Street Curlie- Tynisha

The lovely Ty, rocking a rolled twist in the front :) She's going to be a Curlicious Diva on here, so look out for that!!

Frohawk...

Akwaeke Veil

Guest Post: Just the Way You Are

This article was submitted by Alycia. Check out her fabulous website here. It contains so much useful information, especially for those of us (like me) trying to be healthier.
“Don't go changing, to try and please me…I could not love you any better
I love you just the way you are.”

~Barry White

A while ago, I was reading one of the posts on this site, “Hair-A Man’s Perspective.” It brought up the much-debated question about whether men are attracted to women with natural hair. After reading that post, I reflected on my earlier thoughts about guys and natural hair.

I remember the anxiety that I had when I was transitioning. I grew up associating long, straight hair with beauty. In movies and on television, the women with the willowy, flowing hair were the ones who always got the man, not the girl with the naps. As the date for my planned big chop grew near, my apprehension increased. With one snip of the scissors, would I be killing my dating life in one fell swoop?

Throwing caution to the wind, I cut my long hair anyway, and gasp!…my social life was not destroyed. In fact, my little kinky afro became the center of attention. The men I encountered showered me with compliments and lauded me for my uniqueness. Five years later, I’m still proudly wearing my natural hair. I now have a wonderful husband who said that one of the first things he noticed about me was my hair.

I know other women who have faced the same anxiousness that I did when deciding to go natural. To satisfy my curiosity and ease their concerns, I decided to do an (unscientific) survey of men to get their thoughts on Black women and natural hair. Here is what they told me:

“There's something about the attitude of a natural-haired woman that is magnetic.”

“I appreciate someone who is courageous enough to show the world who they really are—including wearing the hair they were born with.”

“Women with natural hair are truly comfortable in their own skin.”

“Natural hair on a woman maintains the beauty and integrity of our heritage.”

“I love natural hair on a woman because it is an indelible part of her.”

Men are not attracted to women with natural hair? That is a myth! As all of us wavy, curly, kinky, nappy ladies know, real men honor and appreciate every part of us. They love us just the way we are.

I'm so glad she addressed this issue. It's definitely one of the myths about natural hair that we need to destroy. What do you guys think?

Guest Post: 4Bs Unite!: A Primer

Today's guest post was sent in by Nneka. To find out more about her, visit her tumblr.

Since I’ve been wearing my hair in its natural state for almost a decade and a half, I’d thought I’d share some words of wisdom to others who might be starting out on their natural hair journey. (Side note: I think I’m starting to prefer “kinky” over “natural.” If you’re white and born with a straight or wavy hair texture, are you not “natural?” But I digress). It’s not an easy road, but I hope my advice makes it a little easier:

-Prepare to incur the wrath
I wish I could sugar coat it for you, but when you decide to come off the creamy crack, you will encounter negativity. Mostly from fellow black folk (white people will want to touch your hair – see “Hair Ambassador” below). I was fortunate that my mother and grandmother were very supportive, as they dabbled in natural hairstyles from time to time. My grandfather was a different story. He offered to send me money to get my hair done. When he saw a girl who had a nice perm, he would comment on how pretty her hair looked. I also went natural as a teenager, as if high school isn’t hellish enough. I’ve was called everything from Maxwell to Erykah Badu, so if you’re young and have been teased about your hair, I feel your pain. Not that I’m bitter. Nope. (She types, wiping the tears of f the keyboard…).

How to cope: remind yourself that you are strong, as it takes strength to go against the grain. Ignore the negativity. When someone tells you how great you’d look with straight hair, remind yourself that they probably are wearing a wig/wearing a weave/no longer have a hairline/don’t have enough hair to put into a ponytail/have “length” but half of it is split ends and is thin. Try not laugh. Bite your lip if you have to.

-Prepare to be a Hair Ambassador
People will ask you about your hair. Mostly it’s positive. Fellow natural/kinky heads will want to trade tips. Neophytes and those thinking about the journey will want advice. Others (read: white folk) will want to touch your hair. Some (could be any race/ethnicity) might have really stupid questions.

How to cope: Enjoy the sisterhood, and once again, ignore the ignorant. If someone tries to touch your hair and you’re not comfortable with that, say something – it’s your head. For stupid questions, have smart answers: Q: How do you wash your hair? A: Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

-Realize You Are Not Cree Summer/Rachel True
If you have Type 4 hair (if you’re unsure of your hair type, click here), you need to realize that your hair is not going to do the wash-n-go, curly corkscrew thing à la Cree Summer or Rachel True. It took me a long time to get over this. They have a different hair texture than you. The only way to get your hair to look like that, despite marketers’ claims, is through chemical intervention (read: texturizer).

