Wow, 8 Months

I just realized that I completely missed my 8 month anniversary! I don't really have anything new going on. I put my hair in twists about 2 weeks ago, they are nice and low-maintenance, but I don't think I'm going to be able to do them again and leave them in for two weeks, the back is itching like CRAZY. Looks like the key to my scalp health is washing once a week. I don't mind though, I actually like washing my hair now, so it's not that much of an inconvenience, and even if I do want to do two strand twists all over it only took about 4 hours, I don't mind doing that for something that I'll only have in for a week.

Also this time I did them kinda bigger in the back, and smaller in the front, I think next time I'll do them smaller all over.

All I used on my twists was Organic Root Stimulator Twist 'n' Lock gel. That stuff is the truth, it even held my scraggly permed ends together in the twists for the most part (more in the front than the back).

Speaking of the scraggly permed ends, the closer it gets to my one year-perm free anniversary, the more I think I'm going to go 'head and BC in May instead of just letting my hair grow out. I'm convinced it will grow even faster once it's all natural. Plus I don't want to keep wasting perfectly good products on permed hair. LOL

Here are a couple of pics of my twists right after I did them:



I'm not going to post what they look like now. LOL.

I didn't get really creative while doing my twists as far as additional styling. I did put them all in one giant flat twists from time to time in the back, and I liked the way they looked. I don't feel like it's long enough to do all of the cute stuff I saw people doing in their Fotki's. BTW, to the right is a pic of one of my twists towards the middle of my head up close, notice how nice and fat the natural parts are as compared to the permed parts? That's another reason why I want to go on and just cut it off in May. that pic is not of my hair stretched, I wanted to capture the difference between the textures accurately.

Oh, and in other news, I'm trying to convince my two best friends to go Natural, I think I'm wearing one of them down. LOL, I make sure to mention it everytime I talk to them (usually about once a week, neither of them live in my city).

That's all I have to say for now, I'm going to get some other stuff done before President Obama's State of the Union Address (although, I don't think I'm going to hear anything I haven't heard before).

I Had An Interesting Thought Today

The more I see my natural hair coming through, the more beautiful I feel. I was doing my moisture sealing routine and putting my hair in big twists to dry and I just kept smiling at myself in the mirror, I was just soooo happy with what I was doing and thinking how funny it is that I started transitioning after I hadn't had a perm for a while (mostly due to money) and decided I'd rather just let my perm grow out. It wasn't some deep spiritual journey for me. I was tired of chemical burns, I was tired of my hair looking thin when I KNOW it's thick (I hate being able to see through my hair). The back right section of my hair breaks off when I'm stressed, so it's practically all natural already in that little spot. LOL.

But I was getting ready to wash out my Castor-Oil/Conditioner after letting it sit on my head for about two hours when I got the urge to cut off a piece of the back of my hair to see my curls unrestricted. Now, year or even a few months ago I would have never contemplated cutting anything off of my own head. So I went and grabbed a pair of scissors and cut a piece off. I was smiling like an idiot afterwards. LOL, you would have thought I did the BC. I just kept saying to myself "So that's about how long my hair would be if I cut it now" it will be interesting to track the progress of that piece of hair as I finish my transition. But now it's pretty much decided that my hair will definitely be cut in May.

I put the hair that was remaining in a little twist just to see what it would look like (mind you my hair was wet) and it was just the cutest little thing ever! ~lol~ and the end curled instead of breaking apart. Of course I took a picture:
Doing that only made me want to cut the rest of my hair off. But I must resist the temptation. . . on second thought maybe I won't make it a year after all. . . LOL

The more I see of my natural hair, the more I love it. Another thought I had as I was smiling at myself in the mirror was that if I ever have a daughter, she's not getting a perm until she's able to pay for it herself. I might not even press her hair after every washing like my mom did me. She's going to learn to love the hair she was blessed with and see it for what it is, absolutely beautiful.

