For the people from the people

Hello All!!!!!

I'm so excited, I have received my first email at curlykinkybeauty@gmail.com (feel free to send emails;-). The lovely Mrs. Aiken shared some hair product info, and I felt it only right for me to share her knowledge with the world. So, then I was inspired to create a section dedicated strictly to my wonderful followers!!!! So, check out http://curlykinkybeauty2.blogspot.com and see what you all had to say. At this wonderful site you will find emails (well synopses of emails) from followers, questions from me to you (and you all better answer, don't make me hunt you down, grrrrr :-), and hopefully questions from you to me!!!!!!! So, check it out, comment, leave a question or two and be sure to keep checking at least once a week. Oh, and spread the word about the blog!!!!!!

Tootles for now,
Lady Shay

Weekly hair report

So, these are some pics of me today (Friday 8-20-10). I did a wash and go this morning, with Garnier Fructis Color Shield Conditioner and Dove Intensive Repair as a leave in. I'm sitting in my papasan chair in my room after a nap so excuse the blankie ;-)

Hey People,
So, this week has been a decent hair week for me. In my quest to have a standing hair routine (ie.one that I keep longer than two days) I have actually been doing well with my deep conditioning. This week I ate my Wheaties and deep conditioned TWICE, that's right, look at me ;-) Saturday (okay so technically that's last week, but in hair world it's not) I did a deep condition with Hask Placenta Henna n' Placenta. This was my second time using this as a deep conditioner and I liked it. I still don't love it, but I do like it. The Hask Placenta makes my hair soft, and a little less frizzy, but I haven't seen anything drastic yet. I sat under the conditioning dryer for 30mins, then rinsed, and twisted. I got a little carried away with the twisting, and they ended up being a bit smaller than is recommended for a twist out so I wore my hair twisted for a few days. Tuesday I deep conditioned with Dove Intensive Repair, and I left it on for about 20mins under the conditioning dryer. I really liked the Dove; it made my hair really soft, and a little more shiny. This morning (Friday) I washed with Garnier Fructis Color Shield Conditioner, and applied some Dove as a leave in after I rinsed the Garnier Fructis, and I really like it. My hair is not frizzy, it's super soft, and it's held it's curls all day (and this is despite a quite lovely nap during which time my hair was left to fend for itself). Although the Dove has left my hair lovely, it is still not as shiny as I'd like, and there's a lot of shrinkage. I understand that there will be some shrinkage with just about any product, but I would like to find a product/routine that will reduce the amount of shrinkage I get.

Next adventure: Henna. So, I've been inspired by curlyniki, whose hair I LOVE, to try Henna for my hair. There will be more Henna detail to come once I see how I feel about it, but as a brief intro. Henna is a plant. It has been used throughout history, and currently, for a number of purposes one of which is to dye hair. The most common color, that I've come across, that Henna dyes hair is red. Since I naturally have dark hair, I'm not sure how red my hair will be able to get, but it may get a little tint to it. More importantly, Henna is said to be an excellent conditioning agent, and is supposed to help reduce frizz, enhance shine, and potentially loosen curls. So, I just ordered some henna from Amazon.com today, and we'll see what happens.....

If anyone has tried Henna please share your experiences, I'd love to hear from you all!!!!
Tootles for now,
Lady Shay

This twist out thing just may become an option

Hey folks,

So, on Sunday I did a deep condition with Hask Pacenta Henna n' Placenta. I shampooed my hair (with Hemp moisturizing shampoo), rinsed thoroughly with warm water and lathered up with the Hask Placenta. I sat under a conditioning dryer for about an hour (the directions say 10mins, so I figured 30 would be good, but then I fell asleep, awwww...nothing like a Sunday afternoon nap;-), but somewhere between 15 and 30mins is probably sufficient.

I then rinsed the conditioner out with cold water. So, I have to say, I was not impressed with my hair at this point. My hair looked as it usually does after I wash it, the roots were frightening and the ends (starting about an inch or two from the root) were curly.

Then, I put on my garnier fructis leave-in. I sectioned my hair, in about 6 sections, and put about a quarter size of Shea butter on each section. I twisted my hair (probably in about 30 twists) and let it dry.

