DiscoveringNatural

For Thanksgiving this year, I decided to do a Twist and Curl.  I did not wash my hair prior. Wash day is today, Black Friday, and I am clarifying with Bentonite clay. wooHooo! Night before Thanksgiving, I set my hair by spritzing with my DIY Hair Spritz and using my Shea Aloe Butter to twist and then curl the ends with perm rods. I stretched my hair by pinning the twist rods around my head.     The results was moisturized! bouncy! very CURLY hair.  I loved how my curls clumped together. Since I wanted big hair, I decided to frizz it out a bit. Once again! I hate that the camera does not show how huge my hair is. OH well!!.. LOL!       How did you style your hair for Thanksgiving 2013?

    Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!!   Today on DiscoveringNatural Facebook , we are doing the "A" to "Z" #IAmThankfulFor ... game.   Come join us!!!   http://facebook.com/DiscoveringNatural      

It's a family event keeping our hair moisturized in this dry winter months. In today's video, the girls and I show you how we create our Moisturizing Hair Spritz. We use this spritz at least every two days or as needed. Whenever we feel that our hair is dry and needs a quick boost of moisture,   spritz! spritz! Goes the spray bottle. *** We keep our bottles in the fridge to preserve it. Watch to see how we create our spritz:     Share what is in your spray bottle.

When I decided to go natural, back in 2011, I did not really know anything about what works for my hair and what does not work for my hair. All I knew was I wanted healthy hair just like how I live a healthy lifestyle of staying clear of the bad stuff and sticking with good healthy choices. As the journey continued, I noticed that what I was using for my hair was not helping me. My hair experienced breakage and constant dryness. That was when I started researching ingredients . You know I love researching, if you don't check out the  Discovering Facebook Page . Four Ingredients that don't work for my hair There are four key ingredients that I have found over time that do not work for my hair or the girls hair. Sulfates We all know that products that contain sulfates or sodium laurilsulfate (also known as sodium laurel sulfate or SLS ),  can dry out your hair, if not preceded or followed up with some kind of moisturizing barrier such as pre-poo and d...

Yesterday, I attended the Q&A Session with Markeita of Touch of Heaven Salon hosted by Nappy Love Houston Natural Hair Meetup . Touch of Heaven Salon is a Multi-Textural salon located in Humble, Texas. The last time I attended an event in this salon was on International Natural Hair Meetup Day . It was a pleasure meeting so many beautiful naturalistas and getting to hear all the questions they had. Markeita did a great job answering questions from how to care for Natural Hair as a newly natural, to colored natural hair maintenance. Tyrika,  owner of Mainelement , was the host of this program and she did a fabulous job making everyone feel welcome.          I always like it when there is a product swap at any Natural Hair event. If you ever go to an event, make sure to bring products that do not work for you; remember one person's product No-No is someone else's holy grail.    Meeting some of my subbies was the hi...

       

On December 7th, I will be attending the annual Nzuri Natural Hair Health & Beauty Festival , here in Houston, Texas. Looking forward to meeting you all and also shopping with some of my favorite natural hair product likes such as Obia Natural , Shea Moisture , and The Natural Me . For a complete list of vendors, click HERE . For more information, visit the Nzuri website  ( http://naturalhairfestival.com/ ). Last year's event was so much fun and this year should be equal or even more!! Will you be attending this year's event? Comment below with what day you will be attending.

Looking for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales for your hair products?  Check out Confessions of Blog Vixen's page: http://confessionsofablogvixen.com/2013/11/2013-natural-hair-black-friday-cyber-monday-sales/ Special thanks to Nappy Headed Black Girl for sharing this on her blog. What do you plan to buy this year?

Week 1: Bun it. When you do this the only frizz that occur at the end of the week will be on the outer area Week 2: Set it Free By letting it hang free you hide the frizz that occurred in the first week Week 3: Twist it out By this time, if you have any frizz, it will be camoflauged by the twist out. You can add perm rods to do a twist and curl. Watch how to do a twist and curl: How do you get your mini twists to last more than a week?

