Hair Play

 I’ve been playing with my hair all weekend. Although there’s really nothing fancy about this, I love how my new slider barrette dresses up my hair. It’s soooo pretty. When I took my hair out of my bun, my twists were stretched. Love the length.

As I look at this, I confirm it to myself that I’m not crazy about this two inches of new growth that I have where my color is growing out. But I’m not sure that I want to color it again. There’s a definite texture change. The new growth, my totally virgin hair is most definitely more coarse and thicker than my colored hair. It feels stronger too. Since my hair seems to be very healthy overall, I’m not pressed to cut the color out. I guess I’ll continue to let my hair grow out and…and…hmmm… I really don’t know.

My twisted Pony

I’m on a roll so don’t stop me now. I haven’t been this ambitious about playing with my hair in a really long time. But I took my bun down a couple of hours ago and was having a hard time duplicating my effort. Kind of figured I would. Then a few minutes ago, I remembered I had purchased a ponytail holder. Got it at Beauty First. I love going there to check out the clearance bin. I found a little gem that’s nap friendly, no rough edges to cut or pull on my hair, and got it for a couple of dollars. When I got it home and really looked at it, I’m like “Dag…anyone could make this.” It looks like a large button and the band is literally secured by a thin piece of satin glued to the back. Trust me, I’ma try to duplicate this cause the orignal price on this puppy was about $8 bucks plus tax. Puleeeeze.

I Love My Nappy Kitchens!

But I really hate my hairline back here. It's shaped like a W. I've tried getting it lined up, but I get horrible hair bumps that itch like crazy!

It’s not often that I show off my nappy kitchens cause most of time my twisted styles hang down in the back so they’re covered. But today, I decided to see if I could be a bit creative with my hair and put it into some kind of bun. I’ve got several hair sticks, but I’ve never been able to do much with them and usually give up before I come up with something I like.

Directions: I have flat twists in the front and double strand twists in the back. I pulled them back into a low ponytail at the nape of my neck and twisted them. Then I took a chopstick in from the bottom and twisted all the hair around it once and then I turned the stick up and stuck it into my hair from the top down.

Now I have NO CLUE if this makes any sense  but I did my best to describe it. 

 

Today, however, I was bound and determined to do the cutest bun ever. Now I don’t know if I actually succeeded, but I really do like what I eventually came up with, so that’s really what matters. Then I showed my mom, and she said she liked it too. But then later she asked, “Why does your hair look like that around the edges?”

I knew exactly what she was talking about so I said, “You mean my little beebees? Well that’s the way it’s supposed to look. I have nappy hair. It’s doing what it’s supposed to do. I like my nappy edges.”

“Oh,” she says.

End of conversation.

Nappy Goes to the WhiteHouse!

This past Sunday, 60 Minutes interviewed our President-elect Barack Obama and our soon-to-be lovely First Lady Michelle. There was some heart warming kitchen footage of Barack cutting up some veggies with his daughter at his side wearing some adorable twists. I’ve been watching the 60 Minutes website for a couple of days hoping they’d post the interview, which they did, so that I could try and capture a screen print of Malia (not sure that’s how it’s spelled) in her twists. Ha! They did and so here it is. I’m really tickled cause the cameras rarely focus on the girls and so there are only glimpses of Malia in her twists. I love this shot cause it’s a close up and she’s absolutely precious. Enjoy!

Oh, if you missed and would like to see the interview, 60 Minutes posted it in four parts here http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

That baby sure is beautiful. I hate say it though, I think the heat is killing her ends. The pictures above was taken from 60 Minutes footage from a story they did on Barack a year ago.

This is a more recent pic of her hair in twists.

You can see her whispy, straight ends. Reminds me of how my niece’s hair looked after repeated straightening. My sis had to cut off almost four inches of her hair… Hopefully Michelle will recognize that as damage and perhaps give her a good cut. However, I’m sure she’ll always straighten and curl Malia’s hair for special occasions or for whatever reason she sees fit. And with my nappy crystal ball, (after seeing that my sis finally broke down and allowed a relaxer in niece’s hair) I even see a relaxer in Malia’s future when she hits the teen years.

Oh well, hopefully that won’t happen and until then, I’m certainly getting a kick out of seeing Malia’s hair in all it’s nappy glory right now, and perhaps for many more years to come.

Braids Gone Bye-bye

After just three weeks, I took a head full of micros down. Yeah I know but here’s the whole story…

As the weather turns so does my hair — against me that is. Well maybe I shouldn’t say that or feel that way but I do. So there it is. Me and my hair don’t seem to get along so well in the wintertime. In the three years that I’ve been wearing my hair loose and natural (as opposed to kooked up under pounds of synthetic hair fashioned into microbraids), I came to the conclusion last year that my hair just doesn’t do as well in cooler drier weather — that means fall, winter and most of the spring. Damn, here in the midwest that’s nearly 9 months out of the year. Instead, my hair simply thrives in hot humid weather, and it’s when I love my hair best. In the summer, glycerin, the best humectant in the world as far as I’m concerned, combined with water just makes my hair so soft and pliable and ever so cooperative. During this time of year, my hair will stay moisturized for days on end with just a single application of moisturizer. Yes it shrinks to high heaven, but since I keep it in twists all the time, and my hair is fairly long, I still get shoulder-length twists. In short, as long as I give it what it wants, me and my strands are in total synch.