This doesn’t happen too often, but occasionally I get comments that question my use of the word nappy. Most recently, one of my readers, Mardi, left this comment, which I decided to address here.

Q: Why is it that you call the hair on your head nappy. First you should change your lango and start maybe using the term overy curly hair. When the term over curly is used it puts a different perpestive on the type of hair that we have. People will start to view the texture of their hair differently. The hair used to be nappy when their werent a lot of hair products to moisturise the hair. Their are many, many products available for the over curly hair that any one could purchase over the counter or to their cosmetologist.

My freshly washed, unstyled, product free, dry nappy hair

A: Well personally, I’ve never had a negative reaction to the word nappy. Growing up, I took it to mean texture, not unkempt or dirty. Everyone around me had nappy hair; we all knew it, and I can’t recall people having a problem with that. It wasn’t until I started frequenting hair boards about four years ago coupled with the IMUS Nappy-headed Ho controversy, that I discovered ”nappy” was a fightin’ word to some.

So when I use the word nappy, I use it to describe the texture of my hair and others who have kinky/highly textured hair. And I actually use all three of these terms interchangeably.

To me, there’s nothing bad about my nappy texture. With that in mind, ask yourself if someone could have nappy hair that’s unkempt and unclean? If you’re honest, you’d say, “Sure they can.” And then ask yourself, if someone could have beautiful, clean and STYLED and UNSTYLED nappy hair? Again, the answer is yes. So you see, the term nappy is NOT about grooming, it’s about texture. And if you’re on board with that mindset, you take the negative out of nappy.

Styled, nappy hair. Does my texture change just because I've applied product and taken the time to put my hair in a style?

With regard to product selection, as long as you’re not chemically or thermally altering its texture, no product is going to get rid of your naps.

Now, as far as your perferred term of “overly curly” is concerned, that to me suggests an extreme of sorts and comes across as negative. And quite frankly, I don’t consider ink pen sized coils to be curls. And why does calling nappy hair curly seem to make some people feel better about their NAPPY hair. Ok, unless of course you really do have nappy hair that does naturally show and allow some measure of curl definition. If that’s the case, then knock yourself out calling your hair curly, but if you have hair like mine, you’d be hard press to find a curl on your head. And if you do, why is it better to have others perceive your hair as “curly” hair as opposed to nappy? Do you really think that people look at NAPPY hair and see curls? I don’t think so. If someone told me they had curly hair, and I couldn’t see them, I wouldn’t picture MY hair. Instead, I would visualize this

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

NOT THIS.

So to me, my hair is not overly anything nor is it curly. And truth be told, I don’t have a lot of coils either. My strands are a combination of irregular loops, bends and some coils that all take a different route that literally create kinks and a whole lot of texture. And geesh, sometimes this all takes place on the same strand. This is true for most nappy heads that I’m familiar with.

Now, if you do personally take issue with the word nappy, then that’s certainly your perogative. However, it’s also your own hang up about the word, not mine.  And if you or anyone else has a problem with the word nappy or with having nappy hair, most likely you’ve got issues with wearing your natural hair no matter the term used to describe it. At the end of the day, it is what it is. Kinky, nappy or highly textured or even eh, overly curly, if you don’t embrace what’s growing out of your head, it won’t matter what you or anyone else calls it.

Because, a nap, by any other name is still a nap.

All this week, I have been wearing my twists back into a french braid and tucked under. It’s ironic that forever, all I ever wanted was for my shrunken twists to sit on my shoulders. Now that they can, I don’t want my ends rubbing against my clothes like that. In addition to that, I can’t stand to have my twists down at all, not on a regular basis. And I’ve also discovered that I really don’t like my hair falling in my face. So all summer long, I’ve opted for updo styles that  keep my twists tucked into some kind of bun or wearing them up into a high ponytail.

Well, tonight, I took my braid down with the intent to redo it and darned if my twists weren’t crimped into this cute bob…that I can’t wear anywhere because of all the sweaters and turtlenecks that I’m wearing. But anyhoo, I left it down like that for a few hours at home after I took some pics. But now, I’ve put it back into one big braid with the end tucked under before I go to bed, and I’ll just have to reserve this style for a special occasion.

Does it exist for me? My answer is, I’m not sure.

Well, after several cuts to get rid of layers, I’m at BSL once again. While I’m very happy about that, reaching this goal again is rather anticlimatic. Most likely because it’s my third time around, so this time I have a been there done that feeling. Kind of a let down. I know…crazy right?

