Straight Hair // Length Check!

What's the point of two whole weeks out of school if I can't play with my daughter's hair right? Lol. So for fun, for a length check, and because I've never tried it before, I decided to straighten her hair! I washed it and banded it on Thursday and left it banded overnight so it could dry. Here are a couple of pictures:

Then I removed the bands on Friday and flat ironed each section on very low heat. I used a heat protection spray by ion as well as some grapeseed oil to help protect her hair from heat damage. Skye adores her straight hair, I don't think I've ever seen her flip it so much! But I told her that even though her hair looks cute straight, I like her curls better:) I am happy that her ends don't look as scraggly as I thought they would, I'll probably clip them a little bit but not too much...then we'll go back to a protective style next week.

Sorry so blurry, but I wanted to show a close up of the before/after!

I plan to do this again in 6 months in hopes that we will see a lot of growth! Thanks for reading and Happy New Year to you all:)

Christmas Hair!

Hope everybody had a very merry Christmas, ours was wonderful and filled with love and family...and a few awesome presents:) To avoid washing/styling hair on Christmas Eve, I washed Skye's hair on Friday. I detangled and braided her hair, about 6-8 sections total, then I put on some Nutiva Extra Virgin Coconut Oil as a pre-shampoo treatment. After leaving the coconut oil in for about 30 minutes or so, I washed her hair with Creme of Nature Argon Oil Shampoo (which I love, btw). I find it so much easier to wash her hair while it is braided in sections and it really helps to keep it from tangling back up again. I used our usual leave-in conditioner (Kimmaytube recipe with Knot Today). I also used Bee Mine Curly Butter to style her hair. I absolutely love this stuff but unfortunately it does not play well with Kinky Curly's Knot Today, so I won't be using the Knot Today anymore:( It tends to leave a white residue in her hair, it's not too bad but it bothers me...so now I'm in the market for a new leave in conditioner.

Anyways, about her Christmas hurr (lol)...Using the Bee Mine Curly Butter, I put seven flat twists in the front going to the side (got the idea here) and then I banded the roots of the remaining hair and added two strand twists to each section. Here are a couple of pictures:

Then on Christmas morning, I just unraveled the twists and took out the bands, then added a couple of sparkly clips to right side of her hair:

This twist out has held up pretty well over the last couple of days since she sleeps in a satin bonnet. I'll probably do something similar for New Years/Back to School next week and then we'll go back to a protective style (probably mini twists again) for 4-6 weeks. As always, thanks for reading!

Merry Christmas Everybody!!

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to you all and thanks for reading our blog! I'll make a new post about her holiday style (pictured below) on Monday:)

And for fun, here's a throwback pic from 2006!

Mini Twists are OUT // Banded Twist Out!

Hi everybody! Spent all day Sunday taking down the mini twists, detangling, washing, and banding hair! Fun times as always:) After I finished taking the twists down, I detangled in sections and added coconut oil as a pre wash treatment. I braided each section (about 5 braids total) so that her hair wouldn't tangle back up. After the shampoo, and with her hair still braided, I added some Hair Mayo by Organic Root Stimulator as a protein treatment. I left that on for about 15-20 minutes and then rinsed it out. Then I added our usual leave in conditioner (the Kimmaytube recipe we've been using) and sealed with Shea Butter. Usually I just band her new growth towards the top, but this time I banded each twisted ponytail all the way down to stretch it so we could see a little more length. This was my first time doing this and I must say that I love how the bands made the twist out look a bit more wavy in addition to showing her length! I just removed the bands, seperated the twists, then I put one ponytail at the top and left the rest hanging down. Pictures below! And as always, thank you so much for reading!

Mini Twists - Four Week Update!

Just a quick little update on Skye's mini twists! We have made it to week four and I am planning to take the twists out at the end of the week. I'm sure they could last a couple more weeks but I want to do something different since we'll probably be doing our Christmas pictures next week. (SN: Yes, we always wait til the last minute and I usually make my own greeting cards at Wal-Mart and pass them out at Christmas dinner instead of mail them. Don't judge me, lol:))

So anyways, I skipped Skye's weekly wash this past weekend (due mostly to laziness on my part) and instead re-upped on the moisturizer. I added some Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus Curl & Style Conditioning Milk all over her hair and then sealed with a little Sweet Almond Oil. I re-did the flat twists in the front and used a little Bee Mine Curly Butter to lay her edges down. I put about five big braids in her hair and left them in overnight to get some waves/curls going. Below are a couple of pictures that I snapped this morning before school. And as always, thanks for reading!

The Science of Black Hair: A Comprehensive Guide to Textured Hair Care by Audrey Davis-Sivasothy – Review

I heard about this book through one of the many hair blogs that I frequent and I couldn't wait to read it because it was so highly recommended! I ordered it through Amazon.com for my Kindle app and it was only $9.99, but I’m sure that I’ll purchase a hard copy later for my personal library.

The book begins with a couple of stories that sound a lot like my own, women speaking of growing up with hair that never quite seemed to grow past shoulder length and thinking that was the norm for our kind of hair. Until I BC’d in Oct 2011, I had had a relaxer since I was five years old. Even though I had to get touch ups every four to six weeks, I could never retain length. I really enjoyed reading these stories as I found them extremely relatable to my own personal hair journey!

