Hair Shears and Trimming Ends for Growth

Hey Again. No the Braiding video isn’t up…I have to find a suitable camera to film it. I’m going to keep bringing it up, so that you all know that I haven’t forgot…and that it’s coming.

Anyway…

ATTENTION PLEASE

I HAVE NEW HAIR SHEARS!!!

Oh my goodness am I super excited for this! And why? Why did you buy the shears? I’lll get to that.

Utopia Care 5.5″ Hair Shears
http://www.amazon.com

Quick healthy hair lesson:

What some of us may or may not know is that split ends are detrimental to hair growth. Split ends are a sign of damaged hair. This is caused by things as simple as daily hair styling, over-processing your hair with chemicals such as bleaching, or putting significantly high levels of heat on your hair strands.

This is why you’d hear hair dressers say things like: “If you cut your hair, it’ll grow.” Which in theory is true but logistically doesn’t make sense. Your hair grows from your scalp, not your ends. So obviously cutting off your ends doesn’t make your hair look longer, it’ll look shorter!  Huh? So what the hell do they mean then???

Since your ends are damaged, that split in your hair will travel up the hair shaft, making it look weak and thin as it’s breaking off your hair. This is part of what you see in your hair brush and combs when your hair sheds.  If you don’t cut them off, your hair will go through this vicious cycle where it’ll keep growing from the root but break off at the ends. So it grows a little and then breaks a little, grows a little and breaks a little. This gives the illusion that your hair is not growing at all. But it is.  Having them cut off will eliminate the split from traveling up the shaft. SO you’ll retain more length. So when it grows…no breakage at the end because the hair is not splitting.

So back to my shears purchase:
Purchasing these shears is one step closer to ensuring that my hair is retaining length which is why my hair shears so exciting. Because…for the past two years since I’ve been on this hair journey, I have only gotten my hair to a certain length…and it stops. TODAY. Usually when I go back to school. I have no one to trim my hair. And you can’t cut your hair with paper scissors because those aren’t designed to cut the hair shaft properly.  So uhn-uh! So I bought some for myself and I’m super duper excited..because my hair might grow now. I’ve got EVERYTHING I need to keep my hair in good condition through school until I go back home for break. And we’ll see….we’ll see some growth this time. If you read my last post about me not having the right hair care products to make sure my hair is okay you’ll understand my frustrations and the ‘yo-yo-ing’ pattern of my hair growth.

So let’s go! It’s gon’ grow. Uh-huh. Oh yeah. I’m not backing down. No more “Black-girls-hair-doesn’t-grow shit! (That’s a real-life negative stigma that is commonly said about black women’s hair and one that heard throughout my life!) But not today! Mmmhmm. Watch me! My hair gon’ retain some length!
…alright.

Here we go.

I’ll post some pictures of the mini twists I’ve placed into my hair Later.

Until then…

=)

I Bought New Products..!!

I just went to Sally’s Beauty Supply Store and purchased some products for my hair and…I’m totally stoked! Look:

I got the Silk Elements and the Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Masque for free as well as a $5 off coupon for my next purchase. And let me tell you. This was expensive. The total cost for all of this came down to a whopping $53.25 with my Sally Beauty card. The most expensive product here is the Miss Jessie Baby Butter Creme. It’s such a pain in the ass to purchase but I LOVE what it does with my hair when I style it!! Keeps it moisturized and leaves a beautiful sheen and I haven’t found another product that does that with my hair…yet.

I’m still on the hunt for another cheap styler/moisturizing product that works with my hair so I don’t have to kill my wallet with every purchase. But in my experience this product does wonders with my hair. So it’s a good purchase for me. They’re all good purchases for me. If you’re a consistent reader you’d know about my hair products deficiency and you can see why I’m excited.

If you’re newly natural and looking for what products to use in this massive wide deep ocean of product choices: Take every suggestion with a grain of salt. I use to be like you, new and not quite sure which product was right for me. And I wanted my hair to grow and that was only possible if I bought the right products. And money don’t grow on trees. So! I did intensive research and looked EVERYWHERE to find them.

