Styling & Protecting Two Strand Twists

2017 is the year of committing self to a hair appreciation and health.

A few weeks ago, I received my first trim of the year, a deep conditioning treatment, and two strand twists at Syreeta Scott's Duafe Hollistic Hair Salon, the amazing natural hair salon chosen by celebs such as Janet Jackson and Jill Scott. It's a nice, comfortable atmosphere. Camaraderie between the stylists especially engaging among the hypnotic, bumping tunes of Nigerian born musician Yemi Alade. There wasn't a time where patrons weren't laughing or dancing in seats, reading magazines under hooded hair dryers or having locs twisted during this pleasant excitement.
As my hair received much needed TLC, renowned NYT's bestselling author/nutritionist J. J. Smith conducted a book signing of her latest book "Green Smoothies for Life." I didn't get to see her speak, but she passed through the salon a handful of times, glowing and exuberant. Maybe I will do a cleanse sometime. It has crossed my mind.

To keep my hair healthy and shiny, I alternate days between massaging coconut oil and Jamaican Black Castor Oil (on the scalp). 

Side view.

Partial back view. I love the parted arrangement. Geneva did a wonderful job again!

The back.

Amusingly enough, on my way out of the door, I discovered The Sable Collective, a funky, hip art gallery and shop-- recently reviewed by Philly fashion writer Elizabeth Wellington. Opposite hair salon, the eclectic space sells custom art, handmade jewelry, catchy slogan t-shirts, Black Girl Magic flasks, and vegan lipsticks by The Lip Bar (stay tuned for beauty product reviews!). I talked to the very kind co-owner, Shanti Myers (she runs the popular Around the Curl blog) and hope to soon be putting up drawings and paintings to sell there. After all, natural hair is a huge context in my work.
Below features a few post-salon care shots.
In the meantime, I'm using my favorite Shea Moisture brand products (the vegan ones without honey or silk, etc.), drinking plenty of water, and keeping my sweets consumption to a minimum (hard, hard, hard when you're self-certified doughnut girl). Also has anyone ever tried out Deva Vegan Hair, Nails, & Skin Vitamins pills? They're currently out of order on Amazon. I'm thinking about investing....

For a simple smooth back style, I used an old purple braided hair extension (yes, I kept a whole bag of old braids) and pinned it on the back so that it wouldn't fall by the wayside.

Scrunched faces are just another way of showing great joy for an easy style.

I also braided the purple extension in my hair too-- for that awesome pop of royal color.

At work, enjoying museum sights (like Jacob Lawrence!) and wonderful architecture.

Another style, especially for swanky events like NYC gallery openings (where one can meet amazing artists such as painter Kehinde Wiley), a satin scarf with a stylish cheetah cat print (a thrift store find) atop of head with a few curls sticking out or some baby hair magic is a definite plus.

On days that I want to bring out a beautiful printed Africa headwrap, I first tie on a satin scarf and then loosely secure on desired cotton fabric look of the day.

Sayonara for now.

Best Vegan Beauty Bets of the Year

Some of the best products purchased this year.

I love reading Essence Magazine, especially the natural hair care section and the beauty products guide catered to sisters of color. However, it's hard to fully commend products that are not cruelty free, contain parabens, mineral oil, and other kinds of vegan gal no nos.
I have compiled a list of my favorite treats for face, skin, and hair. I wish every great thing I have is good for everyone, but each of us has different reactions due to skin and hair type. Perhaps maybe certain company joys such as Shea Moisture and Sukin have a specific line for you.

Face:

Hurraw has a way with the lips.