Okay, I know what you're thinking, I wrote just last week that I've tried a twist out twice, didn't like it, and have given up on it....well....aparently I'm no good at giving up on things. Originally I was twisting just to have something to do with my wet hair. However, on Monday morning something came over me, and before I knew it my hands took on a mind of their own and I was taking twists out. Oh my goodness, to my surprise, on Monday morning my hair looked....good....this is the first time I've done a twist out and actually thought it a decent way to wear my hair. It actually lasted pretty well. The roots are a little rough still, and I need to work on the nighttime style for keeping, but even today (Wednesday evening) it is still soft and a lot of it is still wavy. Okay, so I literally just took some pics of my hair, and they didn't do my hair justice :-0

So, I'll post a pic or two and you all will have to take my word for the fact that my hair looks decent and is soft (remember, looks can be deceiving ;-)

So, all in all, this twist out deal may actually be an option for me. Since I put the same leave-in products in my hair, I suppose the benefits of a twist out are highly dependent on the conditioning of the hair.

Well peeps, that's all for now, waiting to hear from you all, and I need to give my pareja a shout out for making my day with the following gmail status "patiently awaiting a new blog post from Lady Shay." :-D

Tootles,

Lady Shay

Hair experiment results from last week

Hello all,

Okay, so last week I tried two things, first a twist out (about 15 twists throughout the hair while wet, let dry, loose and go). Second, I tried conditioning only twice during the week opposed to my norm of every other day. I learned several things during my twist out experience.

• the twist out is not for me-I've tried this before, and I didn't like it then, and I didn't like it last week either. My hair did not look wavy or crinkly curly (it sort of did the first day and that was it). It was big, and it didn't flow or move, or lay well. My hair got dry, and just looked like a nappy mess. So, below are a couple of pics from day one. About 2 hours into my work day I realized that I needed to put that sucker up!!!!
  

Okay, so maybe I just didn't do something right. I conditioned my hair (with Garnier Fructis, color shield, which I'm quite loving by the way), put Shea butter on, and twisted. So, I thought to myself...hmmm...princess (that's what I call me, and you can too;-), maybe I should put some leave in (Garnier Fructis) on first and then Shea butter. So, I tried that.

That time was even worse than the first. My hair got pulled up immediately after this twist out.

Okay, so the top two pics are day 1 of the second round of twist out for last week, and although my outfit was cute, and I was diggin the flower in my hair, I did not like my hair. The third pic is from day two, and my hair almost looks as it normally does. I put the front in two large twists, and pulled the back together with a ribbon (this is one of my fav styles, it gets the hair out of my face, does something a little different in the front, and still leaves my little poof curls out in back).

So, twist out conclusion: not for me, unless I am just doing something wrong....oh well.

Other lessons learned from the week's experiment

• my scalp likes olive oil-I used extra virgin olive oil to oil my scalp multiple times throughout the week and it absorbed well, and seemed to make my scalp happy. My scalp has been kind of itchy lately, so I'm trying to alleviate that.
• my hair needs water-So trying to condition my hair less was not successful. I need to condition or at least wet my hair more than two times per week, or it gets too dry; this problem may be solved by a good moisturizer or leave-in that works well on dry hair, but I currently don't have that product.
• Don't hold your hair to unrealistic expectations-unrealistic expectations are breeding grounds for disappointment. I expected to do a twist out, and have my hair look exactly like curly Nicki's (which I love, for her blog link refer to my last post); however, surprise, I'm not curly Nicki, and I don't have her hair, so I shouldn't expect my hair to look like hers (that's a life lesson for the people ;-).

So, all in all, it was an interesting hair week. I'm pretty sure the people at school/work are wondering what in the world I am doing :-) But they probably usually wonder this.

Next hair adventure will be straightening and trimming, because I haven't had my ends trimmed in about 1 year :-0 I don't love my hair straightened, mainly because it's too much work, and too hard to keep straight amidst Columbia heat/humidity and sweaty post-workout me. But we'll see how the straightening goes. Oh FYI-this process will occur after I get paid again, because I will be paying someone to both straighten and trim my hair. I have enough stories of me taking scissors to my own hair ;-)

Tootles for now :-)