Learning to embrace fuzzy hair...

Lol yay we are curl friends! lol and yes girl I have been talking to some professionals in my field and current grad students getting a lot of tips. The GRE is the main thing thats kicking my butt =(. But I believe that by Gods grace we will succeed and get the scores we need! Good luck as well on all your future endeavors.

P.S. Thanks for the heads up I just subscribed

Hi Kea!

Congrats again on your graduation! All the best to you as you continue your studies! I think I remember you, too when we first started on CN what back when. Your hair is beautiful! Love the updo; very creative! Good luck on your GRE. I'll be taking mine in June.

welcome back!!! congrats to your degree!!!! ur hair is gorg!!!!

I saw ur avi when commenting somewhere else on the forum and promptly came here to tell u congrats and ur hair is sooo awesome!

Russet wrote:Wow, Kea! I too have been away from CN for a long time and am finally becoming more serious about my natural hair, well almost natural! I am planning to BC soon. You are such an inspiration! Thanks for sharing curl friend!

Thanks for stopping by &&& good luck on your BC!!! post pics when you do

mrsmackey wrote:
Hey Kea, your hair is so freakin' cute...I remember stalking your thread back in the day! LOL...

After you post your comment, hit preview, scroll down and where your original title is, change it and hit send. That should do the trick!

Welcome to CSJ!

omgosh thank you!!! i was sitting here staring at the computer for the longest & just hoping for a miracle or something. lol.

poeticlyspkng wrote:Hi Kea! Wow, your new avi... LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!!!!! Did I mention LOVE??!!

LoL. THANKS your gonna make me :: blush ::

Funkyhairchic wrote:Hi Kea!

Congrats again on your graduation! All the best to you as you continue your studies! I think I remember you, too when we first started on CN what back when. Your hair is beautiful! Love the updo; very creative! Good luck on your GRE. I'll be taking mine in June.

Yes &&& your hair has def blossomed since then!!!...GRE takers unite I'm sure we will all get where we are trying to go, as long as we put as much effort into it as we do our hair. lol.

dajewel wrote:welcome back!!! congrats to your degree!!!! ur hair is gorg!!!!

Thanks dajewel aka my fav :: curly chemist :: aka the person who taught me how to pay attention to the ingredients in my products. --> skipping off to your CSJ to see all the progress i know you have made while i've been gone...

Curly Film Chick wrote:I saw ur avi when commenting somewhere else on the forum and promptly came here to tell u congrats and ur hair is sooo awesome!

Aww thanks CFC!!! I've been following your hair blog w/SP & was wondering if you were still on CN... it feels so great to be back & see everyone again

I've always loved your hair. You've had tremendous growth in such a short time. And your curls always make me salivate. :-)

Title change. (hopefully!)

Soooo....its obvious I haven't posted in a while, it's clearly been over a month. lol. But I'm happy to say that I finished taking the GRE last week (grad school admission exam) & i'm getting close to finishing up my grad school applications. The programs I'm applying to have unusually late deadlines (April - June) and I hope to be starting classes again in the fall.

Anywho, onto hair

Since the weather is warming up, my winter scalp itchies are calming down & its easier to maintain long-term moisturized hair. So, I may start spreading out my hair washes to being bi-weekly and start incorporating co-washing again.

--> we shall see.

Over the past few weeks i've made 2 important realizations:

1) the only way I can acheive frizz free & ultra defined hair (WNG or twist-out) is with the max hold EVOO ecostyler gel = hard hair on day one. combined with mini pinapples overnite & this will easily last throughout the week w/o re-styling.

2) any soft, fluffly hair that i have (WNG, twist-out, braid-out, etc.) will ALWAYS have frizz and fuzz and will not last for more than 1 day w/o re-styling. If i pineapple, then i will end up with a soft, puffy, undefined fro....and i'm OK with that Another plus is that when i'm not using gels, i can stretch my hair to go 2 wks before washing again.

So here's some pictures of me finally embracing my fluffy curls. i'm tired of fighting the frizz. these are pics of DAY 1 WNG on freshly Poo'd and DC'd hair, using kimmaytube leave-in condish (Giovanni DLI) and no gel.

Love how your hair looks in the pics! I've just learned to embrace the frizz, it doesn't even bother me anymore.

WOW!!!! I love it, soooo fluffy. If you still want to experiment with gel then I would recommend flaxseeds Naptural85 did a video on it as a natural gel alternative. There's a bit of work to make it, but at about $2 a bag and you can reuse the seeds, I think this is great. I plan to buy some this summer when I do wash n gos.

Definitely be comfortable with the frizz, but there's no shame in wanting a little definition from time to time.

OMG look at all that hair! I LOVE it!! Great results!

Wow, love love your hair. All you used for the WNG was the kimmay leave-in? How did you apply it?

Your hair resembles mine ... but I have yet to try a WNG and like it - I really want it to be simple.

Loooove the new avi Kea!

Lovely avatar and beautiful curls!

krazy coils wrote:Love how your hair looks in the pics! I've just learned to embrace the frizz, it doesn't even bother me anymore.