I read most of the book (at least 95%), but unfortunately I have the attention span of a gnat and I had to skim over a lot of the technical jargon about hair follicle structure and cuticles and what not. But I’m glad that the information is there as I’m sure I will reread this a few more times so that the information sinks in. I have already implemented some new things into my daughter’s hair care regimen as well as my own, such as protein treatments and deep conditioning moisture treatments. I find it very helpful that the book teaches you how to start a healthy hair care regimen and the author even includes a product list! I also like that there is supportive information for those of us with natural, relaxed, and color treated hair. I would totally recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about how to properly care for their hair or their child’s hair!

Mini Twists - Three Week Update!

Hi everybody! We're actually around three and a half weeks right now...though it feels like it's been forever. On Sunday, I washed Skye's hair and then did a braid out on the mini twists. I followed our usual routine, but I also added in a protein treatment using Organic Root Stimulator Hair Mayonnaise. After I rinsed out the mayo treatment (which left her hair feeling really soft btw), I added her leave-in conditioner and put four big braids in (two in the front and two in the back). Monday night, I decided to put some flat twists in the front since the mini twists in that section are still unraveling quite a bit. Ever since I received my Bee Mine Curly Butter (ordered on Black Friday) I've been really anxious to use it, so I tried it on the flat twists and I absolutely love it. It smells amazing, and it really took away all of the frizziness and helped the flat twists look a lot neater. Here are a couple of pictures that I took yesterday before she went to school. The flat twists aren't perfect but they'll do, and I really like how crinkly/curly the braid out turned out!

Mini Twists - Two Week Update!

Hi all, I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving week! Just a quick update on Skye's mini twists. They have now been in for two weeks and even though they are still holding up pretty well, I have noticed a difference in her hair since she has more new growth. As you may know, since April we've been transitioning from a texturizer to natural hair. Now that her natural hair is longer I find that after her weekly shampoo, the texturized ends seem to be unraveling more than they had previously with mini twists. I do plan to continue washing her hair weekly while the mini twists are in so this is just something we'll have to deal with. Luckily, only a small few of the twists in the front are having this issue so I just retwisted them and everything was fine. Below are some close up pictures of the twists that unraveled a bit, and you can also see her new growth:

 

I am going to start measuring her new growth so I can see how much progress we're making! So on the next post I will include some measurements and continue to measure each month. I also need to post our routine, I've been meaning to do that! Here are a couple of pictures of what I'm calling her Thanksgiving style (lol):

After shampoo/leave-in, I put the mini twists into four big twists and left them in for a few days which made the ends a lot curlier. I achieved the look above by twisting two sections in the front and connecting them in the back with a cute bow. I'm saving up for a new camera so I promise the pictures will get better:) Thanks for reading!!

Mini Twists - One Week Update!

Hi all and happy Friday! Just a little update on Skye's Mini Twists before I do her weekly wash tomorrow. Tuesday night, I put a little Nutiva Extra Virgin Coconut Oil on her ends and it worked wonders!! As you can see in the pictures below, her ends look so much healthier compared to how scraggly they looked after I first finished her twists.

The first two pictures are before using the coconut oil, the second two were taken today (a couple days after using the coconut oil)

The products I used on her hair this week are pictured below! I only used the coconut oil once this week (on Tuesday) and I only put it on her ends. I used the Eco Styler Olive Oil Gel a couple of days this week to make her edges lay down in the front. And finally, I sprayed her hair with the Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus Hold & Shine Moisture Mist every other day.

Today I styled her twists with an ouchless ponytail holder for a little ponytail at the top with the rest hanging down, and topped it off with a pretty black headband with a flower on the side! I bought the headband at Family Dollar of course, for only $2!!

Mini Twists

Hi all! Just wanted to update you on how Skye's teeny, tiny mini twists came out. I made them a bit smaller than I usually do in hopes that they will last at least six weeks. As you may know from Friday's post, I washed and banded her hair on Thursday and put in a leave-in conditioner (Kimmaytube's recipe). I started on Friday night, using a little Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus Curl & Style Conditioning Milk on each twist. It took about two hours on Friday, then four hours on Saturday, and five more on Sunday...with long breaks here and there of course. Her ends were a little scraggly and frizzy so I had to spray them with water to get them to curl up some. Usually her hair curls up a lot more after the first shampoo with the twists in, so the ends will probably look curlier after I wash her hair on Saturday. I think I'll look into some deep conditioners or protein treatments or something to help her ends because they always tend to look kind of frizzy and dry. Anywho, I posted pictures below of the twists and some close-ups of her ends after I clipped them. Thanks for reading!!

Banded Twists

Since I plan on putting mini twists back in Skye's hair this weekend, I decided to wash her hair Thursday night instead of our usual shampoo day on Saturday. I washed her hair with Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus Curl Control Shampoo and I used Kimmaytube's Leave-In Conditioner recipe for a nice leave-in. I detangled her hair, banded and twisted it, then clipped her ends a bit. Here is the banded style that she wore to school today! I don't usually do styles that look like kid styles, so she really liked this one...and she loves patterns so the purple and yellow ponytail holders made her smile:)