Facial Soap: Shea Moisture's African Black Soap left my skin clearer. Using it with their Facial Scrub is a plus.
Toner: evanhealy's Rose Petal Facial Tonic HydroSoul replenishes and keeps the skin breathably hydrated. The smell is lovely, making one feel as though they're spraying spring bloom on their face. It's such a rewarding experience tucked in a bottle, like a spa treatment. Plus on its eloquent glass is the quote, "may all beings everywhere be happy and free." Yes. I agree.
Moisturizer: Sukin's Facial Moisturiser performs its job above satisfactory. It makes my face so plaint and smooth that I find it hard not to touch my softened, youthful cheeks. I don't think my face has ever been this moist. Chocolate cake should be jealous.
Makeup Remover: Organic Coconut Oil wipes eye makeup right off and prepares skin for gentle cleansing with a very soft finish. Alba Botanical's 3-in-1 Clean Hawaiian Clean Towelettes also provide a quick solution when too tired to run water.
lips: Everyone knows I have a huge vegan balm obsession. It's a huge tie between Hurraw's pretty red tinted black cherry balm and sweet smelling chai tea lip balm and Le Couvent Des Minimes Lip Balm in Orange Blossom. All three keep my full lipped pout in moist glory and light glossiness. Le Couvent Des Minimes is both a moisturizer and lip treatment that smells enticing. However, it's Hurraw's chai tea that tells a story of the best winter beverage next to hot chocolate.  
homemade tip: A tiny bit of coconut oil or olive oil rubbed between the hands and applied to the face in a circular motion provides dewiness. Remember a little. Too much will make skin greasier than a potato chip coated in cheap Vaseline.

Body:

Well moisturized skin is especially important for winter dryness.

Body Wash: Shea Moisture's Olive & Green Tea Body Wash W/ Avocado gives a gentle, ultimate cleansing experience. Two kinds of honeysuckle, shea butter, and other pleasing ingredients help to keep skin soft and beautiful.
Moisturizer: Shea Moisture's Coconut & Hibiscus Line. I use the Bath, Body, & Massage Oil w/ Gluten Free Vitamin E, the Dry Oil Mist w/ Songyi Mushroom Extract, and Body Butter w/ Gluten-Free Vitamin E. Talk about a sun kissed, glowing delight for the body. My skin feels loved and cherished by products that apply and blend as though natural essentials were just meant to sink right in.
homemade tip: 1/4 cup olive oil + 2 tablespoon raw sugar + 1 teaspoon lemon juice is a great exfoliating treat. Get rid of those pesky dry skin cells and polish your body to a whole new radiance. Best used on dry skin before showering.

Hair:

Taliah Waajid's Curly Cream has been a rewarding find.

Shampoo: Kinky Curly's Come Clean removes scalp buildup and leaves behind a lovely fragrance.
Conditioner: Shea Moisture's Raw Shea Butter Conditioner has been a godsend, keeping hair easily manageable, soft, and a pleasure to afro pick out. I use it both for conditioning and in a little squirt bottle mixed with water as a daily leave in conditioner.
Cream: Taliah Waajid's Curly Curl Cream gives the best twists ever. After washing and conditioning, I add in the cream, twist two strands together, and put on a satin nightcap. In the morning, perfect sheen and well defined spirals.
Oils: Jamaican Black Castor Oil, Organic Coconut Oil, and Africare's 100% Glycerin keep hair in tip top shape. Each give my thick hair a certain kind of lustrous sheen- an important beneficial trait to carry in the arena of keeping high maintenance natural hair strong and healthy.
homemade tip: for an ultra deep conditioning treatment, soak the hair in a huge amount of coconut oil (like to an almost dripping consistency), cover overnight with a conditioning cap, and wash it out in the morning before shampoo and conditioner.

En Route To Summer Braids Part Two: The Night Before With Karen's Body Beautiful Luscious Locks Hair Mask Deep Conditioner

Supporting black business continues. Ingredients for this include aloe butter, jojoba oil, nettle, and carrot seed oil.

The most important part of getting hair to that necessary softness is to use a good deep conditioner at least twice a week. Well, for me. My hair is super duper dry. Like a crispy deep fried brittle dry. Thankfully, new products have slowly recuperated damage. Still commending Kinky Curly for cleanliness, Shea Moisture for amazing conditioners, and clipping ends. I find all three components have been beneficial to summer braids journey.
Now moving forward to the next segment: trying out Karen's Body Beautiful. Like Kinky Curly and Shea Moisture, Karen Tappin's cruelty free line is free of parabens, sulphates, mineral oil, and other harmful additives.

