Castor Oil Hair Challenge!

  A lot of people don't know this about me but my hair is really thin on the sides almost to the point that its practically GONE! When I was little my mom made my ponytails SUPER TIGHT!!! My hair was so thin and couldn't take it and slowly began breaking off on the sides. Growing up as a child this made me really self conscious and I did my very best to hide it. I felt as if people would make cruel jokes about my hair and laugh at me. When first starting this blog I knew I would have to share this part of myself but that still doesn't make it any easier. Part of building confidence is not being afraid to freely let your imperfections show and not being ashamed. So this is me letting it all hang out.

                                                                     
 Whewww *sigh of relief* It feels great to talk about my thin sides and not feel ashamed and uncomfortable. Lately I've been hearing a lot of hype about castor oil, Jamaican Black Castor Oil to be specific. Castor Oil has many useful hair benefits such as :

1.Thickening Hair that is beginning to thin

2.Reduce/Prevent hair damage

3.Prevents dry scalp

4.Deeply conditions/moisturizes hair and scalp

Most importantly castor oil INCREASES HAIR GROWTH!!!

  After doing my research I decided to make a natural hair challenge for myself. For the next 8 weeks I will deep condition my hair with castor oil at least once a week I've come up with a weekly regiment that I believe will give me he best resuts.

Weekly Regiment

1. Apply castor oil on edges, all throughout scalp,and on the ends of hair

-Allow Castor oil to sit in hair for at least 5 hours (Longer if possible)

2.Shampoo hair with SULFATE FREE Coconut Milk Organix and apply Coconut Milk Organix Conditioner

-Gently Brush or Comb hair after applying conditioner

3.Apply Coconut Organix Split Ends Mender all throughout hair

4.When styling hair only use Raw Shea Butter

-Be careful not to use too much to avoid causing a build up

5.Before going outside make sure to seal moisture in hair use EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)

   I test ran my weekly regiment January 18th. I applied the castor oil to my dry hair and scalp and then put a shower cap on my head. The shower cap helped to prevent getting the castor oil all over my pillows and clothes. I left the oil in my hair overnight. By the time I went to wash the castor oil out, my hair was really soft and some of it had turned into little curls.

 I styled my hair in a twist-out using the raw shea butter. Before applying the shea butter in my hair I put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. This just made the butter softer making it easier for me to work it through my hair.

  Even though this is only Week one of my natural hair challenge I'm really loving the results so far. My hair feels a little bit stronger already and has a nice shine to it that I could only get before by loading tons of product in my hair. The ultimate goal of this natural hair challenge is to make my sides grow back in. I'm hoping for the best and will keep you all posted on my progress:)

Bring on the Mayo!

For ages, I've been hearing about Mayonnaise and the supposed "wonders" it does for your hair. But the thought of smelly mayo in my hair never really appealed to me and it was something I thought I would NEVER want to do. But the familiar saying "Never Say Never" was made evident to me. Curiosity got the best of me and I HAD to know; IS MAYONNAISE REALLY GOOD FOR YOUR HAIR? I went about looking up what Mayonnaise did for your hair and while doing a bit of research I also looked up other things such as eggs, honey, and olive oil. All have different proteins and qualities that help promote your hair's strength, gives hair sheen, and keeps hair moisturized. So, being the curious person that I am, I mixed mayonnaise, pure honey, and one egg together to see what would happen. I didn't see the real point in putting an egg in the mayonnaise since mayonnaise is made of eggs but I said "What the heck?" and threw it in anyway. I used about a 2 cups of mayonnaise, about 3 tables spoons of honey and one egg (all approximations except for the 1 egg of course) and then I stirred them together. The mixture still had the scent of mayonnaise but the consistency was slightly thicker than just plain mayonnaise due to the honey. 