So now I wonder, does beyond BSL exist for me? While I’m not sure that it does, that will no longer be my active focus. I know I’ve said that before and that seems to change everytime someone posts a picture of Sera or TallGirl’s hair. But for real, at least for the winter, I’m putting my mindset into total maintenance mode. My hair absolutely hates winter anyway so, from now to next spring, my total focus is happy healthy hair. I’ve got some breakage in the front on my right side to nurse anyhoo and last winter was pretty rough on my hair. I hate winter cause my hair doesn’t respond very well to my moisturizer and that makes for a long, long frustrating six months.

So that’s it. I can’t promise a bunch of new styles, so I’ll have to be very creative when it comes to blog topis. If there’s something topic you’d like me to touch on let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

I've been tying my head up faithfully with a scarf and my hair has held up remakably well. So far it's been a week, and it's still looking good.

When you’ve gotta put your hair into some kinda protective style, but you really don’t have the energy or even a whole lot of time to spend on your hair, here’s a way to do it fairly quickly. You can cheat. This classic bun was put together with a combination of flat twists, twists and loose hair. The LOOSE hair is the key to being able to create this do without spending an inordinate amout of time on it.

Total time spent on my hair was about 2.5 hours as opposed to the five or six that it might take to two-strand twist my whole head and then style into a bun like I usually do.

The front/top/sides are flat twisted. Top also has three, three-strand twists for bangs. The back bottom third (ear to nape) is two-strand twisted. The back, upper two-thirds (ear to crown)  is loose. All the hair is pulled back and tucked into a bun. The loose hair serves as a form for the bun and gives it great volume. It’s all held in place by a jeweled clip.  

I’ve been tying my hair up faithfully every night with a long satin scarf, and it has lasted a whole week. I’m soo ecstatic about this. I took the clip out today so that I could make sure the loose hair wasn’t matting. I detangled lightly and put it all back into a bun. I’ma see if I can make it another week.

Personally, I think from a style perspective, it holds its own very well against all my dos that were fashioned from a head full of two strand twists.

Oh, and I haven’t really applied any additional moisturizer. Just to my bangs to keep my exposed ends from getting overly dried out. My hair, overall is dry to the touch, but it doesn’t feel bone dry and it doesn’t look that way either. Not sure why, especially since the weather has most definitely switched over to being cool, to cold and dry.

I know I said I’d never do this, let my hair dry and shrink like this, but it wasn’t intentional. Last weekend, I dyed my hair. This time it was in flat twists and for what it’s worth, I think I got more even coverage this time. However, I don’t think I’ll do that again because I cannot continue to process the entire strand without damaging my hair. So from now on, I’ll only color when it’s in two strand twists.

Anyhoo, like I said, ending up with a head full of loose, naked hair was never my intention. After I got it colored, washed and conditioned, I set out to take each of my flat twists down one-by-one, detangle and then put  my hair in some big fat twists. I’d gotten three done, when I suddenly just didn’t feel like doing my hair any more. So dummy me, with my hair still pretty darned wet, I started taking my twists down, pulling out the noticeable tangles and knots and then just moving on to the next twist.

Shrinkage vs. actual length... Nappy hair is amazing, isn't it?

Well, before I know it, I was done. I sat and finished watching a movie and by the time it was over, my hair was totally dry to the touch. My hair is very porous and doesn’t hold water for long at all so it dries fairly quickly. I’m like uh…oh…I’m in for it now. Then it dawned on me to grab my camera and take some pics cause lawd knows I should never experience a bout of stupidity like this ever again. Leaving my hair loose to dry and shrink up like with no product on it.  What the heck was I thinking?????

Hmmm… apparently I wasn’t. But oh well, I left it like this for quite a while. But by bedtime, I was starting to get really, really concerned. There’s no way I could go to bed and leave my hair like this. What in the world was I gonna do. I’m sleepy dang it!

If it hadn't been for a bottle of Just For Me curl Smoother, detangling this stuff would have been a total nightmare.

Then I remembered. A week or so ago, based on a recommendation from someone on the Blackhairplanet.com hairboard, I picked up a bottle of Just For Me Curl Smoother. According to the lady, this stuff was really the business. So I jumped up and grabbed my bottle and went to the bathroom. Andja know what? Yeah, this stuff really is the business. It instantly and literally melted my napps, tangles and all down to total softeness. Do you get what I’m saying? TOTAL SOFTNESS.  My Denman brush glided through my hair. Ok???? In about 10-15 minutes, my hair was totally detangled and in about 8 big fat twists and I was ready to lay down and go to bed.