Karen transformed her organic body care line from a modest home-based business to a blossoming enterprise with robust internet sales, a luxurious store and a chic spa. Karen’s foray into the rarefied world of beauty happened by chance. In 2003, Karen, an astute businesswoman, was successfully marketing custom gift baskets during the holidays. Alarmed by the presence of preservatives and possible carcinogens in some conventional bath and body products, Karen decided to create all natural alternatives to incorporate into her gift baskets.
After researching the cosmetic and therapeutic properties of natural ingredients, Karen developed recipes for a full spa line made from all natural ingredients, including lotions, soaps, scrubs, oils, candles and bath salts. Karen’s products were immediately a hit-so successful in fact that the following year she and her husband decided to focus their entrepreneurial efforts on selling bath and beauty products.

Here entails twas the night before protective braids,
another organic product breaks down hair barricades.

After washing with Kinky Curly's Come Clean, I swapped out usual conditioner for Karen's Body Beautiful's Luscious Locks Hair Mask Deep Conditioning Treatment, $24.99 at Target. I used more than a quarter. Sorry. I'm a product addict. And I knew my hair was extra thirsty on top of excited. This is always sold out. And for good reason. Alas, I combed conditioner through, put on a conditioning cap and watched two episodes of Jem and the Holograms-- 40 minutes. Karen said 20. I needed the bonus. I rinsed and tested strands. You know a conditioner is good and true when during twist making, it stays uniformed and shiny-- no product needed. Still, one needs leave in conditioner, oil, and cream anyway. The combing was manageable too. Solid plus. 

Little pic. I hope you all can just imagine how the texture felt. An indescribable feathery existence. These are part of photographic closeups. Part of a future series of Afro hair love. Very beautiful. Touchably beautiful. To sift fingers into this was a dream.  

Soft middle view.

My hair line is so healthy. I'm obsessed with the front view.

En Route To Summer Braids Part One: Kinky Curly's Come Clean + Shea Moisture's Raw Shea Butter Conditioner

Hair closeup.

Hi kinky hair friends! Let me tell you something spectacularly great.
Ever since the Philadelphia Protest held many weeks ago, a lot of inner conflict raged inside. One primary basis struck close. Buy black business. Support black business. I want to incorporate that motto in every sense of the word. Not just say the gospel. I need to live it. Breathe it. I champion black online stores. I champion black writers and black artists. I champion black art galleries and black museums. I champion black films and black filmmakers. I champion black vegans. I champion us.
My hair debate stirred as well. I grew up on Suave. Cheap Suave. Always 99 cents or near 99 cents region. Nowadays I purchase imported raw cocoa butter and raw shea butter from faceless cyber entities in order to make homemade hair and skin treats. Marshall's seduced me with their low priced vegan beauty products imported from Australia. Yes, they're great quality. Nice steal at half off! That protest, however, forced remembrance of my brothers and sisters here in the states. They know our hair. They know how it grows. They know its kinks and twists and furrows and burrows. They know because they are us.
Shea Moisture for example hails from family tradition: a grandmother from Sierra Leone concocting potions out of bathtub and selling them in modest quantities. She started at 19. Impressive. Although the company was founded in 1990 by her great grandson, massive respect for them saying that the company was established in 1912, the year she started selling her natural ideas all over her country.
Kinky Curly is a brand formulated for natural hair that is au naturale. Shelley Davis is the founder. She too had a penchant for creating hair products sans harmful chemicals, realizing that a few ingredients hailed from earth goes a long, helpful way. I loved what she had to say about customers in this old interview at Natural Chica.

I enjoy connecting with my customers. It is something I don’t get to do as much as I would like but I love the praise (of course, who doesn't) – the kind words that I get via email or even when I meet customers out in the streets of Los Angeles. When ladies tell me how Kinky-Curly has changed their life and how much they love their hair now…words can’t express how wonderful it makes me feel. With all the hard work that is put into running Kinky-Curly on a daily basis this makes it all worth it. In addition to this there are so many myths and misinformation that have been passed down from generation to generation. 

