Kinky Curly Curling Custard pt II

[tweetmeme source=”socialitedreams” only_single=false]

The other day I blogged about trying kinky curly custard for the first time, liking the results but knowing that I could have done better with the product.  A helpful reader, Farah, linked us to a video of her using the kccc and it greatly helped me for the second application!  The key was to brush the curls with the gel in, with a denman brush (or paddle wig brush which is what I used, but I plan to get a denman) to make the curls spring to form and distribute the product throughout.  What a difference it made!

So let’s have this picture step by step shall we?  First up, I did a pre-poo (pre-shampoo treatment to moisturize and condition the hair to prepare for the drying nature of shampooing) with olive oil, coconut oil, and Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose.  I then washed my hair with Trader Joe’s Tingle Tree shampoo and conditioned with the V05 passionfruit smoothie conditioner.

Hair straight out of the shower:

Then I scrunched in Kinky Curly Knot Today in sections with the hair soaking wet.

Taking the paddle brush, I brushed that through a bit to make sure that it got to all of my curls.  Now it was time for the Curling Custard!  I also applied it in sections, smoothing some on in an area and then brushing it through while making sure that the hair was still super wet.  There was a cup of water on the sink that I used to pour more water into my hair if I felt that it wasn’t soaking wet.  By brushing, I noticed that the curls popped to become much more defined and the results were a super curly pretty head of hair:

So I am very happy with the product now that I’ve figured out how to best use it.  That brush can make all of the difference if you have a distinct curl pattern and want to make the curls stand out.  My cousin liked it so much that she is on her way over so that I can do her hair too! Lol, there’s a referral 😉

After the hair dried:

And what’s even better is that I got super cute SECOND day hair!  My hair NEVER looks the same the 2nd day with a wash-n-go, only if I do twistouts, so I was very very pleased to wake up and take off the bonnet to find my hair looked pretty much the same 😀  Just fluffed with Shea Moisture Curls Smoothie and kept it moving right on out the door!  Total win, so easy.

Thumbs up for the Kinky Curly Curling Custard, I think I’ve found a holy grail item!  Hope this helps those with questions on its use 🙂

Post Braids Healthy Hair Regimen

[tweetmeme source=”socialitedreams” only_single=false]

A few days ago I took down the cornrows because they were a bit back heavy and giving me a headache.  No good, right?  Especially seeing as to how I started a new job (YAY!!) and needed to have my wits about me, not worrying about an aching head.

A good start that I followed so as not to have tangles from dead hair build up and dirt from the braids was to comb through with my fingers and then a wide tooth comb as I took down every braid.  This is VERY important to do BEFORE washing your hair post braids because let me tell you, it is NOT fun or a pretty sight to step into the shower and get the hair wet only to have it turn into massive dreadlock -type balls of tangled hair, dirt, and product build up.  My mother had braids for the first time a couple of months ago and she did not detangle well before getting in the shower (I wasn’t home to tell her this vital step, she thought she could just hop into the shower and wash her hair as normal) and let’s just say her thoughts about doing a big chop and going natural like me became a reality a LOT quicker than she’d imagined.  She emerged with matted clumps of hair that even her stylist couldn’t detangle, so chop chop and now my mama is officially a natural diva like yours truly.   It just so happened that she had a somewhat short haircut anyway, likes short hair and planned to chop at some point, but BE CAREFUL because there won’t be that silver lining for you if you had no plans to cut your hair and then NEED to.

Mama's new haircut

After detangling well, I deep conditioned to soften my hair by applying Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose conditioner, olive oil, and coconut oil for approximately 30 minutes.  This step is great because it pampers your hair after being tucked away for a while, moisturizes, and like I said, it makes it soft and lush for the washing aspect.  This was followed by Trader Joe’s Tingle Tree shampoo because I wanted to get my scalp all invigorated and clean.  I love the fact that it actually does make your skin tingle!  Wash well to get any residue from having those braids and then smooth lots of conditioner through the hair (I used a combination of Aubrey Organics GPB and Suave Almond and Shea Butter).  Let this work its magic while you shower as normal and maybe do a body polish/scrub.  Use a shower comb and gently comb through while the conditioner is in the hair to make sure that there are no matted or tangled bits (there shouldn’t be any if the other steps were followed correctly; my hair was so easy to handle by this point).