How to cope: Realize there are many other beautiful ways to wear your hair. Learn what works for your hair type.
Disclaimer: I’m not against relaxers per se. I am against the view that the only acceptable way for a woman with Type 4 hair to wear their hair is straight.

Great advice! What do you guys think?

Street Curlie

I came across this lovely lady in the Whole Foods at Union Square, but I didn't have my camera :( However, not one to be deterred, I backtracked, borrowed a friend's phone and made sure I documented the flyness. She said that she just threw it together because she didn't know what to do with her hair, lol. That's some dope improvising right there! Oh, and I heart the shiny brooch/pin. 

Hair 911- Faith's Emergency

For reasons I am yet to understand, Gmail decided to send this message to my Spam inbox, hence I'm only just now coming across it :( I hope we can still be of help, though! 


(Actually, this is very deja-vu. Faith has written in with a Hair 911 previously.)

Hi I'm Faith, Edna's mum. Yes, it's the same Edna that was gonna be colored. I did not color her thankfully and Z,  you didn't have to apologize, I was frankly very honored to see Edna featured on the blog in that way :) Anyhow..here is the deal. So Edna was at the middle stage where you can't call it a twa anymore but it is not long enough. I was frankly frustrated with the limiting way I could wear my hair in the winter so I went to get a weave. The problem was, I didnt think the tight weaving would further recede the hairline that I had been recovering for months. Now, I just took out the weave and there is literally a patch on the side of my head.Yes, I hear the 'I told you so' bells ringing, but other people did weaves, why does my own have to be different? I have reconciled with that fact, but you see, Edna is longer on the overall and that makes my patch look like an island, so I was thinking of going bald..there is really no point of trying every single day to hide my patch because there is a similiar but smaller one on my other side of my head..problem is...I feel that bald is like HUMONGOUS CHANGE. Mind you, I don't have great skin..like seriously, I'm not kidding. But I don't wear makeup to cover my discolorations because I truly stopped giving a shit- if you don't like me cuz of that..screw you..mind my french :) Anyhow, so what should I do, I will see a dermatologist this week (about both lol) but I am contemplating getting a wig and going bald..and wearing a fresh twa when my hair grows out. HELLLLP!!!

I'm sleep-deprived right now, so I'm going to come back when I'm fully conscious and give feedback. In the meantime, you know what to do in the comments. Make it happen :)

Stef is a year old!!

Street Curlies- Krista & Adaku

Avocado/Mayonnaise Deep Conditioner

I've decided to use Poofy as a guinea pig for all sorts of made in the kitchen hair recipes. 

I mean, I'm not too hot with styling and what-not, so trying out mixtures seems like a useful 

contribution to make instead, lol. There's only so many things I can rant about (lie- there's only 

so many things I can summon the energy to rant about, really). 

So, first up is an avocado and mayonnaise deep conditioner. I wanted a deep conditioner that didn't involve any actual conditioner, since I've never done that before. Also, this can be made into a protein treatment, but I'm going to try that at a later date. 

Ingredients

Avocado

Honey

Coconut oil

Mayonnaise

Avocadoes with honey, starting the concoction

Blend everything together. You can try and do it by hand, but avocado is a bit of a tricky thing to turn into a paste. You will also need a gangsta belnder, as mine started shrieking when I set it on liquify, coupled with a smell of burning, I decided to call it quits and settle with the paste I got. 

I don't put quantities anymore because I think it's going to vary too much depending on your hair. BGLH has recently pointed out that we should learn our hair instead of learning strict regimens, and I urge all to follow this advice. Change ingredient amounts based on what your hair might need, if you're not sure, experiment. For example, I hate using liquid mixtures on Poofy, so I try to keep my mixtures as a thick paste. For this reason, I did not use coconut milk in this deep conditioner because it would have thinned out the paste far more than I wanted.

Process

As usual, I shampooed Poofy with her anti-dry scalp tingly shampoo, then I slapped the deep conditioner on. Due to the punk ass nature of my blender, I had avocado bits that were left in the paste, which I either picked out or tried to smoothen with my fingers.

I then put on a plastic shower cap and let it sit for about 45 minutes, while watching this awesome anime I just discovered on Netflix called Blood+, but you gotta say it with a deep growly voice. Also, the main character's name is Saya, and we're totally going to make a drinking game where you take a shot every time they say her name (they say it a lot), or every time one of the characters makes an inarticulate anime noise that's oddly sexual (they do that a lot).

ANYWAY.

