56 twists

day 1 twist-out

Have mercy!

I thought that I was being slick and accidentally deleted all of my pictures! I appreciate your patience and understanding while I work to find the originals and upload them with better quality. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask away! And check out my new shop tab up top that links to my etsy site! Thanx, everyone!

Straightened hair

I straightened my hair a couple of weeks ago.

14 march 2013

13 March 2013

11 March 2013

I straightened my hair using only Natty Coco's Hair & Scalp Oil.  I won it in a giveaway.  I washed my hair and let most of it air dry.  I set the temperature to 360°, applied oil and flat ironed with a brush chasing behind.  I also applied the oil to my scalp hoping to get this hair to last more than 4 days before my itchy scalp became unbearable.

Underarms - 5 months of waxing

October 2012

Shaded area and lots of dark spots on top of that.  I was previously shaving and wanted to document month to month pigment change with pictures.

November 2012

Shaded area still.  There are less of the darker spots.  I was so impressed with the progress after only a month.  These two pictures were posted a few months ago.

Past two weeks's twists

Twist-out from the 3rd of March 2013:

Twists on the 5th of March 2013:

And twist-out from the 8th of March 2013:

I got a Shower Head Filter!

I picked up a filtered shower head, finally!  I was having an issue with an itchy scalp after 3-4 days.  I always planned to get one, but I wanted an expensive one that filtered more metals.  In the interim, I picked this up from Home Depot:

Less than $18.

It was a breeze to install.  That was what I did last weekend.

February Spending

In February, I acquired:

1. Giovanni's Tea Tree Conditioner at Vitamin Shoppe for $5.83 on sale.
2. Jane Carter's Twist and Lock at Vitamin Shoppe for $20.99.
3. Jane Carter's Scalp Nourishing Serum at Vitamin Shoppe at @ $12.99.
4. More Giovanni's Tea Tree Conditioner at Vitamin Shoppe for $5.83 on sale.
5. More Giovanni's Tea Tree Conditioner at Target for $6.39 (Vitamin Shoppe sale was over).
6. 2-scrap sacks of Castile soap for our bodies from Chagrin Valley Soaps for $8 each + $7.95 shipping.

$68.03 before sales taxes on products and $7.95 on shipping.

I have none of that conditioner left.  Co-washing works ok for me, but I was starting to feel like there was build-up on my hair.  I will have to buy some tea tree oil to add to products to get that tingly feeling in the future.

Out of control hobbies.

I didn't update this past weekend because I was making hats like a mad-woman!

I just wanted to share a few...I have a bajillion because I was making hats that would be big enough to hold my hair if I wanted to tuck it away.

This one is small, but a basket weave pattern

This one was a prototype and is smaller, but fits without my hair

Reunited

This week's twists

I reunited with my east African shea butter.  I couldn't tell if the conditioner or the Jane Carter product or the Shea Radiance was leaving a film on my hair so I'm going back to mud washes and shea until I get ready to try each product one by one to determine which (if any) leave a film.  This picture is from day 1.

Conditioner + mud = mud cowash

I was so sure that I was going to revolutionize my hair care this weekend.  I had this idea brewing in my head for a month and this week I put it into action.  For most of February, I was cowashing my hair with Giovanni's Tea Tree conditioner.  I deep conditioned twice this month.  Once I used the same conditioner and the other time, I used Giovanni's Deeper Moisture conditioner.  I enjoy cowashing.  My scalp felt clean and I was hoping that it would help with my itchy scalp (since I've not upgraded my shower head still).

I was using the 8.5oz bottles of the Giovanni's conditioner.  Two bottles got me three washes.  I had a third bottle with a little bit left for this week, but it was only a half bottle and I knew it wouldn't cover my head.  Perfect weekend to experiment.

I took the rest of the conditioner and squeezed it into my Terressentials bottle.  I make a tad bit of mud (about the same amount as I had conditioner).  I put the mud into the bottle with the conditioner.  I figured that:

1. Conditioner has great slip, moisturizing properties (duh), and mine had tea tree oil that I was loving on my scalp.
2. Rhassoul clay has great slip, doesn't strip your hair, and cleans very well.
3. The two of those together would be the ULTIMATE cleaning experience!

So I got to work.

put the conditioner in the bottle

Made some mud

Shaken, not stirred.