Voila, soft healthy hair post braids!  No need to chop off sections or cry because of the nightmare of trying to detangle a matted ball of curls. Just diligently work with it as you go and then there’ll be no horror movie ending for your tresses.  I then dried my hair some by plopping a t-shirt on my hair to soak up some of the water so that I could twist my hair while damp and not sopping wet.  Using Qhemet Biologics Olive and Honey balm, I made small twists all over my head as a protective style.  I left these in for a couple of days, pinning back the front in a cute style for work and then untwisted and fluffed for the weekend (I can wear my hair in a twist out for work, I just wasn’t going to untwist them that soon since it takes me a while to twist because I have bad shoulders).  Easy peasy, hair is healthy and growing.

Hopefully this is helpful for those who are thinking about getting braids!  These steps made the post-wash and detangle session a breeze.

Updates and Reviews

Starting Weight: 186

Now Weight: 184

I have a gym setup in my house that includes weights, an elliptical, an ab lounger, fitness quality jump rope, and dvds such as hip hop abs and celebrity bootcamp, so those will be the main things that I utilize for workouts and mention on the blog.  Since dedicating to getting healthier on Saturday, I used the elliptical for 30 mins and the ab lounger for many repetitions , all while watching Law & Order to distract me from the fact that I was doing a dreaded workout 😛  I find that music is cool to work out to, but watching tv DEFINITELY makes the time go by much more quickly.  Which do you prefer, music, television, reading, silent meditation,  etc while working out?

A good resource that I’ve come across for tracking your progress while losing weight, getting healthy  is the website http://sparkpeople.com/ It tracks calories, progress, fitness, and gives good tips so I would highly recommend it.  Just remember to keep it updated!

On to beauty and hair product reviews 😀  I know that’s what you want!

I have found the key to satiny soft hands!   Burt’s Bees Almond Milk beeswax hand creme is pure heaven because it smells good, feels like lush creamy goodness, AND garners awesome results.  My hands take a beating in the winter because of the harsh cold winds of Chicago, so it’s nice to pamper them with something that leaves the skin feeling healthy and moisturized.  Wish that I’d had this for the winter!  A+ for this product all of the way.  I purchased mine while at the Cracker Barrel waiting to eat, but it can be found online or anywhere that Burt’s Bee’s products are sold such as Walgreens.

Since my hands are looking and feeling so much better, I’ve been on QUITE the nail polish kick, changing the color practically every other day.  Part of that changing so often is because of my general restlessness with one look, but another is the annoying fact that so many polishes chip if you happen to even LOOK at your nails the wrong way.  So annoying, right ladies?  Well, Sally Hansen has created a godsend for those of us who may want a nail look to last for more than half an hour.  Their new Complete Salon Manicure really does have the effect of a base coat, rich polish, and top coat in one.  This stuff LASTS!  So far I’ve purchased in Choco-latte and Hidden Treasure.  Hidden Treasure is fun because it’s clear with flecks of grey, pink, gold depending on how you look at it and works wonders when used as a top coat over something else.  When I went to Jamaica last week, I put on a cream colored base coat with Hidden Treasure on top and it lasted the whole trip of 4 days and beach fun.   Definite A+ on this line of products as well and I WILL be getting many more of the colors which can be seen here: http://www.sallyhansen.com/product.cfm?product=385

Remember when I posted about starting to take biotin to help my hair continue to grow?  Well dear readers, I am one of those people who had the unfortunate side effect that they say can happen, which is broken out skin 😦  I’ve curtailed my usage of the supplement because it has caused a massive slew of bumps along my jawline and on my cheeks.  NOT a good look, especially when my hair has been healthy anyway and not really needing the extra help.   So I just wanted to give the update that Biotin is not the route for me, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t work for you because different bodies react differently to it 🙂