Oh, and this song has been stuck in my head all day:


The part that gets me is "Good hair means curls and waves, bad hair means you look like a slave." So true. I have a Soror I'm trying to convince to go natural, but she won't do it because she thinks she'll look like Kunta Kente. I think I'm wearing her down though, I mention it every time I talk to her. :o)

New Style: Flat Twists & Bantu-Knot Out

So I decided to try a new style simply because I'm tired of the old styles. LOL, so this time I decided to do flat twists going from ear to ear instead of to the back, and a bantu-knot out in the back. I may try this style again sometime with a twist n curl in the back. I think I should have done the knots smaller in the back because they didn't come out like I thought they would doing them big. For this style I used EcoStyler's Clear Gel for the flat twists, and I used a little Aloe Vera Gel on the bantu-knots.

This style is relatively easy, just part across (the parting straight is the hardest part for me, my arms were getting tired so I still don't think I got them COMPLETELY straight ~lol~ but they'll do. Then flat twist. The one in the front is going from left to right and the one on the back is going from right to left. After I did the flat twists I put rubber bands at the base and then continued flat twisting a bit behind my ear so the ends would be with the rest of the bantu-knot out. Then I tied down the front using a satin scarf so the twists would lay a bit flatter, and I slept in a satin bonnet.

This morning I took out the knots and fluffed. If I didn't like where the curls fell, I used a bobby pin to put it where I wanted it. Overall, I like the style and will probably do it again.

Meh: Flat Twist 'n' Curl Results

Well, I'm not impressed by the results of my flat twistout, I think next time I will definitely split the one in the middle in two (that way I can get a tighter twist). Overall, I don't think it's bad per se, I just don't think it's "awesome". One thing that certainly IS awesome is the shine and how healthy it looks and feels. So I'm not giving up, I'll just have to do them smaller next time. Look at how nice the ones on the right look, I want that all over my head. Since they aren't TIGHT curls, I'd imagine I'd need to re-twist every night to maintain the style, but I'll just sleep in a bonnet tonight and see how to comes out.

Happy New Year!

I'm a day late, but it's officially 2010. New Years are never a big deal to me, it's just another day. But hey, I guess any reason to get drunk and party and not have to go to work the next day will do. LOL. Anywhoo, I'm trying a flat twist 'n' curl, inspired by CurlyNikki from CurlyNikki.com. I actually put the twists in on Friday, the 31st of December, but I haven't taken them out yet because all I've really been doing since then was laying around the house reading books. This is the first time I did the flat twists all over my head. I can't do them while my hair is wet because my natural hair makes it puff up and loosen as it dries, which annoys me to no end. So this time my hair was about 80-90% dry when I put them in. But they were still pretty slippery thanks to my sealing (I swear, I LOOOOOOVE that step, and I'm glad I discovered it, I don't think my hair has ever been this consistently moisturized).

This week when I sealed in the moisture, I forgot to melt my coconut oil, and I didn't feel like melting it in my hands everytime, so instead I did a mixture of Jojoba and Castor Oils for my Oil step. And let me tell you, my hair is the shiniest I've ever seen it.

After I finished putting the flat twists in, I rolled the ends with my satin covered rollers (I think it may be about time to get some more). Overall, I did 5 twists, next time I may do 6 because I'm not a fan of the one I had in the middle.

I took out the one you see there-------> this morning just to see what the curl looked like, and it looked awesome! I should have taken a picture. . . but I just re-twisted it (hopefully I didn't mess it up by doing that ~lol~) and put my satin scarf back on. I figure the best way for me to keep my fingers out of my hair is to leave it in these twists and leave on my scarf (I touch my hair waaaay too much). I promise when I take them down I'll post a pic, I have a feeling it may be my best twist-out yet! I still haven't managed to do a twist-out I love yet.

Oh, and I think I said I was going to do the winter-bun challenge, I did it for two weeks but I don't know that I'm going to be able to do it until April. For one thing, as you can see I'm not good enough with flat twisting to do flat-twists back into the bun, and I haven't even started trying to teach myself to braid my own hair yet. Second, I got bored with them even though I have the two bun pieces. I think I will do them periodically because it's a pretty good way to keep my hands out of my hair, but I don't want to pull my hair into too many ponytails and mess up my edges or cause breakage.