After years of reliable service to my naps, will it be bye bye for my Proline Lite Creme Moisturizer?

Let me tell you I was sooooo ready to kick my trusty Proline Lite Creme Moisturizer to the curb for this stuff. Sever my long-term relationship with my reliable old moisturizer in the green tube for the product in this cute little bottle. My hair was soooo soft and it smelled sooooo good. So much so that I kept taking my twists and smelling them. Ok, that sounds weird. But it had this lite coconut scent to it that I couldn’t get enough of. Now usually, I’m so allergic to various scents and perfumes that I’d rather stuff didn’t have any smell to them. But if I get a whiff of something, and it doesn’t burn my eyes or send me into an allergic fit of sneezing and stuffiness and cause an instant headache, it’s a go with me.

But, before I could retire my trusty Proline and tell it to go kick rocks, the proof of the Smoother’s greatness would be determined by how soft my hair felt in the morning when it was dry. I mean, nearly every product I’ve ever used makes my hair feel great while it’s wet, but dry — that’s a whole nuther different nap altogether. Prior to using this product, my hair was dry as straw and felt like a softer version of a brillo pad. After I used it, my hair felt soft as cotton. But how would it feel in the morning?

The answer? Great! Well sort of. It felt kinda soft, but kinda chalky. In the light of the bathroom and looking in the mirror the next morning, I thought it looked kind of dull, like it had some kinda film on it. Hmmm…my imagination? Not sure. I took my twists down and applied more moisturizer. The directions say you can use it everyday so using it again shouldn’t be a problem. Right? So again, instant major softness as I put it in a puff. Then I got myself ready to leave and go to work.

As I was driving, I kept glancing at my hair in the rear view mirror. And I’m still thinking my hair doesn’t look quite right, but I put it out of my mind because there’s nothing I can do about it now.

But at lunch time, I’m in my car, and I look in the mirror again, and now I’m pretty sure it’s not my imagination. Not only does it look chalky, it looks like I have flecks of white residue in my hair. Yep…cause I can pic stuff out of my hair. Ewe, yuck…dang. And in spots, I can tell that I wasn’t able to spred the product evenly throughout. AND…I could brush at the surface of my hair with my hand and see the dusty residue coming out of my hair. Double ewe, yuck and dang. Ok, so you mean I was walking around all day with spots of white crap in my hair? Did anyone notice? Ok that bites. Now I’m gonna have to rinse this stuff out of my hair as soon as I get home. Totally friggin bites. And so, I guess that means I won’t be getting rid of my Proline moisturizer after all.

So that’s how I end up with wet hair pics. Might as well take advantage of this experience as a photo op as well. But I guess all wasn’t totally lost because what I learned was the Curl Smoother Creme is a wonderful product for detangling PRIOR to washing, but most def should NOT be used as a moisturizing, leave-in styling aide…not in the least. And for that reason, I won’t totally abandon this product. I’ll probably buy another bottle to use as a detangler. And with my head of thick nappy hair, that’s always a good reason to have an excellent kink busting product on hand.  

On some hairboard, someone had the nerve to say that I didn't have 4B hair. That I likely was a 4A. Yeah right. There ain't hardly a defined curl anywhere on my head. Ok...there is ONE rogue curl laying on a towel in this pic. Don't let it fool ya though, cause it's likely left over from one of the twists I took down. So trust me, there aint no curl, wave or coil definition on my head. NONE. So give it a rest...wouldja?

Looking for some quick advice to help make taking care of your naps a little easier?

Well you’re in luck. I’ve started a new feature called Nappy Quick Tips. They’re helpful little tid bits about keeping your nappies happy. The information you find in Nappy Quick Tips is not static as I will continue to add to this page as I come across helpful information. So check it out and come back every so often to see what’s new!

Click Nappy Quick Tips now.

Yep, it's nearly a month later, and I'm still rocking this do and apparently the same top. LOL!

A couple of months ago, I dropped out of participating in a Bra strap-length challenge that I initiated last year on Nappturality.com. It seems that everytime I reach BSL, my ends are in horrible shape and need to be cut. Well, I had planned on cutting them anyway because I wanted to get rid of my layers. But what continues to disheartened me is that my length retention is not good quality and NEEDS to be cut. Well, I’ve always said that I would rather have shorter healthy hair than longer hair that isn’t healthy. So instead of getting a cut for purely aesthetic reasons, it’s out of necessity as well. And that bites.