Thanks! i'm slowly but surely getting there, too. Some mornings I wake up and I'm really "feeling the fuzz," then on other days i still get frustrated about it.

sweetdrk1 wrote:OMG look at all that hair! I LOVE it!! Great results!

jlowman1 wrote: Loooove the new avi Kea!

poeticlyspkng wrote:Lovely avatar and beautiful curls!

Thanks ladies!!!

.:Eden:. wrote:WOW!!!! I love it, soooo fluffy. If you still want to experiment with gel then I would recommend flaxseeds Naptural85 did a video on it as a natural gel alternative.

i know you're probably right b/c i've only heard good things about flaxseed! but the bottom line is that i'm too lazy to make it. lol. by the time i've "mixed" my kimmaytube leave-in, that's about the extent of my homemade mixes. lately i haven't even felt like melting my shea butter in the microwave ::shame::

BlondeByDesire wrote:Wow, love love your hair. All you used for the WNG was the kimmay leave-in? How did you apply it?

Your hair resembles mine ... but I have yet to try a WNG and like it - I really want it to be simple.

I know exactly what you mean! i didn't get my first defined wash n go look until 1 month ago (well over a year since my BC) and even then I decided that it was too much work. For now, i'm using kimmaytube leave-in (substituting Giovanni DLI for kinky curly) in the following way:

1.) pre-poo for 2 hours; only light detangle while placing hair in twists; washed in twists & DC'd for 10 minutes in the shower; completely rinsed out all DC and plopped in t-shirt for 10 minutes.

2.) i only applied products on damp-dry hair to decrease drying time. i did not rake product through my hair, because that takes too long. Since my hair is really dense, I always feel the need to use really small sections whenever i'm using any kind of "raking" method. So I purposely separated my hair into 8 large sections and focused on smoothing and squeezing the product into my hair and let air dry. I got the idea from forevercurlycatrina on fotki. Here's the link to the video she posted on fotki. you can't find it by searching YT, only if you have the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTSSe-tFJkY

***my hair is kinda weird...even though i do experience shrinkage, if i style on damp hair, it kind of "swells" because of the manipulation. so, overall it shrinks ups in the bottom, but swells out on top (unless I use a shingling or raking method) hope that makes sense!

Okay, since i actually feel like i have multiple things to talk about...i'll be making another post (2 in one week, go me!)

Recently i've been attending a lot of interviews (i got a ::paid:: internship offer today!!!) Also, since i work in a research lab, my hair is required to be safely put away at all times. With the increasing humidity and my hair gaining length, this is becoming more of an obstacle. Enter the need for my "almost bun" technique. Only about 75% of my hair can actually reach into the bun.

Nothing really too special about it, I just place my hair in medium sized twists and then place the twists into a bun. For the twists near my face that don't reach, I just pin them back into the direction of the bun. I secure the bun using 2 a satin scrunchies (one to form the pony and one to tuck in the ends).

Here's the final look after laying my edges down with aloe vera gel:
*there's no tension on my edges, b/c they're not being stretched to the fully extent by trying to reach into the bun.




I'm super excited because after 2 days of bunning with the twists in, my hair was actually stretched enough to form the "almost bun" on free hair (no twists) today! While alot of people are WNGing this summer, i'll probably be bunning alot. For one, FL summers are EXTRA HUMID. Loose hair is absolutely gross during the heat of the summer &&& i just can't. Also, it makes my night and morning routine a ton easier. It takes some getting used to though, b/c i'm not used to seeing my hair this flat against my hair anymore.

I'm happy you're accepting your frizz. You really have beautiful hair. I like the "Almost bun" technique. I imagine that since you would basically be ps'ing for the summer you will have "for real bun" length hair in no time, lol! I hope you get that paid internship, I know that would be SWEET!

OMG.....................I SAW YOUR AVI ON ANOTHER THREAD AND HAD TO RUN OVER HERE TO FIND YOURS. YOUR HAIR LOOKS AWESOME. I LOVE THE FRIZZY. THUMBS UP FOR ACCEPTING IT ALL.

JUST BEAUTIFUL

Ambitious_Tiff wrote:since you would basically be ps'ing for the summer you will have "for real bun" length hair in no time, lol! I hope you get that paid internship, I know that would be SWEET!

i sure hope so!!! (both the bun &&& the internship)

Intelligentbeauty wrote:YOUR HAIR LOOKS AWESOME. I LOVE THE FRIZZY. THUMBS UP FOR ACCEPTING IT ALL.

JUST BEAUTIFUL

Thanks IB!!!

I love that "almost" bun - I'm at that stage too. "ALMOST" can make a full bun. (lol). I love that style - although for me to achieve that I would have to let my hair be 85% dry to stretch it - I know my front would never stretch going back like that.

It's looks very professional as well. 2 thumbs up!

Thanks for the video link - I'll have to review when I get home.

I love the twisted bun thingy you have going on! Just stopping in to say hello!