Then I rinsed Poofy out with slightly cold water- bump actually cold water, it is way too cold to be subjecting my scalp to numbing ice water.

Outcome

Poofy before shea butter

I must say- all natural products rock my world. I didn't get the exaggerated curling that happens when I use Organix, but I don't think that's necessary. You see, what I did get was amazingly clean hair. I feel that with conditioners, there was this extra layer coating my hair even after I rinsed it out, a thin slick layer. With the avo-mayo deep conditioner, my hair felt...clean. I wish I had a better word, lol. It felt healthy, moisturized, bouncy and not weighed down in the least by any residue. 

I did have to pick out pieces of avocado, so let me reiterate the point about the blending. Be gangsta with it. 

I was so excited about how good Poofy felt, I totally made Lobster admire it for much longer than he probably wanted to, lol. It just felt nice to feel like Poofy wasn't laden with product residue, that she had been nourished, you know. I still needed to apply my shea butter + coconut oil blend (the winter here is fierce. Fierce with a side-eye fierce), and she looked even better after that. 

I'ont give a damn about the frizz, that's as much a part of my hair as the curls.

Go ahead and try this treatment, or your variation thereof, and come back to gist us about the results, cos I wanna know. 

Bug Miss Fizz to try it out, too :)

PS- I put a thin coat of the mixture on my face (I have naturally dry skin) and it was the shizznittt!! Just sayin'

Side Ponytail

Quick, cute, retro hairstyle. I pulled all my hair up and to the side and held it in place with a banana clip and then stuck a flower in it. It's a great way to salvage an old curl set or one that didn't come out quite right.

300 Followers- GiveAway Winner!!

Yeah, we took so long in announcing this that I believe we're over 400 followers now, lol. Anyways, I LOVED this contest. It was so awesome to have such positive feedback from the community, letting us know what we're doing right so we can keep doing it.

Thank you to everyone who participated! Your comments made us tear up a little, laugh out loud, and generally warmed the cockles of our hearts. Obviously, we couldn't actually pick which entry we liked the most or that made us feel the most fuzzy inside, so we randomly selected :)

Annndddd, the winner of the 300 Follower giveaway is.....

Drumroll.

Luna of NappyLikeYoPappy!!!

Congratulations, mami! Also, Imma need to give her nappyku a shoutout, cos I just went back to read over all the comments, and she left a dope one in her tracks. 

i follow your blog

cuz nappiness is so fly

that i'm a damn bird

I shall do this next action on her behalf. 

*drops mic*

Don't forget to vote for your favorite Curlicious Divas in the sidebar!! We'll come up with another fun giveaway for y'all soon, never fret :)

Hair 911- Shedding on the BC pill

I need some help with this. for anyone on the pill, have you experienced this and how did you deal with it?

I'm Maureen and a natural no-poo girl, I never had a relaxer. Five years ago I started taking the pill, since then my hair started thinning and my hairline has receded. I stopped two months ago because I was suffering from mood swings and didn't feel like my former, care-free self. I had noticed my hair changing over the years, just dismissed it to improper handling (for the record: I treat my hair like a newborn baby). I never thought the pill could have this side effect, but my doctor confirmed it. (Thanks for the heads-up doc)
I'm desperate to have my old hair back, it was so thick and long.. F*cking pill! (Wow, excuse my French :P) It's just so frustrating to see people who are doing all kinds of bad things to their hair with thicker edges than me, and I'm using all the right products (Amla, ACV sheabutter, you name it).

I'm trying to regrow everything now, I take both biotin and MSM, drink lots of water, wash, moisturize and deep-condition regularly. What more can I do?!

O Re Wa is up!

Guest Post: Sherraine's BC Decision

Pic from Clutch Magazine :)

The original formspring question:

what kind of advice would you give someone who was deciding whether to big chop or not? (not transitioning, just thinking of cutting my hair)

Well, what are your reasons for and against? I'd say, BC if you want to, the decision is yours. Do not base it on what other people think, or how other people may perceive you. You'll be fly regardless.

Hello,

My name is Sherraine, and im that anonymous formspring-er who was wondering if she should big chop or not. And at that point when I asked the question I kinda was waffling, I sent this very long and incoherent email to Sunshine of naturally fabulous, kind of asking should I cut my hair (which I know is my decision but at that time I guess I just wanted someone to tell me to do it so that I WOULD actually do it lol.) 

