All Na-tu-rallll!

Have you ever thought about going natural? Are you transitioning? Well, I have been natural for all of my life with the exception of two years (during which I had a failed attempt at a texturizer). I think natural hair is the thing to do, regardless of the fact that going natural has become a trend over the past year. We as black females should embrace our natural-ness & be happy with the hair that God gave us. What I like most about being natural is that there is so much room for versatility in the natural hair styles which you can wear. So anyway, just to give y'all a hint of the natural life, I've been photographing the different ways that I've styled my hair over the past two weeks! Enjoy!


Shower Fresh (Days 1-4): This is my completely natural, no heat hairstyle. As you can see I have a super duper curly texture of hair, but I also have sections of my hair which are straight, kinky, and somewhere in between. For the longest time I didn't know what to do with my hair to make it stay in the curly texture that it becomes after getting wet. However, over the past summer I had a hair epiphany & figured out what to do (lol). Every girl's hair texture is different, but here are my tips for wearing natural hair.

1. Don't waste your money on those expensive "natural hair care" products. You can use a lot of cheaper items & save a lot of money.
2. As a natural it's important to wash your hair using conditioner only. This "co-wash" is far less damaging that using shampoo (which contain ingredients like sulfate & paraben which dries out curly hair). I use garnier fructis conditioner. It smells great and it's cheap. Condition your hair and leave the conditioner in for three minutes. This helps to moisten your hair.
3. Rinse the conditioner out and recondition. This time leave the conditioner in. (Because I wet my hair a lot when it's natural I also sometimes use good ole Dove conditioner. Don't waste your money on an expensive conditioner because your hair will be wet a lot. Trust me it works!) Leaving the conditioner in your hair will keep the right amount of moisture in your hair.
4. While your the conditioner is still in your hair, add some detangler if you'd like (I use motions leave in conditioner spray & suave detangler for kids. The combination of the two make it easier to comb out any knots.) Put your hair under the stream of water and combing out knots will be a breeze.
5. Squeeze out the water from your hair and add a leave in conditioner for added moisture. I use motions cpr triple action leave in conditioner.
6. Wrap an old t-shirt around your hair and gentle squeeze several times to prevent excess water from leaking from your head (lol. Don't underestimate the amount of water that your hair can hold, especially when your hair thickens after going natural. I've had many a day where I had to run to the closest bathroom to squeeze out excess water from my hair).
7. While your hair is still damp add something to seal moisture into your hair. I prefer to use unrefined shea butter.
8. At night wear your hair in a loose high ponytail.
9. In the morning mix some conditioner, water and if you'd like a bit of olive oil into a spray bottle and mist your hair. The curls will come right back. However, because it is so dry in the winter, you may find that you have to completely wet your hair again to get the same curly effect (or in this case, splurge and spend some money on a natural hair care spritz to preserve your curls).

Like I said, because my hair is so curly and spongy, it tends to dread easily, so I only rock this hair style for several days.

Straight & Sultry (Days 5 & 6):
For these days I used a combination of Suave kids detangler (in the green bottle) and a leave in conditioner spray to detangle my curls. I blow dry my hair with a comb attachment and I then smooth castor oil from my roots to my ends and use a flat iron to straighten my hair. This style stays completely straight for about 8 hours. At night I braid my hair in sections (or make straight bantu knots) and wrap a silk scarf around them. In the morning I undo them and go over them with the flat iron. When I wrap my hair, I usually sweat out my roots by the morning, so these two methods work best. However, overuse of heat=hair damage, so this straight look lasts for a short period of time.


Curls Curls Curls (Days 7-11):
This is my quickest, easiest, most common due. I rub some palmer's growth treatment into my hair at night, before setting my hair in 15-20 large (pink) sponge rollers. I wrap a silk scarf over the rollers and sleep on them. In the morning when I take the rollers out all I do is pin my hair in whatever style I want and the curls fall into place. In this particular picture, I went over some of the curls with my curling iron to stretch them out. Notice how short my hair looks because of the tightness of the curls.

I hope you enjoy this & I hope my tips came in handy. For amazing natural hair care tips click on the KandeeLand link under my favorites to the left. She has amazing tips, blog posts & even videos on youtube!

xoxo

Jackie