Black Hair Care Basics: Haters!

If you want to grow your hair out and you are a black female, well…chances are you’re gonna catch some heat from people. For some reason, when a black women announces she has educated herself and changed her ideas on hair care shit just hits the fan. My theory is that there’s a chemical in the brain called hatetamine, which controls how the body processes haterade. When a black woman decides to empower herself, the hatetamine production in the brain decreases by 10,000%. Thus whenever a black girl utters the words “I’m gonna grow my hair out” the body of the person she is speaking to is consumed haterade and they become a hater. Sounds logical, right? Lol. Moving on…

So you’re gonna get haters. How do you deal with it? Well first, you might want to understand why it really happens. (I promise I have no more medical theories) People who shoot you down for wanting to grow your hair out are usually ignorant. They just do not know the same information as you. Unfortunately, people like that don’t stop hating until they see progress. Then they are all over you asking you for advice. xD

Ignoring haters and having the last laugh is usually the easier way to deal with them, but if you truly want a hater to support you or at least shut up, you’re going to have to go about things differently. Calmly confront the hater whether it be a family member or a friend and express how this is a serious goal of yours. Tell them how their comments are hurtful, how you would not react to a personal goal of theirs similarly, and how you wish to have their support. Finally, you should express how if you cannot have their support, you wish to have their silence. No one deserves a parade of negativity when they are serious about a goal.

Now if this hater truly cares about you and values your feelings this should be enough to stop them. I would not suggest trying this with people who aren’t really good friends/loyal family. People who at the end of the day won’t make a difference in your life are the haters you definitely should ignore.

In the off chance that the people you actually have a talk with about their behaviour decide something like “Well, screw your emotions! I’m a jerk! :D” you should know how to move forward sans their support. It can be hard, but if you are truly dedicated you won’t be discouraged. In the beginning I had as much support from my family and friends as a collapsed bridge. So I sought out support online from hair forums. That really helped me personally. There is many positive people who want to help you improve in black hair care communities, so joining one is definitely helpful.

As my hair started showing results/progress I began to gain the support from people in my life who weren’t really with me at first. However, I also began to see a different type of hatred: jealousy. Honestly, there’s not a thing you can do about a jealous person. Envy is something you can’t talk out of someone, so it’s best to just ignore it. People who make rude and jealous comments are your biggest fans; you should remember that.

Whether people are envious, ignorant, or just plain mean you’re gonna have haters. My final advice is to do it like me and send those hating stranger bitches to the left when they run their mouthes too much. Lmfao! I kid, I kid. But seriously, don’t let what people say get to you because in the end it’s just you and your hair.

Review: Aussie Moist

Today I’ll be reviewing Aussie Moist, which is my HG (Holy Grail) cowash/wash conditioner. I was kind of skeptical at first at because of I this conditioner was all hype. Well, I have to say, for me it definitely lives up to the hype.

Quick Note: I’m a fine-normal haired relaxed 4a/b.

Price: This conditioner was about $6 for 1 liter of product when I bought it in walmart. I bought this in June and I’m STILL using it. It’s definitely is a bargain, especially for someone who is dead broke like me. (Ah, the fun of being a high school student whose parents are unemployed.)

Packaging: It has the signature Aussie packaging. A bight and highly saturated purple, blue, and white are the color scheme of the bottle. It’s a very attractive bottle in my opinion, but I didn’t enjoy how difficult it was to get the nozzle/pump dispenser to work the first time. Remember the most difficult test you ever took in school? The one even though you studied for, it still stumped you? Well, that’s what trying to get the nozzle to work was for me. I asked basically all my family for help and to no avail. I wanted to cry myself to sleep, contemplating my place in this world and why I was such a failure for not being able to open a nozzle. Then the god of all conditioners shined his light upon the bottle, and the nozzle suddenly popped up with ease. Wtf? I was glad it opened, but that annoyed me.

Either way, although it wasn’t user friendly in the beginning, the nozzle gave just enough conditioner in one to two presses for a cowash on my hair when it was APL. That factor didn’t quite make up for how it was hard to open, but I did enjoy it quite a bit.

Product Quality: I’m about to gush, so if you don’t want to read too much…It’s an A+ conditioner for relaxed hair. Okay, so, first things first. These are the ingredients: Water, Stearyl Alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Glutamic Acid, Fragrance, BIS Aminopropyl Dimethicone, Benzyl Alcohol, EDTA, Ecklonia Radiata Extract (Australian Sea Kelp), Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil (Jojoba), Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice Extract, Butylene Glycol, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone

If you’re a lady opposed to cones, this is not the conditioner for you. However, it is the conditioner for me and I’ll tell you why. My first cowash with it left me speechless, and by speechless, I mean exclaiming things like “Holy moly!” and “I can’t believe it’s not butter nexxus!” Aussie Moist makes my hair feel like absolute silk upon rinsing, and helps me detangle and gives me slip like a dream. I don’t think it’s quite as effective at moisturizing on natural hair, because my newgrowth doesn’t take to it as well as my relaxed hair does. That’s no surprise to me, the ingredients to me from the beginning seemed to be more beneficial to relaxed ladies anyway. Just a warning though.