When supporting black business, a business catering to a specific need such as strong, beautiful natural hair with an added bonus of the Cruelty Free logo, makes it worth hard earned money.
Shea Moisture and Kinky Curly are tried out in the nick of time. My hair is embarking on summer Poetic Justice braids. Before I can undergo that luxury, I'm following these steps at Black Hair Kitchen. In this three part blog series, "En Route To Summer Braids," I prepare my nappy, kinky hair for full bodied softness and strength, taking time to care and nurture proper etiquette. In order to have lovely, stylish, protective braids (by an African braiding salon), one must have a healthy hair start. Knowledge filled Kinky Curly and Shea Moisture are imperative first steps to keeping my hair in tip top shape.

Light fragrant Kinky Curly's Come Clean is a godsend. I massaged my scalp, alternating between gentle scrubbing and massaging, surprised to feel foamy sudsy lather. Not many shampoos lather like this. That's fine and dandy to be sulphate free. It is a nice, bubbly lather, cleaning and treating dryness and dandruff flakes, loving kinks and curls. Quite top notch at the $11.99 price at Walgreen's. Usual wet dryness didn't arrive after rinsing. By wet dryness, I mean my hair seems brittle even in water. It always irked and frustrated me. So alas, I found another shampoo that wasn't going to let conditioner perform the important work alone. 

A new experience I wouldn't trade.

Shea Moisture's Raw Shew Butter Restorative Conditioner is amazing, especially with their Restorative Shampoo. Talk about out of this world oomph! My hair drinks up this sea kelp and argan oil blended elixir drug like it's Love Potion No. 9. Great conditioning formula. I'm almost out of my trial size portions- $4.99 each at Whole Foods Market. Bound to move onto Kinky Curly's conditioner to see how that works out. And if it doesn't Shea Moisture is a plus to lean back on.

Last night, I also performed the L.O.C. (leave in conditioner, oil, cream) method before twisting strands together. My leave in conditioner is just the Shea Moisture conditioner and water. I spray a generous bit on. Coconut oil is my oil choice for softness. Other times pure argan oil or Jamaican Black Castor Oil are other choices.

For the cream component, I went with gel. This is a great product for making some bonafide amazing twists. The only minus is the sticky dryness which is solely thanks to Jamaican Black Castor Oil. My hair, however, gets a very beautiful shine. Shine is always good. Plus the progress on the edges have been worth applauding. 

Clean hair. Finally. I think dandruff is slowly but surely going away. That is one of the biggest battles to dispose before summer braids. We're talking two months of protection. Hair must be in its healthiest condition. Thanks to Kinky Curly and Shea Moisture, my hair is getting a much needed boost.

Hair Braided Schemes: The Mini Pictorial Journal

Braided mayhem take me away like the Calgon perfume I no longer use.

The Natural Hair Journey section will be updated some day. Until then, there is always the main page to have a chat.

December 6, 2014

Before heading to Toronto, had to search long and hard for a place. Had a "princess" idea in mind. I discovered Vixen Hair Studio on Instagram. Enjoyed beautiful featured natural styles and customer satisfaction. The location was convenient for me. A plus. All the ladies were kind and fashionable. Jill Scott and Erykah Badu played their soul food tunes.
FYI: My hair must really love this length. It has been this way for years and years. So.....

Left view and bow tie earring.

Cheeks so above cloud nine glasses almost slipped.

Partial hazy top. I think my fingers got too Happy. Pharrell?

Blurred right side vision.

The back. Sort of. 

January 14, 2015

Hair styled in Dayton "country," photographed in Philly PAFA studio.
Went a place I hated. A place where natural hair is despised and ridiculed. It was close by. Had no idea what happened to my beloved Lynette-- an awesome understanding woman who embraced and catered to my hair creativity. The "pain" of this dismal substitute place was only an hour or so. Plus I still appreciated her efforts. Braiding is a talent wished to attain.
On the way out, a charming girl by the door commended the style. As did whom I miss most right now...

Braided up bun.

Back. Top is where most of my hair grows. Sides are super slow. Slower than a tortoise. 

Melancholy. Perhaps due to the facial breakout.