If I saw a natural hair guru or hair blogger with hair that kind-of-sorta-looked-like-mine-but-not-really-sure using a certain product, I’d buy it. I even got caught up in hair-texture-typing for a while and would go on naturallycurly.com (good site by the way) because they match what kind of products are suitable for your hair type. That was a real hit and miss for me because although my hair texture would rule out tons of products that weren’t suitable for my hair, hair texture isn’t a COMPLETE indicator as to what products are good (or bad) for your hair.  I’d even buy products that had the most consensus amongst tutorials and my favorite naturalistas. Wouldn’t work for my hair.  (By the way anyone want my Eco-Styler Olive Oil Gel? It’s still sitting there).

So I’ll let you know how my new hair products works out for me! And tell me if you ever were a product junkie or how many trial and errors you had until you find the right product. Comment below!

Until next time guys!

~P.S. I haven’t forgotten about the braiding video…I’m still working on getting a camera. It’s coming! I’ll surprise ya 😉

The Struggle of Being Natural and a College student.

Hey guys!

DON’T YELL AT ME!! I didn’t forget.

I’m still working on the Conrow Braiding video! Yeah I know It’s been a while but I promise, it’s coming up next! Literally. The next post will be the link to that video I promise. *pointing at you through the screen* You’re hold me to that.

However, in the mean time, Can I vent about how difficult it is to be natural with a low maintenance college budget???

It never made sense to me  in high school. I didn’t fully understand.

How is it that college kids are broke all the time? Well…

1) YOU are the supplier of ALL of your finances.

Unless you have a job…you ain’t getting no money from your ‘rents because all of your parent’s money is going to that 30K+ tuition. So when you don’t got it, and they don’t either. (Unless your parents can still afford to give you money here and there, that’s a plus…)

2) Everything seems more expensive at stores.

Depending on where you go, you can find stuff for cheaper prices. But I go to school up in the sticks, where book and convenience stores are far and if you don’t have a four-wheel vehicle, you have to pay extra shipping prices to get the things you want. (Amazon & E-bay have become my best friends)

3) Eating Out.

You’ll get sick of the dining hall food, FAST. And if you want something that doesn’t taste like pig slop at the troth, you’ll splurge a little here and there for some real food.

4) You’re still a student.

You have classes, you need sleep, you have to study, you have to read, you need YOU time whether it’s kicking back with your friends or simply just being alone watching netflix. With all those hours being spent, it’d be nearly impossible to work under 40 hours a week without seriously sacrificing some self-love and care.
With all these money sucking situations, that leaves a small window of being able to afford natural hair products. Let alone (doing your hair) And for me, this continuous state of being broke has put a serious detriment towards my natural hair journey. I can’t buy the products that I need and that are (most importantly) good for my hair.

So my hair length has fluctuated often and continuously keeps stopping right at the nape of my neck. So, last year I did a huge trim:

Hair Before Cut on May 21st

My Cut:
2-3 Inches Off!

And I finally got myself almost back to the same point I had before the cut.
Take a look at the ‘over-the-years- photos:

Around December 22, 2013

Cut on June 27th 2014

11 months later: May 20th 2015

I go through this vicious pattern. When summer time rolls around, I run out of products to use.  Then I don’t have any of the ones I know are good for my hair. And we all know: there’s good products and bad ones! I also…as many of us do…loose patience. It gets dry over a period of time and it becomes tough to comb and then I don’t have any products to use…so then it spirals into a huge mess!

My hair ( and I have come to terms with this)…grows at a very slow pace. About 2-3 inches a year maybe. (that’s a really wild and off guess…I’ve never measured). OR maybe it doesn’t! Maybe that’s all I can retain because my routine is constantly changing!! And for us afro-textured ladies who are trying to grow our hair…every little thing counts! You stop detangling. You stop wearing your satin cap at night you switch your products up too often or use too many….all plays into our hair looking short and like it’s never growing.

Because of the constant struggle of not having the right hair products and being too broke to buy any, I am always and forever just out of moisturizer…or out of this and out of that. And I switch to different products that I’ve had lying around due to my trial and error stage.

