Monday, February 22, 2010

Can you spot me? ~1992/1993

Can you spot me?


Check out all the bangs! and guess what- I have a bang again now after all these many years! LOL. I see pink sponge roller bangs, curling iron bangs, "tootsie roll bangs", high ponytails lol. Overalls, herring bone chains, pixi stix.. the list goes on. ahhh nostalgia...

My 90's look from an old school party this weekend. Pretty close hu? LOL

Friday, February 19, 2010

"Breakthrough", a soul-hop musical by Princess of Controversy

Hey Everyone- I want you to meet my homegirl Princess! She is one of the first women I met and befriended when I moved to DC. Let me tell you- a LOT has changed since then. I'll spare you the details, but I am sooooo happy and proud of her for everything she has accomplished. And, as you can see, she has a FABulous sense of style and always rocks the flyest natural hair styles! pshhhawww... You should have seen her wedding hair :-)
Your girl will switch it up on you though, don't sleep, lol.

But, if you are in the DC area, I implore you to check out her stage production "Breakthrough", a soul-hop musical." Here is an excerpt:
"After quitting her 9-5 for a chance to become "famous" by producing a mega-reality show called "Starving Artist To SuperStar", Princess struggles with daily life issues of an artist and past demons she thought she had locked away forever. Faced with the deadline fast approaching she is hit with the fate that she may not "make it" and contemplates what she will do if she doesn't succeed as an artist. Then she meets DJ, and he could possibly be everything she ever needed OR.... just a dream, like everything else in her life! Could this be the breakthrough she's been waiting for or will she be forced to join the 9-5'ers for the rest of her life and give up her artistic dreams of changing the world?...And on LOVE???"
Sound familiar? Oh, how we struggle with all such things. Let me know if you get tickets. I got mine already!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Valentines day- my Birthday. Ramblings

So Valentines day is also my birthday. It has always been a wretched curse until this year. My man pulled out all the stops and made sure I had a weekend to remember! We had a lovely, local vacation and had a wonderful time. I wore my dirty hair up in a Princess braid.

Though we were together this time last year as well- I was in a wedding... in NJ. I got a full tour of the armpitness that state can exhibit, as we got lost, starved most of the day, and found ourselves staying at a hotel in the midst of being renovated, which also had a club (taking up what was left of the parking) downstairs at night. Anyways...

In the car the day before our weekend getaway, I pulled this mangled monstrosity from my hair:

I asked my BF what it was, at a loss of words myself. A split end? A knot?
He replied "it's a NAP". LOL. I thought to myself wow - this IS the "personification" of the negative connatation behind the word nap. I had to take a picture. I hope to never stumble upon one of THESE again.

On the Friday before the weekend I rinsed my hair and applied my wash and go products to get this stretched wash and go. I would have loved to keep rocking this for the weekend, but lacking a full wash or co-wash, my hair was just too dirty to keep it up. This produced that nap- can you believe it?

So at the Beautiful hotel this am I took advantage of the power shower and washed my hair- with their free shampoo (ghasp!) and used their conditioner and some carrot oil as my leave in. I got this fully shrunken, shiny, good smelling fro. Dense, dense, dense...



Well I hope everyone had a happy Valentines day!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Day 3 hair floofing- video

This is me fluffing up my hair this morning after taking my scarf off. This is a 3 day old wash and go. I used Pink Eco styler gel and Cream of Nature rosemary and lemongrass leave in, mixed together. I put some castor oil liberally on the ends last night.



Because of the snow I'm not going anywhere but my hair would be done! 3 day hair! I think it looks plenty acceptable. I kinda show off the shrinkage/retraction here of the curls. It is streached out a little because the night before last I slept with it in a loose pony-bun on top of my head. I love these two inexpensive products together.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Picts. Texture and Curly bang. Out and about.


Wash and go with Organix coconut milk weightless mousse. It was still drying into a light fluffy fro.



Eco styler gel below. Me at work.



Day at home after work. I was having a bad day- but liked my hair- so took some picts. I think it was a 2 day old wash and go.




Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Cornrow-out & short hair for a day.

Cornrows! I had not done a set of cornrows- (full straightbacks!) in a long time. I HATE the way they look on me, and even my man told me to put my hat back on lol. SO here is one blurry picture so you can see the size of them as I began to take them out. I'd had them in for almost 2 days as I putted around the house and made one trip to the mall over the weekend. I used Organix Coconut milk weightless mouse and shea butter on wet hair.

After I took the cornrows out I had this beautiful, stretched inner texture and frizzy ends.


So out came the flexirods. I used the really small red ones and put about 8 in.
The next day, half pulled back:

Was cute, but kinda all over the place for work. When i got to the office I tucked the ends under my head band and wore it like this:



I wore variations on this for the rest of that week, bandu knotting at night usually.
By the end of that week, I felt that my hair was really dry, despite slathering on moisturizers. I blame it partially on the organix mouse, which is tooooo "weightless" in my opinion. It did, however, produce a shiny, fast drying set. I also blame it on wearing my hair out of its curl pattern for 2 weeks. My hair yearns to form natural free form curls, and I think when the ends are out of their protective little huddle, it makes them more vulnerable.

I Deep conditioned with Yes to Carrots and Castor oil, then went back to a Diffused wash and go this week and I'm getting just as many days out of that with no heat and no re-wetting. I'm still not sold on the sets now that I know how to wear my hair curly for a few days.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Twist out variations

I have not been posting much lately but I HAVE been playing with my hair a lot. I'll cue up some of my styles and discoveries from the week.

Large twists. These took about 45 min to put in on wet hair. I promptly had to get ready to go out for a birthday party- so this was how I styled the wet twists. I used Naked Naturals Shea butter & Advocado Smoothing Conditioner as a leave in conditioner with Kemi Shea butter pomade on the ends.





A few days later I took them down to discover that the ends had not set well. I created a variety of updoos and curled my ends with flexi rods to get a week out of the set. I felt it was too frizzy, and my ends were not protected enough, to wear it completely out.









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