Now about this huge head of hair I am growing.  My beloved Qhemet’s Amla and Olive heavy cream is running low, so of course I had to go to the health foods store and replace it.  While there, I happened to notice Qhemet’s Olive and Honey Hair Balm and a light bulb went off.  I’d spoken “here” about wanting to incorporate honey into my summer program because honey is a humectant and therefore takes moisture from the air and imparts it into the hair!  So when I saw that, I bypassed the heavy cream which may be a bit much for the summer humidity and grabbed up the olive/honey balm.   Can I just say, this stuff is divine?  PARTY time, I LOVE Qhemet’s 😀  Hair is soft and pretty and smells nice.  So far I’ve just added some to dry hair that was in an old twist out, but when I was my hair tomorrow, I will use it out of the shower for a wash and go and see how that works and to do some two strand twists.  I have high hopes on it’s moisture potential!  😀

hair hero: Singer Nneka (Check her out here: LOVE this song – Heartbeat)

Biotin Supplements

I’ve decided to start taking a biotin supplement in order to help my hair continue to thrive.  Any of you ladies take biotin and if so, what dosage?  The pills that I’ve acquired are 600 mcg, which I figured was a good number.  They had 1000mcg and 5000mcg, but that seems a bit high to start off, right?  When choosing new supplements, it is always good to start low and WORK up to a higher dosage than to start high and feel sick or have an adverse reaction.  They are Solgar Biotin tablets that I will take once daily and maybe double if I find that they work well and that I have no side effects.  Biotin is said to aid hair and nail growth, so the results should be quite interesting in the beauty realm of things.  Article on biotin found here. Please be sure to leave some comments about your experiences with the supplement!  I’m curious 🙂  Jenell of kinkycurlycoilyme has been raving about it and I’d heard good things before, so please share your experiences with it as well!

It is suggested that a good multivitamin also be consumed with the biotin and I’d run out of my multivitamin anyway, so I purchased Rainbow Light multivitamin/mineral daily pill with probiotics.  I’m bad with my nutrition, so having a good supplement for it is always a plus.  I know that it’s just that, a SUPPLEMENT aka addition to proper diet, but will work on improving my food diet.  This one is supposed to support digestive health, has nourishing hormone balancing herbs for women, and contains vegetable juice complex.  Sounds like win all around!

Washed the hair with Trader Joe’s Tingle Tree Shampoo for the second time tomorrow and must say that I find the tingly scalp feeling after the wash to be highly invigorating.  I’d allowed some lady to put a pomade on the side of my hair while at the Proud Lady Beauty and Hair show and it turned white and felt ENTIRELY too gummy, so I needed more than a cowash to insure that my hair would be clean and healthy.  This shampoo did the trick!  Felt clean and smelled deliciously of peppermint 🙂  I give the product an A and ingredients include rosemary, peppermint oil, eucalyptus, and tea tree oil for clean smelling yummy hair.  I could see this feeling DIVINE in the summer after a hot/humid day because it’s so cooling and tingly, like a minty mojito for the scalp 😀

To follow up the shampoo, I used a moisture replenishing combination of the new rich and thick Suave Almond and Shea conditioner.  For the low price of about $3, you get a HUGE 32oz bottle of creamy goodness.  It felt nourishing on its own, but i added olive oil while in the shower so that I could make sure to impart enough moisture into my hair since I washed with shampoo and didn’t just cowash.  The conditioner contains no ‘cones and has ingredients like Shea butter, jojoba oil, rosemary oil, and sweet almond oil.  Nom nom!  I’ll update when I do a cowash with it so that you know how it fairs on its own 🙂

Hair Hero: the beautiful Tracie Thoms

Chicago Natural Hair Meet Up

Today I went to my first natural hair meetup and it was super fun, even though I was running on CP time and got there pretty late 😦  Still got to mingle and isn’t that what it’s all about?  Having fun, chit chatting, exchanging information = ALWAYS WIN!