And let me say something that not everyone understands, (that I’m STILL trying to understand) Afro-textured hair is NOT like any kind of hair. You can’t be rough. It’ll break off our hair. You can’t use a blow dryer everyday. It’ll break off our hair. You can’t leave it tangled, un-moisturized, and not protect it at night. (Unless you want crazy knots). You can’t constantly roam your fingers through it every ten seconds. That can break it off too. It needs low manipulation if you’re trying to grow it out.
It’s time to understand that we won’t see our hair grow AT ALL unless we are consistent in our good hair practices. Because our hair texture and makeup constitutes the most delicate, tender-loving, care to see proper growth.
Now hold on, before you go crazy here, I’m not saying one day of not caring for your hair will ruin everything you’ve ever worked for. Or you can’t flaunt or enjoy your hair. No no. Relax.  Just be cautious (unlike me) One day of bad hair care habits can turn into 2 days, then 3 days, then 4…and then…well–you get the gist.

I’m trying to maintain a consistent wash day routine that still fluctuates around my schedule but at least it’s still gets washed regularly. I’m working a lot now…so I plan on buying back some products (and hopefully backups) slowly and surely. So I don’t have to worry about my hair becoming subject to staying in a forever short state.

I may even make a video focusing on Natural hair maintenance in college. Don’t crucify me! I’m hoping I can get that video out too!

Until next time guys!

~Jasmine

Need Eco Styler Olive Oil Gel?

Hello ladies, for anyone who is interested, I am selling an Eco Styler Gel.

It’s 16 fluid ounces and has the 10 maxes hold.

If you’ve been reading for a while. You’ll know that the Eco styler gel does NOT WORK for my hair , so I really want to sell it to someone it’d be of good use for.

Comment below if you’re interested and I’ll give you the e-bay link at which I am selling it.

First commenter gets the link.

Celebrate The Color of Your Skin

I’ve been really wanting to share this story with you guys. Every time I tell myself Get on WordPress! I would tell myself “Not yet! Not yet! Talk about it later..later..later,girl.”

We all know how that thought train gets us.

I was in school when this happened and it was beautiful out. (Finally, ya know for Ithaca weather).

I wanted to go over and talk to a friend. (I really wanted her to show me the single rooms inside her dorm because I’m going to be an RA next semester and I was going to stay in the dorm she lives in now). However, she was smoking and having some girl time with another friend of hers, so I thought it’d be best to just chat with them and save the tour for another day.

We were talking about men preferences, different professors, and sun bathing. Eventually, my friend’s friend, let’s call her Casey (not her real name!)says something.

Casey was talking about how she hated how red-like-a-lobster she gets while tanning and really wanted to get some color into her family genes. I thought she was joking but later I found out her fiancé is Puerto Rican lol.

Anyway, The sun tanning comment was when the conversation became interesting. They were talking about how they hate having sunburn and the whole peeling thing.

I said, “Oh, I can’t relate.”
I never had sunburn. (Not that black people can’t have sunburn, they CAN. I’ve just never experienced that pain).

Then Casey said, ” God, if I could come back as any person. I would come back as a black woman.”

“You guys are strong, you cook great food, you guys don’t take any shit from nobody. You’re hair, your skin, everything is beautiful.”

“You guys have a certain assertiveness about you. Now, that may come from how your culture is or just the personal experiences you’ve been through, but damn, you girls are tough.”

“Plus you’re men, are fine. They don’t get old!”

And then I made the ‘Black don’t crack joke.”

But I’ve never heard another ethnic group flatter being black so beautifully. It was inspiring. Plus, I knew she wasn’t bullshitting. She was being serious.

**Now let me make a disclaimer. You should not let others noticing you create value in you. You should already see the value in yourself. So this post isn’t to say that now I’ve heard someone else say great things about black women, I love myself more. Or once you’ve had this experience, you’d be happier about yourself. No.**

All I’m saying here is that it was a very refreshing comment to hear and the peculiarity of the fact that I hear it from a DIFFERENT ethic group. I loved the fact that someone sees how awesome we, as black women, already are. But only if we ourselves started saying more of this to each other instead of beating ourselves down.

