Curly Girl Method: Week 3

While I'm enjoying the CGM method, I find that I don't have time in my schedule right now to "shampoo" twice a week. I'd prefer to re-wet my hair after my initial "shampoo" day so that my hair stays nice and soft but it's not possible.

Here's another style that I wore last week after I did my wash and go. It wasn't that cold outside so I just decided to go with the flow. I wasn't convinced of it's "cute-ness" (yea, I made up a word) but my husband liked it.

This week I put in my pre-poo/deep conditioner on Sunday but I was too lazy to rinse it out. So I just slept with it in my hair. I rinsed it out and shampooed with my conditioner and detangled on Monday. The detangle process is much easier and faster when I do my hair twice a week instead of once a week. Hopefully I have more time in the summer.

However, this week we are going through a cold spell, so I knew I wasn't going to wear my hair out wet. So I put it in some medium-sized twists and wore my beanie. This afternoon I took them down to rock a twist out and I loved the results! This is going to be my go-to style until the warm weather starts.

I will do my hair, twist it up and leave them in for 24 hours. I will rock a twist out for 1-2 days, then after that I will put it in updos. The only thing I had on my hair for the twists was my leave-in conditioner, and some gel. I got the best twist-out results I've ever had.

The pictures below don't even do it justice. It looked nice and full and defined and super soft. These pictures show what my hair looked like before I separated the twists.

I didn't put any oil or anything on my hands when I separated the twists because my hair was incredibly moisturized. The CG method is the best! I then separated them and what I ended up with is below.

I haven't decided how I'm going to prepare my head for bed yet. I will probably put it in a bun (got the idea from a youtuber) or twist it back up in bigger twists.

Then tomorrow I will wear it out and then following days it will be up until I wash it again. I'm truly loving this Curly Girl Method journey.

Hair Update: 1-month In

I mentioned in my New Year's Eve post that I had some new hair goals this year. (Read that post if you want to know in more detail). In that post I promised I'd come back each month with an update on how things have been going.

Well, so far I have been loving taking a break from twists! On wash day it makes the process so much easier and quicker. It's a breeze to detangle my hair and after my deep conditioning I don't have to waste time putting in twists. I just moisturize and then put it in 4 chunky twists for bed.

I've also been experimenting with oils in my deep conditioner. I love castor oil in my deep conditioner because it makes my hair ridiculously soft. Last week I also added some sesame oil to it (not the toasted sesame oil you put in Asian cuisine!) in addition to my olive oil, jojoba oil and castor oil.

Besides the ease of wash day, I've also been able to be more in tune with my moisture levels. When I wore twists it was harder to gauge when my hair needed moisture. Sometimes I wouldn't even moisturize because I didn't want my twists to get fuzzy.

Since I take my hair down every evening to prepare it for bed (and every morning to style) I can feel and see when my hair needs something. I'm also able to pay special attention to my ends. I get a lot less tangles.

In the morning it does take me longer to do my hair but the benefits outweigh the cons. I'm also forced to actually learn to style my hair without the aid of twists. For the past two weeks I've been trying roll, tuck and pin styles courtesy BlakIzBeautyful on youtube.

Every so often she has a winter protective style tutorial that is just so easy to try. So I'm getting better with experimenting with styles that aren't too complex for my skills.

This style here is just a roll, tuck and pin with a bang and the back rolled up.

The next one also features a bang but the back is my version of a french roll.

The last style is super, duper easy and a definite go-to style when you don't feel like doing you hair but want it to look decent. Here's my version of the high-bun.

As for the Curly Girl Method, I bought the book but my sister has to ship it to me from the US. Once I receive it I will read it (obviously) and see whether it's something feasible for me to do. Right now I'm simply enjoying my hair and re-realizing the joys of being natural!

Before the New Year begins...

I am not one to do New Year's resolutions because I live how I want to everyday of the year! However, I wanted to share some pictures of my hair and some new hair regimen stuff I've been thinking about trying going into the New Year.

Normally, my hair stays in twists (you know how I do) but I actually tried to make an effort for my job's Christmas party.

As you can see it was just a pin up style using my hair combs and tons of bobby pins. I had some serious volume!

Then I had a nice little lunch with the people I worked with and got some further use out of those hair combs I bought awhile back.

This style was just a simple side ponytail as you can clearly see.

The people that I work with organized this cooking competition. It is based on the popular British TV series Come Dine With Me. When I lived in England that was the only show that I watched all the time. 

