Hair Update...

Hey there readers,

This is another one of those posts where I don't really know what I'm going to write about. But i'm trying to post more so here I am, posting. That love affair that started with my hair in that 'I Love My Hair' post is on-going and more passionate than ever (lol). I'm really excited about the New (Hair) Year that we're about to enter into. Is that strange? New Hair Year? I mean sure, I'm excited about the new year, but the new hair year has got me all abuzz. I feel like I made some real progress with my hair this past year and after like three setbacks I feel so prepared for managing my hair. 

I think I cut off a total of like 4-5 inches of hair over the course of this year so you can't see a really see a massive difference in length but I've achieved so much health-wise, it's cray. 

For one, since I gave up using combs I nolonger get those multiple splits. Do you know the ones I'm talking about? 5, 6 splits crawling up the same hair strand like a ladder? Yuk. No more, no more! I mean I still get normal splits every now and again, as is the nature of hair, but those buggers? No siree! Finger detangling successfully has really made a difference!

I used to complain alot about how my hair felt. I'm talking about the texture, but not the natural texture. Like you know the whole Nature, Nurture thing? So if my natural texture is defined by my genetics then the nuture-ish texture is determined by everything I do to it. And prior to now my hair has never felt nice. It's always felt rough and dry and I dunno, just not nice. But now? My hair feels AWESOME. I mean so soft, I can't believe it's my hair. And it's all down to my love: Faith In Nature and effective sealing. My hair even behaves differently now and it feels awesome! 

finger detangled, moisturised, sealed and ready to go!

This year brought a real learning curve when it comes to sealing. I experimented with lots of different oils and I now know what absodefolutely works for me. See I discovered castor oil which was a vast improvement from olive oil for sealing but it's viscosity rendered it ineffective. 

I mean it doesn't matter how great a sealant is if I can't spread it right!? But then I started cutting it. First I tried sunflower oil which made a real change. For the first time my hair dried soft after washing. It even maintained it's moisture for a full day and a half. But sunflower oil is abit too light for me. So then in a moment of pure genius, I tried rapeseed oil (the only other oil we have lying around the house) and Eu-freaking-reka. A match made in hair heaven.

Do you remember when I wrote about all the problems I'm having with my hair? If you exclude single strand knots, all these issues have officially been overcome. How insane is that. I remember how hopeless I felt and how frustrated I was with my hair then. 8 months later and I'm so freaking satisfied. 

So yeah, I don't care how strange it sounds. Bring on the New Hair Year. I'm so excited about my hair in 2013. I feel equipped. 

Time to throw it to you, what have you learnt about your hair this year? 

Detangling: My Happy Place lol

freshly finger detangled...

I've been meaning to write about detangling for ages. Getting to my detangling happy place has been a struggle. Struggle doesn't even sound difficult enough, It's been a battle, a war. That's better. For YEARS detangling was a war between my dense splitty hair and me. I always lost lol.

I tried so many different things... inside the shower detangling, detangling with oil, wide tooth detangling, denman brush detangling, dry detangling, nothing worked. Or it would work but also shred my hair in the process. And remember how prone my hair is to split ends? Once I realised I was loosing so much hair to combing I stopped using combs and started finger detangling. But because my hair is so dense and irregular in its curl/coilness, my hair would never get fully detangled and sessions would last like 4 hours plus *sigh*

But now? I have my detangling game on lock. As in, detangling is a breeze. I am officially in my detangling happy place. Everything changed for me when I started using my beloved Faith In Nature Chocolate Conditioner. I have spoken about it so many times and after 9 months we are still in love.

So how do I finger detangle? 

I detangle on dry hair. Wetting my hair when it's tangled just makes things worse. If my hair is a ratty mess I use the FIN Chocolate Conditioner which I call 'slip on steroids'. I'll take a section of hair, rub some condish on my fingertips, and then stroke it into my hair using both hands. I'll start midway down my hair and then stroke down to the ends, then run down the full length- root to tip. Finally i'll put some more condish on my fingertips and work that into my dense roots. As I stroke my hair I remove all the shed hair and work apart any tangles. Since the FINC condish is sooo slippy this is so easy. After all of this my strands are completely separated and tangle free. 

