Homemade Recipes

In the beginning of my hair journey, I had aspirations of becoming a mixtress but they were soon dispelled.  I was too lazy to bother with the research and work it would take to find the right recipes. However, I do have a shea butter whip recipe and I add extra ingredients to my deep conditioner. There are a few recipes that I have tried and others that I still intend to try though.


Shea Butter Whip:
8 oz shea butter (softened but not melted)
2 TBSP aloe vera gel
1/2 cup coconut oil (use 1 cup to stretch the batch)
20 drops of favorite EO (I use tangerine oil for the scent)
Put all ingredients in a bowl and use hand mixer to blend, the more you mix the fluffier it will get, and the less lumps you'll have. My mixture comes out like really fluffy frosting.

Deep Conditioner:
I don't measure the amount of each ingredient I put in this mixture, I eyeball it. First, I put the amount  of conditioner I think I will need into a small bowl, I add about a tablespoon of honey and then add about an ounce or so of olive and coconut oil, mix everything up and apply. First I detangle with a watered down sprayable version of my DC, and then I apply the undiluted remnants to my hair, focusing on the line of demarcation as well as my ends. Finally, I apply a handful of honey to all of my hair and sit under  a hooded dryer for 15-30 minutes (depending on my mood). The honey makes my hair super soft, but I find that if I put too much in my DC mix, my hair is difficult to detangle. So I decided to add the honey as a last step and I get great results.

I've made my own DC from scratch as well, I blended an avocado, 1/2 can of coconut milk, 1Tbsp honey, and a few ounces of olive/coconut oil. This was just as good as any other store bought conditioner but not better, so I don't use it anymore. Honestly, I thought it would make my hair easier to detangle, but it did no such thing, so I decided it wasn't worth the process of blending, etc. But if one has the patience/time then its a good DC.


Overall mixing is ok, but I don't like it enough to look for the proper emollients, preservatives, etc to make my own products. I'll leave it mainly to the professionals and only mix things that I can't find in a store for a reasonable price.

Sometimes You Just Have to Say "I Don't Give a DAMN"

OMG, I love this video. I recently discovered her channel on YouTube and immediately fell in love. I agree with her in so many ways, I just had to post it. Her accent and her attitude are just plain old fab and just adds to the message (sorry I just love me a New York accent).

You have to set your own standard of beauty!!!! I have been saying this for years and this is not just for black women but women in general. We let society dictate our lives and opinions way too much. We need to recognize that beauty does not come in one shade, shape or texture. And this is especially problematic when our ideal looks nothing like us. Is it not problematic for a milk chocolate sista with "type 4" hair to believe that a white woman with straight hair down to her bum is the ultimate beauty? We need to get it together ladies.

Anyway here's the vid (you can skip to 4:26 to skip the bit on shrinkage):

BC, LBC, NoBC?????

I've had hair that is at least shoulder length for most of my life (except when my hair broke off from my first round with the relaxer when I was 5). I actually started my hair journey with the intention to do a relaxed hair journey and grow my hair as long as I could. After a few weeks I scrapped the idea for several reasons:
1) The thought of allowing myself to get more relaxer burns didn't seem to be worth the length, and I hadn't seen any tips on how to reduce burning (that I hadn't already tried) from my research
2) My relaxed hair is super thick and has never been very easy to tame, so big hair is actually inevitable for me relaxed or natural
3) With a relaxer my hair would perpetually be in limbo, I would always have two textures to deal with except for maybe 2-3 weeks after each relaxer
And
4) I knew that eventually I would stop relaxing, and I didn't want to get attached a lot of length w/relaxed hair only to cut it off and start over with natural hair.

So tomorrow will make 10 months since my last relaxer. The most recent plan was to straighten and  chop my hair to about shoulder length with layers at my one year mark in January. And then do a full BC by July, ending my transition at 18 months. But right now my hair is grazing BSL and I'm thinking that by January it will be at full BSL. I'm really starting to lean towards no BC and just continue to allow my hair to grow out. I don't think my hair has ever been this long, and I like the way my braidouts look with this hair length, so I'm thinking I will grow my hair out to BSL and then try to maintain it there. I will still do a trim and layers in January, I just won't take off much length.

HOWEVER, I'm really torn, because transitioning is getting more difficult due to detangling the two different textures plus the fact that braidouts are not concealing the different textures as well as it used to. I do plan to do a henna treatment soon and that should help with my detangling issue. But I just don't know which is the best option right now. *sigh*

Weekly Regimen

I only wash my hair once a week, because my hair is past APL and really thick, even the relaxed ends. When my hair is dry it's pretty difficult to tell the difference (from a distance anyway) and I refuse to detangle all of it more than once a week. 

(APL=arm pit length: I wonder who came up w/the idea behind body part hair measuring, I mean really why would I want to measure my hair by my arm pit, and when you think about it, that's not the same length for everyone. So if I have a long neck and Keisha has a no neck our lengths will be different. But then again I doubt I'll be whipping out a ruler or some measuring tape sooo... anyway I digress)

Anyhoo :

I DC on dry or dampened hair

Detangle and section into braids

Shampoo (rarely co-wash)

Re-Condition and leave most of the conditioner in

Then I use a T-shirt (two actually) to suck out most of the moisture (and then I usually go to bed, if so then I seal in the moisture/conditioner with coconut oil and cover my hair with two satin scarves/bonnets). I unbraid each section and then apply detangling product, seal w/ my own personal shea butter whip and cornbraid/cornrow/canerow or plait accordingly.