Basically, a group of friends get together and cook for each other. There is a budget and you have to create a menu (three-course meal) along with some form of entertainment. The person with the most points at the end wins 1,000€.

Since we are poor teachers we each just put in 5€ so the one who wins gets about 55€. Not bad, right? So this lunch was the second installment. I'm next year sometime and will definitely be breaking out vegan goodies from my two cookbooks: Veganomicon and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. But I digress...

In the New Year I'd like to try the Curly Girl Method and take a break from twists. I find that the twists make it such a chore to detangle my hair. Maybe it's doing more harm than good, I'm not sure, but I want to try something new. There are many ways to protective style that don't include twists.

I plan to buy the book either on my kindle fire or from Amazon.co.uk. We'll see what happens. I also plan to Henna Gloss every two months instead of every month. No matter how hard I try there is always some little particles left in my hair and I hate that! But I do like the results.

So I will just be extra diligent with my deep conditioning and do the Henna Gloss every two months. I did a mayo treatment the other day with mayo, Castor oil, olive oil and some sweet orange oil (for fragrance). My hair felt super good and smelled good too. I'm going to stick with that for awhile (maybe 3 months?) and see how I like it.

Every night I will moisturize my hair before going to bed so that in the morning I just have to refresh and then style. Last night I misted my hair with water and aloe vera juice. Then I put in my kimmaytube and detangled my hair. I put it in four giant twists for bed and today I will wear some roll, tuck and pin style. 

I will try to update the blog every month on how I like this new hair regimen. I'm also trying to use more all-natural products. It's just that the funds are not where I need them to be to revamp everything I own just yet.

FITNESS

Just a quick update on working out. I'm still struggling to establish a schedule. I got sick twice (once in November and once in December) and that completely crushed my plans. However, I'm doing what I can. I ran for 1 hour on Monday, 30 minutes on Tuesday and did some weight training. Today I did a 55 minute run and some weights. I'll probably do a fast run tomorrow.

To ring in the New Year I'll be running a 9K on New Year's eve (Monday). I'm excited about that since it will be my first 10K (well, almost 10K). I'm definitely enjoying this time not training but I still want to make sure I stay fit.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!! BE SAFE!

Henna Gloss and Summer Hair Routine

HENNA GLOSS

I took the advice of a friend of mine and decided to try a henna gloss treatment courtesy of CurlyNikki.

While my application still "needs some work," this time around my Henna experience was great! It was so much easier and FASTER to apply. It probably only took me 10 minutes to do my entire head, maybe less.

Again, the application wasn't perfect, but it was much more uniform than my previous two applications. I can definitely see myself sticking with the Henna gloss treatment. I won't do this every month (because I don't feel like it) but I will do it more often.

To make this mix you just prepare the Henna as you would any treatment. Here's what I use:

1 100g box neutral Henna (meaning no color)

1 cup (250ml) green tea (I use 3 tea bags)

1-2 Tbsp. honey

Then you add the "gloss" factor, which is  1 cup (250ml) of your favorite conditioner. The one I have is a Tresseme product. It should be protein-free but I say use what you have because that's what I did!

I only lasted 4 hours with this stuff on my head because I was hot even with the air conditioning. If you do Henna for the color benefits you should leave it on for at least that much time. 

I usually leave it on for 8 hours. I wanted to try sleeping with it on, since that assures it will be on for a good amount of time, but I can't do it! I like to be comfortable when I sleep. What can I say?

So I just put on a plastic bag over the hair, lined it with some cotton-ball like material and then covered it with another plastic bag and some more cottony stuff. (To catch the leaks)

I know, not the best photos. But I had to take them myself as the hubby was occupied with his bike. 

After the 4 hours were up I proceeded to rinse out my hair really well. This is another step that is made easier with the Henna gloss recipe. I used more conditioner to rinse but I made sure to shampoo my scalp. I like a clean, itch-free scalp!

Then I deep conditioned and put in some seriously chunky twists in my hair. That's it! I seriously recommend this treatment to all newbie Henna people out there. 

SUMMER HAIR ROUTINE

My summer hair routine consists of protective styling and low-manipulation. That means I leave my twists in for as long as possible before taking them down to detangle and remove shed hairs. This time around I left them in for three weeks.

After the first week I condition wash and do a quick deep condition treatment with my Aussie 3-minute miracle product. 

The 3-minute miracle is the product on the far left.

