wear my hair straight until a most interesting of events occurred. I was sitting in class with my hair "raw"(brushed, down and no product) and had gone through most of the day as normal and with little mention of my hair when all of a sudden the girl behind me said I needed a RELAXER . I couldn't help but to note that she said I needed a relaxer but I had at least twice as much hair as her. That was my epiphany.
Relaxed people want us to be relaxed because they see how free we feel and they are mad because we tend to have more hair than they do and it looks better.
But don't think that stopped me from putting chemicals in my hair. I wish I could say the contrary but I can say I did it out of my own personal opinion and not peer pressure backlash. Between my junior and senior years my best friends and I all decided at the same time(separately oddly enough) to get texturizers. I would also decide to start bleaching my hair to cover up my red patches. The texturizers would stop within the year but the coloring continued until April 2008 despite that I had changed hair dressers and she had literally bleached the hair and scalp out of the center of my head. The only thing that saved me was unbeknown to me I was pregnant, all I knew was my hair is growing an inch a month and I'm not about to pay for color that grows out this fast. During my pregnancy I wore my hair in mostly protective styles(straw set, wrapped or weaved) but the day I gave birth I wore a wash-n-go! . In April I went back to the hairdresser for the first time since my second trimester to get a ponytail for my STNA/CNA graduation. BIG MISTAKE! I hadn't had any postpartum shedding until I let her put my hair in a ponytail, I thought I was being protective but when I went to take it down my whole hair line was gone!. I'm sure you can guess I haven't been back since.
Between April and now I fell in love with someone that spoke to my soul. He was not only natural but he was curly and now we wear our hair curly together! This man is the reason that I not only wear my hair curly during the summer but all year round. Now I get to wear my hair like Kelis everyday, not just when I want to rage against the machine and I have someone who supports me doing it even though he hates Kelis ! A happy ending, who could ask for anything more?

Dueling emotions. I just remembered my first relaxer I was staying with my aunt in Detroit an I was eight years old and it was the summer of the ATL. Olympics. My mom had told my aunt not to get me a relaxer but she did anyway.
As much as I love my aunt she was very rigid on stereotyping Black people. The most vivid memory is when we went to Farmer Jacks where we saw you young Black male who had a very large afro. She began to make comments about how he needed to cut it, it was ugly, it was nappy, and being eight I didn't really know what nappy was and I thought it was cool so I disagreed. This is when she said something that has stayed with me for the rest of my life"No, it's nappy. ALL Black people have NAPPY hair"
What happened to me psychologically after that is something for another day.....Back to the story.
So one day she takes me to the shop of the nice Jamaican lady from our church, I was game because I liked hearing her stories but I had no idea why I was really going. They gave me the worst relaxer of my life; I was allergic.
Who saw that coming?
There I was away from my mom for a whole summer, having an allergic reaction to a relaxer I NEVER should have had. Now I get why I repressed those memories.
On a lighter note, today is going to be family hair day after I finish this six page paper. Can't wait!

Is your "family hair" day like my "family hair" day? On certain days I dedicate the day to braidng or twisting my children and hubby's hair. We do movies or listen to music and usually we try to have a buffet. We have been doing this for about 15 years, so it's definitetly a family thang. It's pretty cool.


Happy Hair Day

That description of family hair day sounds pretty accurate lol! Although unfortunately it didn't go down and unless I finish this six page paper soon it's not going down tonight either, sad-face.... sigh....
But there is still hope for tomorrow!

Yay, I finished the paper!
Boo, I don't have time to do family hair night again.... But at least we are setting with honeysuckle rose(yes on dry hair, again)

I hope you enjoy being a mommy to a 10 month old son. They learn and grow so fast, enjoy the time.

How do you use AO HR to set your hair? Please share.

I think different hair textures is more the norm than the exception. You can try to add more moisture to the "poofy" areas and less in your looser areas. This works for me. My less moisturized areas are right above both ears.

Thank you, I am.

AO HR I apply to my sons hair dry and then spritz it so I can work it through and on myself I apply it to my hair and then finger comb. I'm trying to figure out another way though because it's to thick and it seems like I'm waisting it.
I might end up just using as my after shampoo conditioner or my co-wash.

Your story about ur aunt comment on black ppl & nappy hair...thats the main reason why to this day I do not use the word nappy I instead choose to use the word curly too many negative connotations are associated with that word.