Another reason why I love the FINC condish is because it doubles as my moisturiser. Seriously, NOTHING moisturises my hair like this stuff does.

Finally i'll add whatever oil mix i'm using (currently rapeseed and castor oil) and twist that section. After I'm done my hair is butter soft. Is butter even soft? It dries soft and moisturised, and it's soo easy to manage and style. Happy place, happy place, happy place!

If my hair just needs some light detangling i'll use one of the other 5 FIN conditioners that I have. Yes, 5. LOL, after I bought the Chocolate and saw how well that worked I had to try some of their other flavours! Currently i'm using the Ginkgo Biloba, before that it was the Seaweed and before that the Aloe Vera. Since my hair isn't that tangled i'll detangle in much larger sections. 

My hair is seriously thriving guys. It's crazy! 

Before I leave I just wanted to say how humbled and excited I am to have been featured on One Young Traveller, Hairscapades and then reposted on CurlyNikki. 

I am so humbled that other people read what little ole me has to say, seriously, I'm all abuzz guys. A-freaking-buzz!!! I've been having some serious "They like me, They really like me" moments lol! Ok I need to calm down before I make a fool of myself. 

Has anybody out there tried any Faith In Nature products? 

Have you reached your Detangling Happy Place?

Talk to me! :)

Faith In Nature Jojoba Conditioner

nearly finished :(

Ok so I was wrong, I have no problem admitting that. See when I bought my beloved FIN Chocolate Conditioner I also bought the FIN Jojoba Conditioner because I know jojoba to be nourishing for the hair but i've never been able to justify spending money on jojoba oil. I'z a student. So I tried it as a conditioner and it was aite, nothing spesh, and so I ruled it out. Deemed it forgettable. Unimportant. Then the other day I was replying to a comment left by The Simple Thing on my post about my beloved and I reiterated my feelings. It does nothing for me, the chocolate condish is the star!
But then it came time for me to do my hair for a vid I needed to make. I was running low on the chocolate condish and didn't want to waste it on a few twists and then I remember the jojoba. So I took it, used it, and now here I am. I was wrong.

used the jojoba to put these
quick twists in to shoot a vid

See, remember how I tried the chocolate on dry hair and saw it for the gem that it was? I didn't do that for the jojoba, I just went with how I felt about it on wet hair. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's no chocolate conditioner, but it doesn't need to be! My Faith in Nature Chocolate Conditioner is my heavy duty detangler, it is slip on steroids. But the Faith In Nature Jojoba Conditioner? It's subtle slip, my everyday styler, for those few times when my hair isn't a ratty mess. Both are moisturising and both enable me to style my hair without wetting it.

The only difference is the chocolate condish gives more slip and the jojoba condish has a tad bit of curl activator-ness going on.
I think the chocolate has more slip because it has more centrimonium chloride in it but don't quote me on that because chemist I am not.

So yeah, I love both of them, both of them are nearly finished, and now I know they both work I have no choice but to go and buy every other faith in nature conditioner there is *hides face*

"I tried to get out but they just keep pulling me back in"

Faith In Nature Chocolate Conditioner aka Miracle in a bottle!

Guys it has finally happened. I have finally found a holy grail product. Something I cannot live without. Something I will go all out and claim as being a miracle in a bottle. It's that serious.

It all started about five months ago. Remember in the I Love My Hair!! post, how I spoke about that new conditioner that I used that actually made a difference to my hair? This is what I was talking about. So the long and the short of it was that I'd been looking for some accessible products. I stumbled across the Faith In Nature brand and bought the chocolate set (shower gel, shampoo and conditioner). They have so many different products to choose from and so I settled Chocolate because it is advertised as 'For Dark Hair'. I love that btw, It's nice to have a break from the 'for curly hair' or 'for afro hair' that I normally see.