The Fanning method of creating a defined twistout works with your curls. It allows your curls to naturally separate, thereby reducing frizz from you separating them. Watch to learn how to do the Fanning Method:

As I learn more and more about my hair, I have come to realize that "she" loves to be protected and not out too much. Last weekend, when I celebrated my one year post transitioning big chop , I had her out all weekend. It was so much fun, but I played too much in my hair. I cannot go past a week without washing because my scalp starts itching and "she" starts being all diva like!! I normally wear my hair in twists or threaded , but this week, I decided to be more adventurous:   After cowashing my hair with Edens Bodyworks Cleansing Cowash , I applied some oil to my scalp and then moisturized my hair with Giovanni Direct Leave In .  I then twisted my hair in chunky twists .   I keep it like this for one day. To go run errands, I wore my "twisted cupcake bun"    To twist and cornrow my hair, I used my ever-so-faithful   Shea Aloe Butter , which gives me great shine and softness. I created a roll and tuck updo at the back to help ...

    Big Sis had her 9 year old photoshoot and I wanted her hair to look really nice. She and I looked on Pinterest for pictures of different styles. As you know, lately, I make her make hairstyling choices on her hair. She wanted a roller set style. I was up to the task, although I am not an expert in roller setting.   We used Jane Carter Solution Wrap & Roll after sulfate-free shampooing her hair with Elasta QP Crème Conditioning Shampoo, and applying our leave in, Giovanni Direct Leave In. I moisturized her scalp with my oil mix. We used 3/4 inches (orange) and 11/16 (peach) perm rods from Sally's Beauty Store. For the ends, I used Sally's Mesh end papers. This was my first time using end papers. Woohoo!!       While I installed the perm rods, Lil Sis built castles with them.. LOL! It took about an hour and a half to install about 40 perm rods and I let Big Sis sit under the dryer for a combined 45 mins. She also air dried it...

In this past one year, I have trimmed twice. The first trim was one that I was quite hesitant about. I guess it was the case of newly natural. But thinking back now, this trim was REALLY needed. The second trim was more like a dusting. What is dusting? A dusting is where a very small amount of hair is trimmed off the ends of the hair.  So little is removed that it looks like fine dust on the floor. Ends can be dusted to remove splits before they become out of control.  (Source: http://www.curlynikki.com/2012/10/the-art-of-dusting-trimming-natural-hair.html ) I struggled with dry ends and bushy ends but once I found out what was really going on with my hair, I realized that something can be done regarding bushy ends . Now...onto the length check... Do you do length checks?

Today marks one years since I big chopped my relaxed ends!!! My Big Chop... Celebrate the day with me with this short photo montage!!

Last month, I showed you how I preserve my twistout for Next Day Hair. In today's video, I will show you how I refresh my hair to get a 2nd, 3rd and 4th day twistout on my #naturalhair:

Last night, I decided that it was time to trim Lil Sis's hair. The last time I trimmed her hair was in May. I don't have a set schedule as to when I trim my hair or my girls' hair. I usually go by how their ends look and feel. How the Ends Lo ok I look at the ends and check to see if they are straggly looking. For Lil Sis, she never gets bushy ends, but she gets straggly ends; where the ends start thinning out. This picture above ( top left ) shows what I mean. For Big Sis, she gets knots of hair at her ends.  As you can see, none of us have the same characteristics when it comes to the look of our ends. How the Ends Feel I glide my fingers down the length of the hair. If as you do so, the hair feels smooth and then gets rough at the very ends, you might need a trim. Why did I say might ? Well, the reason is because for some people, that is the charactisitics of their hair. For my hair, I can't always use this method to judge the need for trim. When my ends fe...

  This is a requested demonstration from one of my subbies on Facebook. She wanted to know how to test if products will mix together.

When you style your hair, experimenting with different techniques make you learn what styles work for your hair and which styles do not. In this video, I try out Chunky Twist Out. I did about 12 twists using Giovanni Direct Leave In on my hair after spritzing with Water and Aloe Vera Juice. Then I seal my ends with my Shea Aloe mix.

Did you know that there are some hair products that serve more than one purpose? In this video, I will tell you how we use multi-purpose products to make our wash day faster.

    I get asked this question all the time, " What is My Natural Hair Type?" . To many naturals, determining what their hair type is seems to be the answer to their perfect product search. For me, it is so much different.  Knowing my hair type goes beyond the Hair typing system. It is knowing my hair porosity ( understand its product absorption capability ), density, and also texture that matters     My Naked Hair   Do you care about Hair Typing? If so, why?