Keep on Rollin'

The first stages after the "Big Chop" have been some of the best stages in my natural hair journey so far. But now that my hair has grown out a bit, I'm at the dreaded awkward length. Twist-outs, fro-hawks, head bands, and wash and goes are becoming boring to me and though I do have a lot more hair than what I originally had, I still don't have enough hair to do many natural hairstyles. I thought that this was true up until about a week ago. I realized when my hair was stretched, I had enough hair on the back of my head( which was previously tapered) to twist! So with the help of a friend, we came up with the hairstyle in the photo to the left. It started off with two twists going up the back of my head. The twists in the front are arranged so that you can't tell where they end. My hair was already moisturized and was stretched with a blow dryer on a low heat setting. All you need after that is patience and bobby pins, lots and lots of bobby pins! The twists can go in any direction or style that you want but the main goal is to not be able to tell where they end and for some, where they begin. This is a great way to protect your ends and is also a great way to wear your hair so that you won't have to do it everyday. Another thing I liked about this hairstyle was that it was very easy to sleep on. I wore this style to a party and for 3 days afterwards and it didn't budge! I only took it out to add moisturizer an oil to my hair because it was getting dry. This style is very versatile and can be worn anywhere; to a formal event or just for a casual day to day look. So I hope you enjoy and give us feedback on what you think of it.

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)!