So my new products arrive, I use them as intended and for the most part I was unaffected. Actually that's a bit harsh. I saw a result but nothing to write home about. So what are you writing home about? you ask.

A couple of months ago I had a performance, and for this performance I decided to do a flat twist out (vid coming soon). See as i've said before I have my twist out game on lock but my post twist out protocol sucks. When I got back home I haphazardly twisted my hair and went to bed. The next day my twist out was dead and I had somewhere to be so I pulled the twists into a bun, added and scarf and then went about my business. Somehow, over the course of two weeks, my hair went from being a chexy twist out to a ratty hot mess.

And when I say hot mess I mean random clumps of tangles, dreads, can this even be called hair anymore-ness. Seriously. It got to the point where I couldn't avoid it anymore and so I set out to detangle. So i'm detangling and getting somewhere and nowhere at the same time. It's taking me days. One night i'm trying to think about how to get everything done faster. I can't add water because that will make everything tangle more and oil does nothing for my hair... What can I put to stop this snap crackle and popping thats going on??

What's that saying? Necessity breeds invention. I needed to moisten my hair without 'activating' my tiny curls. I look around my room and see the FIN Chocolate Conditioner and remember that it was quite liquidy. So I put some on my fingertips and smooth it into a section of hair and then Eu-freaking-reka!!
Somewhere in the world a lightbulb went off and an apple fell on somebody's head.
Yep it was like discovering gravity. The dreads unravelled and the tangles melted away, it was a hairvolution! I'm not even exaggerating. I did it again and again and again to make sure I wasn't imagining things. I even tried again the next day to make sure the sleep deprivation due to detangling wasn't causing hallucinations.

Finger detangling is now a breeze guys. What used to take me 4 hours now takes 30 minutes. And my hair is actually detangled. Not that kinda detangled I used to get. Styling is soooo much easier. In fact everything is easier.

Since this has been kinda long (and i'm not sure how much of you are still with me) i'm gonna end it here and come back later with the details on how I use it.

You heard it here first folks: Faith In Nature Chocolate Conditioner is the truth dot com when it comes to detangling. Slip for days my friends. Slip for days.

¡Viva la hairvolution!

Video- Another Twisted Bun

Hey Guys!

Not only are exams over but I'm finally done with school for the year!! WOOOO!!
So i'm back! and I finally finished editing my bun video!! So here it is, hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think x x

Random Musings...Intimate moments with my hair

Ok I'm in the mood to write.

I don't know what about yet but we'll see where this goes...
I've had a full 6 days now to recover from the prison that was exams and even though those days weren't spent in rest but in rehearsal and performance, I still feel like my brain is back.

I have some ideas for some posts that will be coming to you soon but I don't want to write any of those right now but I want to write.

You know, I love natural hair. Yes this isn't news, and if I didn't I'm defs in the wrong place but I think that alot of the time, (and correct me if I'm wrong) we get caught up in the difficulties and forget how awesome our hair is.

I mean if you read this blog often you'd know by now that I can go ON about my hatred of single strand knots and how much of a trial detangling is... But you don't know that sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair is probably in fat braids/twists air drying after a wash, nothing to write home about, but I get these waves...At the root, you know the poofy bit? Before the braid starts? Deep seated waves. and i'll just stare at them, and this whimsical smile creeps unto my face and it's like i'm looking at art. Or the 9th wonder of the world.

You know those unexpected, quiet beautiful things? Hand holding, a shared glance confirming a secret, a private joke, call me a romantic but that same warmth is what I get when I see those waves.

And baby, I got waves for days...lol!

I guess I wanted to take a moment to encourage whoever is reading this. Or for those of you who aren't in need of encouragement; I wanted to take a moment to agree with you. I love natural hair. It is awesome, unique and OURS

Rels x