This is mainly to make sure I have a clean scalp. I then moisturize and oil my scalp.

The second week I shampoo and do a more thorough deep conditioning. Then I moisturize and oil my scalp. 

All of this is I do with the twists still in my hair. I also make sure to moisturize my hair throughout the week as needed. 

The third week I take them down, detangle, remove shed hair, and prep for the shampoo. I was nervous, but the take-down was so easy! My hair tangles easy, especially when it's frizzy, so I was worried there'd be a long struggle.

But I took the advice of a youtuber (BeautifulBrwnBabyDol) and used some coconut oil and shea butter to help me. I just applied it to my twists then put them all up in a ponytail.

I removed each twist individually, detangled and removed shed hair. I then clipped it out of the way to work on the next twist. Definitely check out the above link if you want detailed information. 

I also took the opportunity to give myself a good trim because I haven't done one in a looooooong time!

This was about how much hair I cut off in total.

I then put my hair in about 5-6 sections and sprayed each one down with a mixture of: 

water

aloe vera juice (to establish a pH of 5)

conditioner

10 drops rosemary essential oil

coconut oil

My hair was dry and I didn't have the time to apply the Henna treatment that day. So to keep each section nicely stretched and moisturized I sprayed them and then twisted them back up until I could do my hair the following day. 

I ran in the morning and while I was showering rinsed my hair with some conditioner (still in the same sections). I put on a shower cap (actually a plastic bag!) to keep my hair moist until I applied the Henna treatment.

Of course I won't apply the Henna gloss each time I take down my twists but I will follow the same procedure. My hair was super soft and manageable and made shampooing a breeze!

The good thing about this routine is that I know my hair is staying healthy in all this hot weather. But since I have to moisture a lot more often, my twists frizz up quicker. 

I combat that by using my Janet Collection Afro Puff.

This helps me keep my hair in the best of condition while protecting it from the harsh weather...and still look presentable! I just jazz up the afro puff when I get bored with a flower, headband or scarf.

I plan to keep this up for the rest of July and into August. It usually stays pretty hot here in September as well so we'll see.

But I'm loving the ease of getting ready when I have to go out. I don't have to worry about what to do with my hair!

Week 43 Hair: Henna Madness!

 So yea, I finally got the courage to try Henna. I LOVE how it had made my hair look and feel! It feels stronger, longer, fuller and heavier...all good things to me! However, for my schedule, and the realities of life, this is NOT something I can do every month. 

I got up at 8am on Sunday and wasn't finished with my hair until 11pm that night and I am not exaggerating.  The thought of sleeping with that stuff in my hair grossed me out. I am not a person that "sleeps pretty" so that gunk would have been all over the bed. That's why I had to do it all in one day. I actually mixed it the night before and then applied it the next morning.

The Henna process takes extreme patience in the application and rinsing out of the product, especially the rinising out of it. I can see myself wanting to do it every month because of the benefits but getting lazy with it. 

You really have to be careful to rinse that stuff out of your hair. It takes awhile. Right now I'm thinking I will do it once every 2 months. When my schedule slows down (in the summer) I might consider doing it on a monthly basis.

In the post Week 41 Hair, I didn't actually shampoo my hair. Since I didn't have the aloe vera juice I didn't see any real point in starting the process and having to finish it later. So I sucked it up and just wore my hair in updos for the rest of the week.

Last week is when I applied the Henna. Many people don't use shampoo to rinse out the Henna but I did. Partly because it had been 2 weeks since I shampooed and I wanted to have a clean scalp, and partly because I wanted to make sure the Henna rinsed out completely.

So here's the step-by-step process in pictures, Curly Nikki style.

This is how the bathroom was prepped. People aren't lying when they say it's messy. So if you are thinking of trying it make sure that you protect your bathroom. The Henna I used didn't have any color in it so nothing was stained anyway. Kudos to my husband for buying the plastic I put on the floor and cleaning up when I was done!

This is the mix. I made mine exactly how Curly Nikki makes her mix. I added 4 green tea bags to warm water and let it steep. After that I mixed it in with the Henna and then added about 2 tbsp. of honey. I made 200g of the Henna and froze my leftovers. Like I mentioned above, I let it sit overnight (approximately 8 hours).

This is my hair before the application. I wet my hair and throughly detangled before applying the Henna. It's important to do so because you don't want to manipulate your hair much in the application process.