It’s quite nice to put a real in person face to the web personas that you are used to admiring, tweeting with, or reading the blogs of.  Lovely Leila Noelliste of Black Girl Long Hair put on the event and it was held at the Little Black Pearl of Chicago.  People brought products to trade and some jewelry was on sale, which allowed me to meet my buddy Bree of Boutique Unique and buy a gorgeous cranberry colored bracelet which I will rock the heck out of in NYC this week.

She’s so sweet and pretty, check out her boutique for great priced jewelry and shirts

Bree and Socialitedreams

Shout outs to her and Tori from A Kinky Hair Monologue whom I got to meet.  Last but not least, it was a pleasure to meet Patrice, Ms. Afrobella herself!  She was oh so cute with her big pretty hair!  Quite the bella indeed 🙂

Socialitedreams and Afrobella

The weather decided to pull a Chicago and go from 65 degrees Friday to 30 degrees and snowing Saturday, but we all came out and had fun!  It was a great meetup and I look forward to any future ones!

First ACV Rinse

Did an apple cider vinegar rinse for the first time!  Combined water, acv, and tea tree oil in a water bottle, hopped in the shower, then soaked my head in it while making sure to pay attention to the scalp.  Felt really good, so I’d do it again definitely.  My scalp has been acting up lately and I don’t know why…. so I need to get to the root of the problem.  Perhaps it was from product build up, so that’s why I used the acv rinse.

Did great two strand twists with the blended beauty curl styling butter.  That stuff makes them more defined than the amla olive cream I discovered, the roots are less puffy and the blended beauty smells so good like vanilla frosting.   I’m sure that I’ll have an epic twist out when these come down!

hair hero of the day, Erykah Badu

Cornrows for the Win

My best friend came over and gave me cornrows; I’m so grateful since I can’t do them myself!  They aren’t for style right now, just wanted a protective style and wearing wigs over them when I leave the house.  Next time that I do them, we’re going to practice with extensions, that should be an adventure, lol.  It doesn’t LOOK hard to do the cornrows with added hair, but we shall SEEEEEEE, verdad?

Cowashed with Organix shea butter conditioner and olive oil, then braided with the amla/olive cream and sprayed with my aloe concoction.  Yay for protective winter styles!  I’ll leave these in for a week or two I suppose, spraying every day with my aloe grow spray and maybe slathering on some coconut oil to seal.

below, pic of me wigging it out 🙂  Easy instant makeover:

Wigging it

Winter is certainly in full effect out here! I’m so over the cold, snow, ice, chilly winds.  Can it be spring already?  To get our minds off of the ferocious coldness, my friend and I were contemplating where we need to take a vacation for next year so that We can have time to save.  Top two trip contenders at the moment are Italy (Rome, Florence, etc)  and Brazil (not sure what city or anything).

brazil

Italy Trevi Fountain

I’ve been to Italy, which was amazingly beautiful and historical, great food too so I’ve always wanted to go back, but it’d be nice to try somewhere new right?  In that vein, Brazil would be amazing.  My mom has been there, but I have not, so it would be a fab experience I’d say.  Hell, either of the two beats cold Chicago right now!  Even if it’s cold there, it’d be a change of cold scenery, so good enough for me!  Have you been to either place?  What were your experiences?

hair hero:  watching This Is It movie and anytime I tear my eyes away from Michael I am admiring Judith Hill’s awesome hair

New technique = EPIC failure

Okay, so yesterday I wasn’t all that keen on the new hair style where I sectioned my hair and put gel in to define the curls.  Some curls popped, some was just fluff with a little curl, whatever, but I just thought it looked like a bad afro wig, lol.

Not a happy camper, but I figured it was trying something new and I won’t like all results but I’ll wear it a couple of days because I might as well.  HOO-BOY, that was NOT going to work.  I’d slept in my satin bonnet as usual, woke up and WOOF!  Took the cap off and holy crap batman!  Ever get those ignorant people asking “is your hair rough?  natural kinky hair looks rough, is it like a brillo pad?”  MOST days I would laugh in the face of that blatant idiocy and say no, my hair feels like soft pretty cotton THANK YOU VERY MUCH, but today?  I would have had to sadly put my head down and say yes, yes my hair is just like the texture of a rough wiry piece of dish washing equipment.  :weeping:

Hair was shrunken, hard, wiry, and just overall a complete change from the soft, lush, pretty, want to bury my face in it hair that I’m used to.  So um….yeah….definitely got in the shower asap to wash that crap out with my lovely pure life aloe shampoo (wooo, that stuff is great)  and sat with honeysuckle rose again for about 5 mins.  Detangled my now soft again pretty hair and rinsed out.  I decided to do my own rollerset for the first time, used small blue rollers with tiny itty bitty combs on them and my amla/olive heavy cream.  Sprayed with my homemade aloe juice concoction after all done and voila!