But now I've realized WHY I want to cut it, and have decided that for myself that I should cut it. My reasons against cutting it were that I didn't think people (other people) would like it, and I didn't want to deal with the backlash. Basically I was worried OTHER people wouldn't like it (even though my twin sister has a twa and it looks good on her, so by definition it should look good on me lol). But my reasons for cutting it are in order to not create a new me, but to find the me that is hidden inside of me, that society has repressed. It's HARD being a teenager living in NYC (I'm a fellow brooklynite), and I guess I've let myself turn into a very quiet shy person, who is not the person I WANT to be. 

I've decided that in order to do this, I need to do a radical change to disassociate myself from this false identity I've taken on, and I need to learn to love myself and not just parts of myself. So I've decided to cut my hair among other lifestyle changes in an attempt to start from scratch, and find myself, and let myself not be hindered by society's rules, or how society views me. My reasons for wanting to cut my hair FAR outweigh the reasons I have against cutting it.

So yea. I just wanted to share that, you and Miss Fizzy and Sunshine have been my blogger inspirations, and to think, if I hadn't been helping a friend go natural, maybe I wouldn't have had this new self perception. This year has definitely been very thought provoking and transformative, so thank you for that as well :)

Sherraine

I asked Sherraine if we could use her message as a guest post, and she agreed, noting- 

I guess I see my story a little differently only in that I've always been natural. It's more of just a transition to a new mindset and outlook, I guess. She's planning on doing the BC in a couple of months, and I'm so glad that she's been able to find inspiration from the natural hair blog community. 

In some ways, I think there's much difficulty in big chopping when you're already natural (like our recent Curlicious Diva, Tricia, did). Perhaps because so many naturals aim to grow their hair out, it still provokes the reaction of "Why did you cut all that nice hair off?!" from some people. Also, a lot of people will tolerate natural hair if it's long because long hair is deemed as 'prettier', so it kinda cancels out the kinkiness, lol. It's important to remember that for a lot of people, the journey of being natural does not have a destination of long hair. 

Thanks, Sherraine!

So...

We recently switched to our own domain leaveinthekinks.com and lost our bloglist in the move. So please help us out. If you were on our bloglist before or wish to be on it please leave a comment below.

You can still type the blogspot address and you will be redirected to our website so no need to change the info if you don't want to. I hope everyone is having a fabulous day.

Fizz

Playing With My Twists Again

I came up with this on the fly... I wasn't going anywhere special just chilling in my room and waiting for the cold water to be turned back on so I could shower. I french braided my twists in a sort of "Patewo" style (for non-Nigerians, patewo means "clap" and is the name of a popular cornrow hairstyle in Nigeria that mimics clapping hands)

What I did was I parted my hair in the middle, and left a section out in front. On either side of the part, I made three horizontal french braids. I then braided the um... the ends of the french braids down my head and pinned up the bottom. I also made a hump in front.

Hope you like :)

Update on O Re Wa

I'm so excited I can hardly wait! I will be launching the website on the 14th of February so bookmark http://orewa.bigcartel.com/ and get ready :)

All the items are available in limited quantities so it's first come first served.

To see clearer pictures of the items, go here. I will be updating over the next few days with more pictures. Any feedback received will be greatly appreciated (you can leave comments here or on the O Re Wa blog).

I hope you guys are as excited as I am. Thank you all for your support so far :)

Guest Post: When The Shoe's On The Other Foot...

This post was submitted by Curly Film Chick of the fabulous blog Diary of a Quirky Curly Film Chick. Go check her out!

I find it very interesting that ladies with relaxed hair feel attacked by those of us who choose to wear our hair natural. We are hurled with insults that insist we try to "convert" people to being natural and how we are "natural hair nazis." Because we advocate for natural hair, we suddenly look down on others who choose not to rock it. And they get really upset and say, it's just hair, why do you care how I wear it?

Well, someone like me has been wondering the same thing. I want to know why people are all up on me about why I won't relax it. I admit it, they almost got me thinking that it needed to be done, I almost had a memory of my first relaxer removing all those darn kinks from my strands, and quite possibly, I could be telling you a big chop story. But I didn't succumb to the creamy-crack. And that has not been easy. Because basically, people seem to be offended by the amount of hair that I have on my head. Don't ask me why it sends them spinning out of orbit when they realize that yes, my hair is all mine and no there would be no chemical. It really affected people in a big way for example:

Person: Damn girl, you got a lot of hair! It's that Indian* in you.
Me: Um, thank you?

Person: That's all yours right?

Me: Yes.

Person: You should get a perm to get your hair straight and nice!