Summing it up.
Pros
+Great for relaxed hair
+Excellent cowash/wash day conditioner
+Extremely affordable, it lasts forever.

Cons
-If you’re bad with opening things, prepare to cry yourself to sleep at night after the first day with aussie moist.
-Not great on natural hair.
-If you’re a cone hater, this ain’t for you.

The Points
Price: 5/5
Packaging: 3/5
Product Quality 14/15

Final Grade: 88

Black Hair Care Basics: So you want to grow long hair?

Many black women through their lifetime have been told a laundry list of lies about their hair. That it’s not beautiful, it can never be long, only mixed sistas got dat gewd hayuh, that it only grows when it’s dirty, that you should hate your naps and coils, and the list goes on. Well to be quite blunt, screw all of that. All of that is just a the tiniest portions of the lies I’ve heard in my lifetime, and lord knows I’m gonna be hearing more until the day I die. But what makes me different from the girls who just eat up those lies, savoring and soaking in the self-hatred and ignorance?

I’m enlightened. I know not to believe all of that hot mess, and I want to spread the knowledge I’ve gained over the past year, since I began to truly take my hair care seriously. Now, if you’re reading this, your main goal is probably to grow long beautiful healthy hair. Let me start out by saying that you can do this, but it takes time, a serious commitment, a regimen, and support. A way to track your progress can’t hurt when you’re trying to grow your hair either because when you’re so anxious to grow it out sometimes because of the rate that hair grows at it feels like there’s no progress when there is.

Growing your hair is a very exciting thing when you’ve been told all your life it just can’t happen, but I must reiterate your hair takes TIME to grow. Hair roughly grows at about a ½ inch a month, now some of you may already be doubting me going. “Oh gurl, not my hair.” Well, yes gurl, your hair. Your hair is constantly growing, but if you see no progress it’s breaking off at the same rate that it’s growing. That’s pretty bad, so how do you fix it?

You need to be committed and have a regimen. I’m so freaking serious when I say if you’re not going to be committed, just press Ctrl + W right now. You’re not going to get ANYWHERE if you don’t stick to it. Growing hair isn’t easy for women with extremely curly or kinky hair, you can’t just do whatever the hell you want have it grow, which is an unfortunate but true fact. You need to be dedicated to keeping your hair healthy, and for that you’re going to need the right tools, products, and most importantly: a good regimen.

Now what are the right tools, products, and good regimen? Well to be quite honest… I can’t tell you that. Everyone’s hair is different, even if they have similar textures. Hair react differently to different practices and products, however there are some general things I think most newbies should have and use.

The Newbie’s Shopping List
A Wide Toothed Comb.
Raking a brush or a rat tail comb through your hair when it’s wet or dry will without fail cause breakage. Your hair need to be taken care of delicately, and to stop from matting and tangles you’re still going to need to detangle. So what do you need? A nice wide tooth comb. You should detangle in sections comb from your ends to your roots instead of raking through your roots down to your ends.
A Satin or Silk Scarf or Bonnet
Most people have cotton pillowcases. Cotton, like a sponge, will absorb the moisture you have in your hair and dry it out. Dryness leads to breakage, which we all know is the anti-christ of healthy hair. Wearing a scarf/bonnet made of satin or silk will keep in the moisture you put in to your hair, which will keep your hair healthier.

A Conditioning Shampoo
Some women don’t even use shampoo due to how sometimes they can strip the natural oils and moisture of hair, but if you don’t want to give up shampoo and find an alternative cleansing method (Hell, I don’t want to give it up, Lol.) you’re gonna want a conditioning shampoo that leave’s your hair soft instead of stripped and tangled. To find a shampoo like this, your best bet is to find a sulfate-free conditioner or a shampoo with GREAT conditioning ingredients. My fave is definitely Crème Of Nature ( The Extra Body Formula), but there are tons of other great shampoos. When shampooing remember to focus on the scalp and use the remainders on the hair, shampoo is actually just like body wash for the scalp, and a clean scalp promotes good hair growth.

Conditioner
Okay, curly hair needs moisture to thrive, so you’re gonna need to find a great conditioner for your hair to be good to go. Conditioners are VITAL to detangling with minimal breakage. (Please only detangle on wet hair saturated in conditioner!) Women with relaxed hair may like conditioners that have silicones (dimethicone, cyclomethicone, etc) which are an ingredient in conditioners to smooth hair and add slip so it’s easier to detangle. On the flip side, natural ladies, from what I’ve seen, usually benefit from more natural ingredients in their conditioner. I’m relaxed and my favorite conditioner is Aussie Moist, which retails for about 6 dollars. I’ve heard a lot of natural women say good things about Aubrey organics.