Our own kind doesn’t even celebrate us.

If only we stop self- separating and dividing each other. Personally, it’s not what OTHERS say about US, it’s what WE say about each OTHER.

The power of our words divides or unites. We all have already seen the evidence of that.

We need to empower our black women and not those who are soley black. I’m talking about accepting the bi-racial ones too. (Different post for another day, I’ve got a good story for that one too).

Just celebrate the skin you’re in ladies. We’re more wonderful than our minds and society makes it out for us to believe.

Until next time.

Chemicals or All Natural?

I’m nervous guys. I use the Tresseme Naturals Conditioner (New Formula/BlackTop) and I’m wondering….

Is some chemicals all bad for hair growth?

I’m nervous only because I don’t want my hair to suffer. I changed from all natural ingredient products to chemically induced ones and that just freaks me out that my hair may not grow because of it.

I don’t want to back track. (Since I’m nervous to think my hair is not really growing).

Anyone to possibly debunk that using chemical products are not all that bad? Yes? No?

Let me know what you think?

Frustrated??

Ladies, do you ever feel frustrated during your natural hair journey?

I do. Lol. It’s only been 4 months but I feel like it’s been forever! However. I have been seeing growth. The back is catching up the the front. But I have no idea if this is because of the methods I been using or if it’s because of the inversion method.

Either or, I’m happy that my hair is achieving more length.

Deep Condition

How often do you deep condition?
Do you deep condition at all?
Do you do deep conditioning as your alternative to co-washing?

My Natural Hair

I was feeling pretty tribal. I don’t know why. I just washed my hair yesterday and I thought I’d play around with my hair a bit. Here you go guys? Why do you think?

Hair Progress, Set Backs…etc. (I’m Documenting Guys)

Hey guys, I don’t know if this really is a set back but I think it was the beginning of this week where I went really violent on my hair. (I had no patience). I really didn’t  go slow or take my time with those tangles. I just combed harshly.. (my poor hair.)

I really lost my patience that day. Being a college student and having classes, I just feel like I never have the time for 3 hours of finger detangling my hair.

(I think it’s honestly my time management). But yeah, I think I broke off my hair a lot more than normal. I never have a lot of shedding when I wet detangle, but I still shed.

Lately (because of break) I don’t detangle my hair everyday. It’s every two days or every other. Honestly because I’m not going anywhere and my hair in my head is like a ‘last resort’  kind of thing.

I blame wearing extension braids for 3 years.

Never had to worry about a thing.

Another thing!

Totally messed up my wash  day system. There was one week in January where I just didn’t wash it that Friday and I waited till to the Wednesday of that week to wash it. And by the time it was Friday AGAIN. It didn’t make sense to wash my hair since I just washed it, so I waited. Now I don’t know what to do. lol. (It still hasn’t been washed guys!) =P

There was also one  day where I didn’t wear my cap because I couldn’t find it. The next day my hair was EXTREMELY dry. (Really showed me how important the cap is). So I deep conditioned it, but it didn’t really moisturize it well. I think I washed it out too much. I didn’t even style it I just put it in large plats and left it alone.

I’m getting lazy guys.

Right. So…new things and ideas on my agenda. I really wanted to do a 3-week protective style because I wanted to just get my hands out of my hair daily…. (sick of taking care of it) but then I didn’t know if I should start on clean hair or old hair and then wash it again on a friday.

I’m pretty confused because I’ve been seeing so many cute styles and I just don’t want to sentence my hair on a can’t do anything project.

I’m really hitting  stump here guys, which is why I haven’t really posted much.

I remember I wanted to spice things up and try the ‘Inversion Method’ see if that 1- inch one week thing really works and I just got lazy all over again.

I hate Winter Break guys. I have nothing to occupy myself with and my hair is becoming a burden…. sort of.

Hoping this is just a phase and I hope that it blows over.

That’s me guys.

Back to you.

Until next time

~Later.