I've gotten this talk all my life. That my hair is thick, it needed to be tamed, a relaxer would make it more manageable, a relaxer without lye will not damage my hair, just keep it straight so that it's done nicely, keep it in braids so that it's done (<---that seems to be the mentality of my family, who are mostly natural but hide their hair under wigs, extensions and weaves). Some of these comments came from family and friends who tried to be nice about it. I remember my friend saying to me, have you ever thought about getting a perm? You know just so that it's not so thick? as if that's a bad thing. Once I had taken my hair out of the box braids my mother put in and was styling it; she walked by and grew visibly annoyed and said: Could you at least put some mousse in it so that you can see the curls?! And a few years ago for my high school prom, a Guyanese guy (of Indian descent) asked me what I was going to do to my hair. I said I didn't know and he told me that I should get a perm, like a proper black girl.

And in fifth grade, when my hair was in a huge puff and some of the kids were digging it, a girl who I believe was Dominican informed me that my hair would never be pretty like hers because it wasn't straight. Damn, why did she feel the need to point that out to me? Come junior high school I was taunted, and I mean made fun of because my hair was different. The black girls surrounded me and demanded to know if my hair was real and if I had a relaxer. They insisted that my hair could not be real because I had so much of it. It wasn't until my mom had come to school one day and they actually asked her if my hair was real. My mom pulled on one of my braids and said yup, seems real to me. Everyone thought it was funny but I wanted to cry out of embarrassment. Stop obsessing over it, I wanted to say. I can prove to you that I am black (in ways that I will not get into, because that's a subject for another day!)

And believe you me I have loads of other examples, fairly recent that all came down to people being offended with my massive amount of hair. So from my side, I feel like naturals are the ones who get hounded at. We are constantly told to conform! conform! conform! Because we can't possibly be aesthetically beautiful the way we are. And now that we have the power of blogging (which btw saved me from the creamy-crack) relaxed ladies are feeling attacked?? We don't lose sleep over them not embracing their kinks (please correct me if I'm wrong, and a natural is crying over Jane not having curly hair). When we blog or make videos and such, we make it for those who are interested in leaving in the kinks (ha! no pun intended). I have personally never went up to a relaxed woman and said damn girl, can you grow your perm out please? And yet they have done this to me. Really, to each it's own. But my hair is just fine, gracias!

*Black-American venacular for meaning that you have Native American blood and I infact, do.

So what do you guys think? Have you had similar experiences? What has helped you stay off the creamy crack?

Photos From The Meet-Up

It was awesome!! Thanks for coming, ladies, I loved meeting each and every one of you! I'm sure folk will be curious about hairstyles used, etc, so if you'd like to, you can identify yourself in the comments and tell folk how you styled your hair.

I'm Z, I'm the one in the pink fascinator, and my hair was done in a bantu knot-out with a mixture of shea butter and coconut oil.

Next!

Protective Style

Bobbed Twists

The twists I was wearing in my O Re Wa video. I finally found my bluetooth thingy, yay! I gave it a bobbed effect by pinning up the twists at the back. These twists were smaller than I usually do but they have to be my fave so far.

So how was it?

Since I wasn't fortunate enough to be at the meetup, I wanna hear about it from those who were. So how was it?

Today Is The Day!!

A Letter To Those Attending LITK In NYC :)


Hello Darlings!!

Yes, I know it is snowing. I know there's supposed to be a blizzard and whatnot. I understand for anyone who was driving to the meet-up, conditions might not be ideal for attending :( *snif* It's aight.

I do expect the REST of y'all to be there! Lol. Brave the white fluffiness and step outside, it's probably warmer when it snows than when it's just an evil wind. Trains are running, the restaurant will be open, we are DOING this thang!

Also, we're going to be doing a Find-Your-Hair-Twin activity, which is exactly what it sounds like. You find someone with a texture similar to yours and swap stories, regimens, etc. I'm rather excited. I will also be hovering around with a camera, Street Curlies, hey!!

Speaking of cameras, I was chatting to a lovely natural at an event last night, and she introduced me to a natural photogrpaher based in NYC named Erin Burns. Erin is currently shooting work for an exhibition that's going up in September (she'll be shooting till August). Her subjects? Yup, naturals!!

Of course, I threw a card at her and told her about the meet-up, so we should be seeing her this evening :) Here's her photostream if you wanna check out her work-http://www.flickr.com/photos/erinburns/

This is a long message. I'm sorry :) Big things a gwan, though.

So, 6PM, Dojo Restaurant, chick with the pink fascinator (which I hope looks good with my hair cut, cos if it don't, I'm wearing a name tag, y'all).

Phew! See y'all tonight!!

Peace,
Z

PS- Curly Film Chick, Imma need you to explain your threat of absence, as it made me very sad *snif* I was so looking forward to meeting you! *wallslide*

What I've Been Working On...

Still using my webcam, will upload better photos soon...