Lately, I've been cornbraiding the front and plaiting the back and then wearing my hair in a bun for the work week. I'm really not doing it because I want to protect my ends, I'm just tired of my hair right now. I can't seem to retain enough definition to wear my hair out for more than one day, so I don't bother cornbraiding all of my hair. BUT if I'm going out I will cornbraid all of my hair the night before because I don't like the way a plait braidout looks down (on me anyway). Also I use satin strips for my braidouts, I got this idea from ninapruitt on YouTube who got the idea from ZanAndRob on YouTube. I actually saw the ZanAndRob video before ninapruitt, but I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but I decided to give it a try after seeing Nina's video (well that was a mouthful).

View Tutorials Below (sidenote: I don't do my braidouts exactly like these ladies, and you can tweak the method as much as you like to get the look you want):

Deuces, and Happy Braiding

Bad Hair Day Band Aid

So today, my hair looked a straight mess. I did a plait/cornrow braid out combo, and bunned my hair all week using a sock (I refer to this as my circle bun, I don't care about the proper term, I've been calling it this since I was in middle school lol). I re-braided the front on Monday night for an interview, but haven't re-braided since, so this morning all definition was gone.

Usually in order to tame the frizz halo, I wet or dampen my hair and plaster on the gel. This time I didn't wan to do that because my braid out buns are lumpy and messy (which is fine, they're supposed to be), but a slick bun should be smooth so Ecostyler was out of the question. So I decided to try an experiment, I put a handful of mousse in the front section of my hair, a big headband and put on my scarf. I took it off when I got to work and to my surprise my hair was laying pretty flat, the frizz halo was greatly reduced and I still had what was left of the definition from my braid out.

I won't make this a habit, but it's an emergency solution. It definitely reduced my roughness factor.

So now I'm off to re-braid the front again

More to Come

Sooooooo, I plan to post my hair care regimen soon along with the products I use. I may post some hair pics, but thats a bit iffy, because I don't have my own camera so I'll be forced to borrow *gasp*

But anyway, I'm outta here.
Deuces

My Hair Story

So, my hair story is pretty much the same as many other black women, I received a relaxer at about 4 or 5 years old because I would BAWL every time my mother put a comb to my head, and not only because it hurt to have it combed but because she actually popped me with it (not cool lady). So I was in kindergarten with a perm, and trust me I wasn't the only one. However, my mom still did my hair like a little girl with thousands of barrettes and bubbles (as we Jamaicans call the elastic hair holders with the balls @ each end). It was time for my first touch up after the initial process and thats where the trouble started. 

The fool who did my hair put relaxer on all of my hair, not just the new growth which lead to breakage, of course. And that's when I first experienced the infamous relaxer burn, I remember crying and feeling like I was gonna die. Anyway, the breakage was pretty bad, I lost quite a few inches of hair so my mother transitioned me out of a relaxer. She would roller set my hair for the most part, and I had braids once as well. Anyway, eventually my hair was natural again and as I got older my mom decided to press my hair (can you say torture, ARGH). 

About 5 years of burned ears, scorched scalp, and rivers of tears later, and my mother finally gave up and let a friend with experience relax my hair. It took two boxes of relaxer and I was so happy but my fears were still there. I associated relaxers with pain and hair loss, every time I got a touch up I would all I could to avoid burns, no scratching, lots of grease, no water for weeks. But it was like Russian Roulette, I never knew what would happen. Mostly it would burn the hell out of me and I'd retrace my steps for the past week trying to figure out what I did wrong to no avail. It seemed like no matter what I did there would be burns and tears. And when I didn't get burned I would do the same thing retrace my steps for the past week and try to figure out what I did right.

I had always thought natural hair could look really good, but until a girl I actually knew decided to take the plunge, I never thought I could do it. Anyway, her decision piqued my interest and I decided to do some research, but I never went through with it because I thought I had no choice but to do the BC (big chop). Anyhoo, fast forward to January 22, 2010 and me at 22 years old, the day I got my last relaxer. I thought I had found a stylist who knew what to do to keep my scalp from burning. But alas, that wasn't the case, I got burned again and I feared that my hair would fall out for the last time. Finally, after the last burn I said to hell with it, I'm done. And here I am now, 9 months into my transition and I couldn't be happier.

Introduction

Hello World, I am MissFenty and this is The Crown and Glory Journal.

This blog will be about my experiences and opinions as a black woman. Pretty broad huh? So you are probably thinking what does that have to do with the Crown and Glory thing, well at this point in my life I am transitioning from relaxed to natural hair. Yes another one : ) So for now many of my posts will be regarding my transition.  

However, I want to keep the general description broad, because I will not strictly focus on hair all the time. I would also like to discuss other things of significance or relevance to black women or just me personally. Your Crown and Glory is not strictly limited to hair, it's what you make it, it's what makes you proud, gives you confidence, etc. For example, my ability to think intellectually is also my Crown and Glory, because I am proud of my analytical mind, blah blah blah, you get the picture, lol.

Also, I am completely new to this blogging thing, so forgive any mishaps on my part, I'm trying ;  )