January 28, 2015

Bun was let go. Dumped. Didn't get to call or send me a sentimental note.
Maybe next time.
Take down was lovely though. I had oiled it every few days. Braids just unsifted through fingers like silky coarse amazement. Unveiled spirally spirals sparkled with glistening sheen and soft thickness. Long ago, I would have hated this condition. I love it so much. So much that I shall write a book of romantic letters to my hair. Lord Byron would be jealous.

I took braids out and played with the kinky curls like artistic damsel in happiness. Not duress or distress.

Also listened to Lauryn Hill on heavy rotation. Sorry Bob Marley. Cool tank from Nirvana anyway. Lace top a clearance purchase from Burlington Coat Factory.

January 29, 2015

Visited Vixen's Hair Studio again this morning. I love and appreciate gentle hair combing. Scalp massages don't hurt either. Although adoring this new 'do, anticipating another eventual shape up. Girl needs a fresh trim. Then hopefully we'll resume a productive, healthy growth with our favorite oils-- Jamaican Black Castor, coconut, olive, and Argan. Want ear muff length bad. That amount of fluffy goodness will warm tender, exposed ears. Cannot wait to kiss hats and scarves goodbye.

Only a good 35% of hair got a breather today. I promise that the next styling will be freeing. C'mon summer. I have to hand fluff her back up because.... scarf+ hat hair. Boo. Wearing my favorite thrift shop sweater, a $1 bin blouse, and another $1 gray shirt with sequins. Unseen $7 hot pants AKA jeggings and over painted Just Fab faux leather brown heeled boots. Also wearing a "blush" from that old scandalous LL Cool J song that came on. Like why??? *blushes again*

Side view. See large yellow duck in the background sitting on the studio couch? Good times.

Almost back view.

Back view. Side I will sleep on if slumbering on my face doesn't work out.

Happy camper getting back to "work."

My First Co-Wash With Sukin Won't Be The Last!

Hair talk time!

Happy July folks! Did you see? Did you see?! AfroVeganChick is now a dotcom. FINALLY! I've been meaning to do it for a while. It's here now. Afroveganchick.com y'all. :)
Hair. Did you miss my hair? I bet.
At old, former place in Philly, someone took my Sukin Australian Naturals Moisture Restoring Conditioner- a pretty damn good conditioner too. Formulated for dry/damaged hair, it worked well above duty. Seriously. that conditioner was my hubby. When I got my fro cut last year, the hairdresser loved the scent and the results. So with hurt feelings, I went back to Marshalls- mecca of great deals for us cheap vegan beauty product junkies. They didn't have that particular one anymore. Just for normal hair. Argh. My hair is not normal. It gets uber dry quick. However, it featured ingredients like nettles, avocado (my hair loves avocado like body does), jojoba and sesame oils intended for hydration. Plus paying $7.99 again a better bargain than the full price plus shipping for my beloved Moisture Restoring Conditioner, I decided to give it a try alongside with Purifying Shampoo. I also found Zerran Reallisse's 100% Vegan Anti Frizz Shine Masque on clearance for $5- it's such a treat! Needless to say, I've had a great relationship with the three.

Sorry Purifying Shampoo, but you weren't leading in!

Forever, I have stayed true and dedicated to the two shampoo rinses and conditioner ritual. Otherwise called The Long Sunday Shower. I have heard about co-washes, but never wanted to try it. Didn't want to divorce from those two shampoos. Even though, I gotta say, glad I did. That squeaky awkwardness that happens after shampooing did not occur during my first co-wash! Wet strands felt incredibly soft before the masque process started.

I picked out oiled, slightly dampened (with water) fro before this first co-wash.

Soaked hair in water and added conditioner. Rinse. Repeated.
Added hair masque and let it sink in for 5 minutes. Rinse.
Patted wet hair dry with an old t-shirt.
Slabbed on the Hair Food, massaged, gently picked again, and started twisting very soft strands!

Frontal: Faux Almost Mohawk.

Side A: Overlook the pimple and marvel at velvety hair that fingertips adore.

Middle: Texture is an amazing phenomenon.

Side B: Edges are looking so much better too.

Back: Spiral, Spiral- I adore you!