This is at some point in the beginning of the process before I got super messy. The technique is to "smoosh" the Henna on your hair and not rake it through. Make sure you have some plastic gloves!

It is so hard to get this stuff evenly on the hair, or at least I thought so. Next time I will try to make it a tad bit more watery. I think it was too thick. But I did a decent job for my first time.

Now I'm one the second half of my hair. I split my hair into two sections and started each section in the back.

What my hair looked like before I put on my plastic bag. Again, the application was not exactly uniform but I did my best.

Here's a top shot.

 As you can see, I was filthy at the end. Make sure you wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty (or staining if you use Henna with color).

 Here I am again after cleaning up a bit. Now this stuff stayed on for 8 hours.

 After the 8 hours I was itching to rinse this out because it started leaking. Imagine sleeping with this stuff on!

 Yes, it is a complete mess!

Me in the shower right before rinsing it out.

I don't have any post-Henna pictures because, like I said, I didn't finish until 11pm and I was tired. But after rinsing it out really well (I used up all the hot water doing so!) I applied my deep conditioner. I added honey, olive oil and coconut milk to it. My hair felt great afterwards. I didn't have any problems with excessive drying.

I left the deep conditioner in for 1.5 hours and then applied my kimmaytube and twisted my hair up. It was a long process but I truly believe my hair reaped benefits from it. 

I recommend Henna but warn that it is an involved process. Only do this when you are in the mood and don't have to leave the house.

Week 32 Hair

Nothing much to talk about this week. I've been sticking to the dry twists and I continue to like the results. I was lazy this weekend after running my 20 miles so I didn't deep condition as I usually do. 

I just couldn't bear sitting under the hooded dryer. So I just coated my hair well with the deep conditioner and then put on a plastic cap. I left it on as I did some chores around the house and ate lunch. 

Afterwards, I rinsed it out and prepared my hair for twisting the following day. This weekend I have a protein treatment so I'm not that worried about it.

One thing that is kind of exciting is that some of my products are getting used up. This means that I will soon be open to try other things. What I've been using so far has worked great in my opinion but I do want to try new things. 

I probably won't buy anything else (unless I completely run out) before my length check in February. Just so I can accurately measure my growth with the products I've been using.

I know that I will probably never replace my kimmaytube leave in conditioner. 

It just closes those cuticles so nicely and my hair stays moisturized the entire week. I had severe moisture problems before starting my HHCJ. My hair just never seemed to get moisture. I know it had to do with the dry, brittle climate of Córdoba, but I don't want to go back to that! 

The products I'm thinking of trying would be moisturizers, leave ins, and maybe some oils. I don't care much about my shampoo or detangler. I just pick the cheapest product.

It's amazing that there are only 6 more weeks left of my initial journey. I don't plan on stopping what I'm doing now but I am curious to see if my hair has been growing. Chema says that he's noticed that it's longer, but I haven't. 

Well, the moment of truth is in 6 weeks people!

Week 28 Hair

The deep conditioner is the best! 

I love this stuff! (I use Organic Root Stimulator) I've noticed a serious difference with my hair. Last week I felt the same way but thought that maybe it was a fluke. It wasn't, thankfully. 

My hair is condiserably less frizzy than it usually is. Not only that, but my twists last a lot longer as well. I kept them in until Thursday of last week. Usually by then they really need to come out. However, I could have gone another day. 

For now, this is something that is staying in my routine for the long term. I'll come back with another update on the deep conditioner once I've been using it for a month.

Anyway, since I know I've been lazy about taking hair pics, I have some today! 

This is how I wore my hair on Thursday right before taking out my twists. It's a style you've seen before with a twist. The hair is definitely frizzy but workable. My hair has never done this before on Day 4 hair!

My bang. I tend to either roll it up (like it is now) or wear it out in a bump sort of style.

This is my hair post twist take out.

Here's the side view.

Another successful week with my hair. It was even easier to detangle and style. If you don't deep condition now, then do it! Some only do it a couple of times every month but it works for me every week. My strands are a lot stronger and fuller.

Next week is my 2nd protein treatment. I won't deep condition because the Organice Root Stimulator has protein in it as well. I will just use the ApHogee moisturizer and then style my hair as usual.

Week 29 Hair

• Detangle with conditioner
• Shampoo
• Protein treatment (Step 1 ApHogee)
• Balancing moisturizer (Step 2 ApHogee)
• Kimmaytube leave in
• Twists