(left) picture of the mayonnaise mixture
(right) after applying the conditioner

Now, before I put this "concoction" into my hair I went on YouTube and other natural hair blogs to see what other people put into their mayonnaise conditioners and a lot of people used some of the same things. The only think I didn't directly put into my mixture was an oil. I wanted to see how the mixture would take to my hair without an oil. So dampened my hair with warm water and I proceeded to put the mayo conditioner into my hair. I was expecting the mixture to remain soft but as I moved on to different sections of my hair I started to realize that the sections I had already finished were beginning to get hard like a mask. After putting the mayonnaise conditioner on my entire head, I put EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) on my entire head as well and put a plastic cover over my hair. I would say I let the conditioner sit in my hair for about an hour. For majority of the time, I was in a hot bath tub. I say this because the extra heat and steam may have played a factor in the results that I got. So after the hour passed, I first rinsed as much as the mayonnaise conditioner as I possibly could with just warm water. My hair was soft and smooth but I still had residue in my hair from the conditioner and I still felt as though the smell was in my hair and I needed it OUT! I washed my hair with Herbal Essences: Hello Hydration Shampoo and finally got the smell and remaining residue out. After doing this I noticed that my curls had more definition and in some parts I had very defined coils. Usually after washing my hair, the ends of my hair would be tightly curled but the rest would be loosely curled. I don't know if this mixture worked or if this was just a time where my hair wanted to be extra nice to me and show me some of it's surprises. So I was wondering. . . has anyone ever tried mayonnaise as a conditioner? And if so, what things did you add to you're mixtures? And what results did you get? Feel free to let us know either on here (by clicking the link that says "comments" below) or our twitter page( link located on the bar at the bottom of the page)! 

More about us in partiCURLar. . .

The length of my hair before the BC.

 My natural hair journey has been a life long one. I've been natural my entire life and I never plan on changing that. Growing up, I was hardly ever allowed to wear my hair out so once I was, I WENT CRAZY! I've had long hair, short hair, straight bangs, slanted bangs and now I even have color. I didn't pay attention to things such as heat protectants, deep conditioners etc. and I really didn't realize the damage I was doing to my hair by constantly straightening it. But after seeing other natural's videos and tips on natural hair, I've decided to start over. I'm retiring my flatirons and other heating tools for awhile and I'm embracing my natural hair from this day forward. I used to let little things about becoming completely natural discourage me from just doing it but I finally went along and did the deed!

My hair now after the BC.

I big chopped (if that's what you want to call it) on December 28, 2011. I have a tapered curly 'fro. The back is the shortest part of my hair, the top is the longest part and the length of the sides are somewhere in between the two. I got my hair cut like this so I wouldn't have a simple TWA but I also didn't want something as drastic as a Mohawk or a super short cut. I've now realized that once a person has the right products to keep their hair healthy, anyone can grow long hair but retaining length is where a lot of people go wrong. I've found a lot of products that work for me at the moment so my main goal is preventing breakage or any other type of damage to my hair so that I'll be able to actually see the progress of my hair

My hair permed. It was thin and brittle and stringy.

My natural hair journey began about three-four years ago. I had been getting perms since I was in the fourth grade. I used to have the misconception that all girls were supposed to have perms which in fact is not true at all. It wasn't until my eleventh grade year of high school that I realized how much damage the chemicals from the perm had done to my hair. I was preparing for prom and my sister took me to her hair dresser who specialized in doing natural hair. When she showed me a layer of my hair from the top of my hair you could see it thinning from the middle. My hair was a mess and she informed me that she would need to cut my hair. From that day I vowed to never put another perm in my head again. It took me about a year to transition my hair back to its natural state. I began to slowly grow and cut the perm out of my head. Throughout my transitioning stages, I continued to have my hair straightened. So my transition was not as hard as I assumed it would be.

My natural has more volume and it's less stringy.

 I first began this natural hair journey for the health of my hair but I have gotten so much more from it. I have a new found confidence that I did not have before. I now feel comfortable to wash my hair and go while my natural curls blow in the wind. I too have vowed to put the flat irons down and leave the heat alone. Lets just say when I first learned how to flat iron my own hair I went a little crazy. I want my hair to not only be natural but healthy as well and all the heat from me constantly straightening my hair was preventing that. This is all a learning experience for me and I have learned so much from reading other blogs and watching videos in the natural hair community and I will now wear my hair in its natural state and let my kinks and curls run wild.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG!

Thanks for stopping by! We're Robbin (Right) and Keon (Left). The main purpose of our blog is to share our natural hair journeys with the rest of the natural hair community. We plan to include tutorials, product reviews, and general updates on the progress of our hair. For months we have been learning about some of your personal natural hair journeys by watching your tutorials and reading your blogs, so now we feel it is our turn to return the favor. We hope our blog will be a place where others in the natural hair community will feel comfortable expressing their thoughts, feelings, and ideas. We also hope to be of some assistance to those of you who are newly natural and provide you with tips and ideas to make your transition as easy as possible. So join us as we embark on this journey and lets learn from one another!