Now I’m frustrated because it’s not as if I don’t know how to take care of my hair. I follow all the good rules of the road to keep my hair stylish, but healthy with an overall goal to maximize retention. But no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get good viable length much past the 14 inch mark. After three years, it just seems that getting to 18 inches has become rediculously elusive. Well, a long time ago, I had come to the conclusion that some people just didn’t grow really longer lengths well. NOT that it doesn’t grow, but once people get to a certain length, quality retention past that point becomes extremely challenging and sometimes dang near impossible. Problem is, I just never wanted that to apply to me.

Nevertheless, several months ago I determined it did, so I decided to try and accept this, move on and just enjoy the hair that I’ve been blessed to have on my head. I mean, after all, it’s longer than its ever been in my entire life so surely I could be happy with ONLY about 14 inches of hair. Right?

Wrong dang it!

Every time I think I’m ready to stop obsessing about length, I run into nappy-headed folks like Mcm96001 on FOTKI http://public.fotki.com/mcm96001/coils/stretched.html (caramelicious on Nappturality.com) and my obsession for longer hair starts all over again.

So six months later, I became increasingly curious about any progress that I may have made and that’s what finally prompted another length check. As usual, my hair has been in protective styles, with little manipulation. I rarely use a comb or brush to detangle, and when I do so with my fingers, I’m as gentle as can be. Now as you can see, I’ve made some progress, but it’s not much in my book. From March til now, it’s been six months and based on my average hair growth of 1/2 inch a month, I should have at least three additional inches of hair on my head. But it seems to me that I’ve only retained about an inch of length — and it’s not even quality retention. Now why is that? Several days ago, I did some spot checks to determine the condition of my ends by plucking several hairs from various areas on the top of my head . What I discovered really dismayed me. Each one of my ends that I looked at was split nearly an inch up my hair shaft. That is definitely not good, and it’s very disheartening because honestly, it needs to be cut . And if I don’t, it’s likely to break off anyway. 

Sigh…

I’m soooo not sure what to do about this. Someone on NP suggested protein treatments. I do think it’s a good idea and it certainly couldn’t hurt. But I just don’t know if it will do any good. Wow, is this a defeatest attitude or what? And, beyond this…I’m stumped.  Stumped but perhaps not defeated cause contray to how I felt a couple of months ago, I don’t think I’m ready to throw in the towel just yet. But I don’t want to jump through a whole lot of hoops just to get more length. It just seems to me that there’s gotta be something, some small tweak in my routine that could make all the difference in the world and get me over this hump.

So I’m asking for help. Is there anyone out there who has longer hair than mine that would be willing to give me some tips or things to try to help me retain healthy length? If so, any and all advice and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I picked this bracelette up at the Greek Festival today. It will double as an adorable hair accessory.

By now, y’all know I’m a hair accessory junkie. Can’t help myself, really and it keeps me from getting totally bored with my hair. And that can be easy to do since I tend to wear the same basic styles for weeks and sometimes months on end. So I’m always, always always on the look out for something new to put in my hair.

So today, my mom and I do our usual Saturday thing where we hit the Farmer’s Market down in the Old Market, and then head on over to the Greek Festival not to far away. I’ve never been and had fathomed that it would be a big to do with a carnaval-like atmosphere. Ha were we soooo disappointed. Altogether, there were a handful of food vendors, some Greek dancers, a beer garden, a childrens’ face-painting booth, and a few jewelry vendors and a lone t-shirt vendor. That was it. Hardly an event that was worthy of spending a whole bunch of time at today, nor was it in my estimation even worth the price of admission — $3. Thank goodness I had free tickets.

So after watching the dancers shortly after arriving, me and my mom made our way over to the jewelry booth to see if we could find something different or unusual that might beg to go home with us. And that’s when I spotted several bracelettes that I immediately decided would make great hair accessories. Now I wish I could take sole…ok any credit for the idea of using a bracelete as a hair accessory. Nope, that credit has to go to my friend, TryinItNatural. I did her hair for her last Thursday night, and she pulls out this stretchy-beaded-bracelette thingy that she wanted me to put around her bun. I did, and it turned out sooooo cute I was jealous. A) because I’d have never thought of that, and B) because I didn’t have one to put on my bun, lol.

TryinitNatural's stretchy bracelette wrapped around a bun

Well now, it doesn’t at all surprise me that as I looked at the trays of bracelettes, I would automatically consider trying them in my hair. The vendors were only too happy to indulge me and even took pictures of several that I selected to put in my hair so I could see what they looked like and help me make up my mind on which one to purchase. The vendor’s 10-year-old son even offered his unsolicited opinion about which on looked best, saying that one of them matched my earrings. “Well that’s just what I think, anyway,” he said kinda shyly. I just smiled and told him I valued having a guy’s opinion. And truth be told, his rationale helped me make up my mind, and I ended up buying the one you see in the picture.