All set to wash

Shea Radiance Curl Defining Cream

Cowashed this week with Giovanni's Tea Tree conditioner.  I followed up with the deep conditioner.  This week, I twisted my hair with Shea Radiance Curl Defining Cream on damp hair as usual.

42 twists this week

wore the twists for 3 days

Revisiting Wash N Go

This week was pretty stressful.  I was not in the mood to twist my hair up.  Since this week was my second week cowashing instead of using my rhassoul clay, I thought I'd let my hair dry and see how it looked.  

I washed it in the shower in sections as usual, but I did not twist them up after rinsing.  I wet each section, applied conditioner to my scalp, wrung it into my hair and twisted sections until I finished my whole head.  When I rinsed, I just left my hair out.  I had a satin wrap in the shower that I wrapped my hair up with while it was soaking.  When I was done showering, I used an infant, hooded towel to wrap my hair up and let it dry like that.

The next day I just unwrapped and fluffed...see pix by clicking the "continue" link. ↓⇓⇣☟⬇⥥⟱↯

Jane Carter's Twist & Lock: First impression

My initial thoughts on Jane Carter's Twist and Lock and a few pictures. ↓⇩⬇⟱⇣⇓ 

top of twists on day three

Same twists, day three

Twistout: day two

Jane Carter Solutions - Twist and Lock

This week I decided to try something different.  I tried a co-wash with Giovanni's Tea Tree conditioner.  I just wanted something to tingle my scalp and I loved it so much that it turned into a deep condition.  I rinsed after a couple of hours and braided it into four braids.

after my deep conditioning

It was late so I didn't get to twisting until the next day.  I fluffed out my hair to see how it looked.

January spending

January is one of my favorite months.  My birthday is in January and it is after Christmas so I have extra cash and gift cards from gifts.  I also started a new job this month so I had to make sure my hair was "presentable."  By the end of this month, guess how much I'd spent on hair stuff.

Practice makes perfect

I was practicing my flat twisting a couple of weeks ago.  One week I'm going to flat twist my whole head.  These were done with east African shea butter as usual.  

Practicing my flat twists

I love Chagrin Valley

Washed with Chagrin Valley's live and babasu shampoo bar. Great slip when lathered, hair was squeaky clean after rinsing.

Used Jane carter deep conditioner under the Shea this week.

First day with dry twists

I require a filtered shower head!

Wore these twists for 4 days. Wore the twist out for one. Scalp itchy so I washed. Now I'm rocking a puff. Still procrastinating on buying that shower head filter. :/

Just posting hair pictures for the week.  Did the usual routine.  Except I washed with Elucence shampoo.  I still twisted with East African shea butter on damp hair.

December Spending

Shea butter was all I purchased this past month. Last time I purchased shea--before this month--

Last week of 2012

I use a scale to weight out my clay.

You have to "tare" the weight of the bowl so it is not included in the weight.

Damp hair, no product

After the mud wash, slightly damp.

How did the Qhemet's fair against the mud?

Twist out

I totally prefer larger twists to smaller ones. Might try Bantu knots for Xmas.

Twists and flat twists

Tried a Qhemet's product that I won as a sample. It was the Alma and Olive Heavy Cream.

I'm not made for long-term styles.

The yarn twists are gone!  They took a half of a day to remove.  I was happy that my hair felt moisturized when I took the twists out, but the leave-in that I use left my hair feeling like it wasn't at its best.  My scalp was really dry and I missed my hair.  The yarn twists were just too think for me to do anything with, thought it was nice to get a much-needed break!

a hat I crocheted.

You can put your hair through the top, or close it with a drawstring.
Full pattern here if you crochet.

Washing my hair was such a pain since I'm out of mud.  I was using Ovile and Babassu Shampoo bar, Elucence, and every sample of shampoo and conditioner I had in my shower.  I was not even playing.  Detangling took me forever since I  had to get rid of the shed hair and detangle.  I am guilty of ripping a few knots out.  But once I got done, my hair felt a little better.



It absolutely needs a deep condition, but I plan to hold off until Wednesday when my rhassoul arrives and rewash.  Also, I was out of East African Shea butter so I used West African Shea.

As a matter of fact, this is the first time I've used West African shea on my hair.  I had enough East African to do one twist so I tossed it somewhere in the middle and I will see if I can tell any difference when I untwist.  Of course you al will get an update when that happens.

Yellow hat I made

Back view.  That pattern is here, but I had to modify it.
This hat is huge.