To sum it all up...

Dont think this lasted. This ish shrunk right up to my scalp
#shrinkageisreal lol.

I have so much to tell you guys but no time. So i'm gonna do something I never do and keep things concise (lol). I'll be back to expound later. So hopefully once I get the 'headlines' out it'll be easier to come and fill in the gaps.

Here goes.

1) At the end of last year I started making my own cosmetics. Like from scratch. So my toothpaste, deodorant, body-ness and hair-ness are all made by moi. And it's all natural. Not kinda natural, not naturally derived. It's all natural. So natural you could probably eat it. But it would taste like crap. 

2) My hair looks like a boss all day erryday! And feels like a boss and just basically is awesome.

3) This awesomeness is not just down to my hair products. Well it is, but since this isn't an advert- the person who said products don't make a difference LIED. And here's why:

3a) pH makes a difference. Especially if your hair is highly textured. pH makes a world of difference!

3b) Bentonite clay is THE TRUTH. As in- the absolute, where have you been all my life? Truth.

3c) A product can have all the herbal extracts in the world and still suck. It's not your fault, it's the product's. Herbal extract does not automatically mean answer to all your hair problems. 9 times outta 10- if we're talking about manageability- it means absolutely nothing.

4) I have the whole wash process down. No stress, no tears, no taking a holiday to wash my hair. Washing my hair is easy.

5) I have the whole styling process down. No stress, no tears no taking...you get the picture lol.

6) Stress really does make your hair fall out = hair setback #1

7) Low pH- below 4 = broken hair = hair setback #2 lol.

7a) I wanted to see what the margin for safe pH was. Oh boy did I find out!

8) I gave up sugar.

9) Rice milk is the bomb dot com.

10) Natural hair is freaking beautiful. As in, I can't put it into words. As in, I've never felt more myself, more beautiful or more complete than now. Rocking my hair like i'm supposed to.

I'm sure there's more. There's definitely more. But that's all I can remember for now.

If there's any number that you would particularly like me to expound upon first let me know. 

Hope this find you well :)

Rella x

BACK ON YT!!!

Yesss, I've finally uploaded another video!

You don't have to tell me its about time hahaha

Sweetceey I don't know if you're reading this but this was especially for you!

Also, NikNak: This is the FIN Choc Condish in action, is it similar to how you use it?

And to the rest of you thanks for reading this here blog, I have soooo much to update you with so bear with me. Pretty please!

So here it goes. Finally. How I finger detangle my hair!!

Rella x x

Christmas Hair (In January lol)

Yet another updo!

Hey there dearies,

I know this is late. A month late. A month late to the day smh, but at least it's here now right? I just wanted to come and show you how I wore my hair on Christmas. I shot a video showing how I achieved this style but only God knows when I'm going to upload it, or if I ever will lol. I was really happy with how it came out. I detangled and moisturised my hair the night before with the Faith In Nature Ginkgo Biloba conditioner, sealed with a mix of rapeseed and castor oil and set my hair in chunky twists.

The next day when it came to styling my hair I decided that I wanted all of my hair off my face (which I never do) and so I used two loose flat twists to draw my hair back. Next I split the back half of my hair in two. The bottommost section was put in a low, loose ponytail and the upper section was put in a normal ponytail. I took a small section of hair, beneath each ear, and twisted. Then I split each of the ponytails in two and twisted those aswell. Finally using the godsend that is bobby pins, I pinned the twists together and hoped for the best lol.

It came out abit lopsided but I still liked it. What do you think? Would you do something like this on your hair?

Well I guess that's all for now folks!
Rella x

New Hair Year Resolution: Where Yo' Hair At??

End of 2012 shot of my hair...

Hello there readers!

Before I begin, I'd like to thank you for reading this here ole' blog. I hope you enjoy this post- whatever it ends up being x

I'm beginning to become obsessed with my hair. Wait, beginning? I've always been obsessed with hair but I think my obsession is borderline unhealthy. Actually, tell a lie, I've always been obsessed with hair, but now I'm obsessed with my hair. So this feeling of supreme flyness is new to me. I mean it's like when you get a new shiny piece of jewellery (like the necklace my awesome sister got me for Christmas), you look at it all the time, catch glimpses of it in the mirror, that kinda thing. That's normal right? It's normal for me to constantly look at pictures of my hair and sing "Oh my hair, Why you so fly? Why you so fly? Like a birdie in the sky..." true story lol.

My two year old stash lol

Anyways, I think a benefit of this obsession is I always know where my hair is at. As in "Where yo' hair at?" (because people actually go round asking people that ¬¬ ) And right now my hair is in an ok place, a good place, but it could be better. So this new hair year ima be working on aesthetics but more importantly- how it feels. Cue D'Angelo: "How does it feeeeel?" See I have two main textures on my head one is super curly/coily and rough and the other is mega curly/coily and super rough. The first texture is currently kinda under control with the new changes in my kinda regimen but the second texture is rebelling. It needs a firmer hand. In an effort to up my game without spending a gajillion pounds, I'm going to be revisiting ayurvedic powders.

back in '10 when my ayurveda game was on point

I used to use them back in '10 when I first started my hair journey. And my hair always looked really vibrant so I'm curious to see what they'll do to my hair now that I'm on top of my hair care practices. Plus I've got a two year old box of powders that needs to be used up because I hate wasting things I spent money on.

So yeah, here's hoping this new addition to my kinda regimen makes a difference to my hair. I'll keep you updated.

What about you? Any plans to change up your regimens? Have any of you tried ayurvedic powders? In others words: Where yo' hair at? hehe ok, I'll stop.

Rella x

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! :)