I started at the back and made my way to the front where I got lazy and didn’t make sure that the sections were uniform or wet, so it’ll probably look like a crap spirally bush in the front, but at least i can walk backwards and look fly to death!  lmao 😀

so, to wrap this up, experimentation is good but know all RESULTS won’t be good and now I know that i don’t have easily defined spirally curls everywhere on my head.  Beware overloading on the gel and thank god for just today not having a job because I would have been MORTIFIED if I’d awaken to that head of hair and couldn’t do a damn thing to change it!

Sucked in by Honeysuckle Rose

Okay, count me IN on the honeysuckle rose bandwagon!  This stuff is LUXE, so rich and creamy and smells delightful, not overpoweringly floral like I feared.  It smells like sweet candied roses, lol, whatever that would smell like.  I hate floral scents, so if I’m loving this, then it definitely is good!  lol

the great, natural ingredients are: coconut fatty acid cream base, aloe vera, shea butter, wheat germ oil, jojoba oil, honeysuckle oil and a host of other natural yummy for the hair things 😀    I added olive oil as well and sat with it on my hair under a shower cap for an hour while I watched something.

When I took the cap off, holy sweetness, it was so soft and lush!  Definitely definitely definitely like this conditioner!  Hopped my happy self into the shower to rinse it out then cowashed with my organix coconut conditioner.  I’ve been finding that when I rinse it out with water as cold as I can stand, that it really does make curls pop more, so I did that.  Applied Kinky Curly Knot Today and coconut oil, then sprayed with concoction that I made and talked about in previous post.  After that, it was experiment time where I tried out the new technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx9WhK-NY00

Results:   well, I don’t know….it’s okay.   Pretty much figured out that she and I don’t have the same type of hair, lol!  Mine does not look like hers, but ya know at least I tried something different. Pretty much an afro with some curlies popping somewhat, decent look, but I’ll stick to my twist outs or roller sets.  Just more my speed!  I used Fantasia IC gel instead of ecostyler and am glad that hair isn’t crunchy even though i used a truckload of gel.  I’ll probably wash this out in a couple of days and maybe roller set my hair since I bought new rollers today.

edit:  i look all of 12 years old in these pics, lmao….i swear, i’m of age and legal, for all you who may have naughty thoughts looking at me and my fro goodness and glasses 😛   It looks different in real life, looks better….i dont know why hair never shows up right in pics for me!

New Spray

I made the concoction that I talked about in the previous post.  I put it into the empty 8 oz spray bottle that my marula oil came in:

I poured in about a 1/3rd water, 2/3rd 99.7% aloe vera juice from the organic health food store, then dripped in rosemary oil, peppermint oil, olive oil, and tea tree oil with lavender extract.   Shook it up to mix together then spritz spritz!  Smells good, pretty much like peppermint with a little herb scent too.  Was cool and refreshing since the water I added was some Dasani from the refrigerator so nice and cold!  The peppermint tingles on the scalp some.   So I’ll let you know after using it for a while how it goes!  Pics will always be up to watch hair growing progress!

I’ve been watching some youtube videos today and think that I’ll try this technique  with my fantasia gel in order to get my curlies to POP like popcorn…okay, damn that was corny, please don’t judge me 😉    She and I have the same texture looks like, so hopefully it’ll work.  I’ll post pics, fail or triumph!!  I’ll probably do it on Monday, when I’ll have time to sit around and do hair.

hair hero: the prettiest model to me, Wakeema Hollis