It’s adorable, don’t you think?

Well, it turns out I’m not the only nappy ’round these Internet parts that likes to use such items as hair accessories. Check out cNappymeNow member PJStyle, who recently posted in the thread “How are you wearing your hair today?”

PJStyle's puff adorned with a scarf and pearl necklace

I think this is absolutely too adorable. To dress up her puff, she used a simple scarf and a necklace.  

“This is the style that I wore today,” said PJStyle. “I flat twisted 4 sections randomly then wrapped a black sateen scarf around the hair to create a puff towards the back. I added the necklace that matches my earrings and used it in my hair…LOL! This was done after a fresh shampoo (EverPure) and moisturizing with Cantu Shea Butter. I patted my puff to compact the hair.”

Check out the matching earrings. Lovely!

And Mwedzi, another cNappymeNow and NP member, who loves hairsticks has on occasion added knitting needles to her loose do the create a bun.

Knitting needles helped create Mwedzi's updo.

And NP’s mzjayluv has also gotten creative with bracelettes as well. Her multi-colored stretchie, wooden bracelette really puts the fun in her bun! 

A beautiful stretchie, wooden bracelette adorns msjayluv's bun

In addition, NP’s Iluvekanye said she has used used colorful shoe strings to hold puffs, and rings to adorn her hair when she had locks. And GalaxyGirl2012 has gotten creative with earrings secured with bobbie pins.

“My favorites are feathered earrings chandelier style earrings, and other dangly styles,” said GG2012. “Oh yeah, tshirts as headwraps,” she said.

So next time you’re bored with your hair,  just know that it really doesn’t take much to dress it up and create a whole new look. And ya never know, you may already have something around the house that can double as a hair accessory, and that means you don’t even have to spend any additional money. So next time you get kinda bored with your hair, check your jewelry box, and see what you can come up with.

Have you ever tried this? Got pics? Please join in the fun and post a link to your pic and share how your unconventional hair accessory came about!

Thanks!

This pic shows a three-strand twist and what a three-strand looks like untwisted.

I spent, oh like two-three hours doing my hair last night. And NOT into another full head of two-strand twists with flat twists along my hair line, which has pretty much become my signature style over the past year. As much as I love this style, I came to the realization that it wasn’t allowing my scalp to breathe. I’m currently at that time in my life where I am now experiencing my own “personal summers” and during these moments, I get so hot. I finally realized that in all this heat and humidity my hair, as styled, was trapping all my body heat in and not allowing me to cool down. This in turn has been making me quite miserable to say the least. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on the porch talking with my mom, and I started having a hot flash and literally felt as if I could not breathe and might pass out. I had to cut my conversation short really quick and duck into the house where it was air conditioned.

Personal summers really suck!

I finally realized that my head full of twists had to go. I mos def needed a style that would allow my scalp to get some air. So, this is what I came up with. A couple of  three-strand twists in top with the rest flat twisted back and up into a ponytail. I can wear it high, low or with a butterfly clip. I can leave the three-strands twisted or twist them out. As I said in yesterday’s post, I used a very strong holding gel to get this kind of definition that I can’t get with my regular moisturizer. On the rest of my hair I did use my regular proline moisturizer though. But if I had used the proline on hair intended for a twistout, it would come out really frizzy (see the previous post, and it would have practically no definition. Plus the little definition it would have wouldn’t last but a quick minute.

But with this gel, this twistout will last until I wash it out.

I’ve actually already worn this to work, but I was kinda unhappy with the frizzy base of the first twist. So tonight, before I took these pics, I rewetted my hair and retwisted it back up, making the base of the twist tighter to hopefully get it to be smoother-looking at the the roots. Problem is, I have a patch of hair right at the front that is very short and it’s hard to grasp up into the twist. But I think I got it this time, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s going to turn out exactly the way I want it to in the morning.

Had to rewet this front twist and smooth it out so that it would hang completely straight. If it's not straight when it dries, the resulting twistout will look crazy. Mission accomplished, but I didn't take a new pic.

I’ll post a new pic of both twists complete out tomorrow.

As I look at the back, I'm not real fond of the "onion-head" visual that this gives. But oh well, I'll get over it.

Hey, I’m getting really good at twisting up. Not to shabby if I might say so myself! I’m hoping this do will last a couple of weeks.