Deep Conditioner
Deep conditioning weekly can greatly improve the health of your hair. Deep conditioners can be extremely moisturizing or strengthening depending on their formula. I think good deep conditioners should be thick and creamy, but that’s just me. You should apply a DC to the entire length of your hair and put a cap on and leave it on for an extended amount of time as opposed to a normal conditioner where you’d just rinse

Leave-in Conditioner
Depending on your hair, you will need to moisturize every other day, every day, etc. To truly moisturize your hair you need a water-based moisturizer. I can not preach enough about how grease and oil do not I repeat do NOT moisturize the hair! They coat the hair, locking moisture in. That being said, you need a moisturizer to apply daily or bidaily to keep your hair from getting dry. I actually use a cheapie conditioner to moisturize my hair (V05 Moisture Milks), but that’s not the right route for everyone. Some people need a lighter moisturizer, some may even need a heavier one. This is something you’re gonna have to experiment with. Protip: For best results, moisturize in sections.

A Natural Oil
To lock in the moisture from your daily moisturizing, using a natural oil is the way to go. Oils can be light or heavy, and can be used for many things, thus being very economical. I use olive oil and I like the Africa’s Best Herbal Oil, which is a mix of several different oils.


In my opinion, these are the building blocks of a good regimen. There just are little to no women I’ve seen with great progress in their hair who don’t use all of these items in their regimen. I think a great basic regimen that can be tweaked to how the person’s needs is:

Wash, Deep Condition, Condition x1 A Week
Cowash (Rinsing your hair with just conditioner) x1 a Week
Moisturize then seal with Oil Daily or Bidaily
Wear scarf/bonnet to bed every night.

Using a regimen similar to this that is tweaked to your needs, and sticking to your hair care will definitely produce results. A good way to stay motivated is to join a haircare community like Hairlista, KISS, or LHCF. In there you find tons of women working towards the same goal who you can befriend and will help you and always drop some new knowledge and tips you’ve never heard before to help further your mission to grow healthy hair. When you join a forum or community, you’ll notice almost all the women will have pictures of their hair progress and what not. I highly recommend that you take photos of your hair monthly or after a relaxer (if you’re relaxed) to record your progress. It will keep you motivated and show you that your hair IS growing.

I tried to condense a world’s worth of knowledge into the first article in a series here, but hopefully you learned something from it. You can learn so much more by joining hair websites and reading blogs similar to mine. Here are links to a few hair care communities:
Long Hair Care Forum
Hairlista
KISS (Keep It Simple Sista)


Well that’s it for this subject for now,
Marissa

The Review Formula

How it works:
Alright, for my reviews, everything in the end gets a letter grade. It is kind of like school (except you don’t hate it!), and three things determine this grade. These things do not change depending on the type of product, either. What determines the grade are: price, packaging, and product quality. The three P's! I'm so catchy.

Each category gets an amount of points awarded to it upon careful review. For every con I find with that particular category I’ll subtract 1-3 points depending on how irksome that particular con is. The maximum points each category can get are as following: Price: 5 points, Packaging: 5 points, Product Quality: 15 points.

If you’re wondering, there’s a reason why I decided to distribute the points like that. To me, although price and packaging are important, they certainly aren’t nearly as important as the overall quality of the product. Not only that, but all of you math wizs out there must have notice those points all add up to 25 at their maximum amounts. Multiplied by four, that equals 100. The amount of points I get after multiplying the overall score (the points added up) determines the ultimate letter grade.

Hopefully that wasn’t too long winded or confusing, I just wanted you guys to see HOW I review things and what not so you can have a full understanding of the process and the reviews when you read them. Many hair and beauty websites I see on the internet seem like they just pull numbers out of their hats, Lol. I didn’t want to do that too.

All is fair in beauty and hair,
Marissa.

The Beginning

I should be in bed, not writing a blog, but hey, I'm a rebel, okay? NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME. IM DIFFERENT. I DONT WANT TO FIT IN.

Ahem.

That's what I would say if I were still 12, thank god I'm not. Lol. Anyway, this is the awkward first blog post. The beginning. The post that explains why I'm here, and why you should read a blog like this. Well, I have a couple of good reasons why you should read my blog and this post.

Reason #1: If you love ethnic hair care, this is the place for you.

In this blog, I will definitely be discussing ethnic hair care and several different techniques, products, etc. I will be doing reviews that are thorough and hopefully informative and helpful. I will research to give the utmost accurate information. I won't just post some silly mess. (Example of silly mess: "GURL YO HAYUH NEEDZ 2 BE DIRTAY 2 GROWUH!) By the way, if you ever heard that and still believe it.... You need to be here. I can help you drink from the well of healthy haircare knowledge. Moving on.

Reason #2: Cosmetics, make up, that rainbow crap you put on your face...
I will be doing several reviews on products, possibly some tutorials on looks that all have to do with make up. Fair warning, I'm an eyes and lips girls as opposed to facial cosmetics. I can do facial stuff, but I just don't quite enjoy it, so you shant see much of that here.

Reason #3: I'm just so darn interesting.
If you still have been reading this blog entry, then of course you should check back here once and awhile and see what I have in store! I mean, you sat and read through all of my gibberish thus far, and maybe even enjoyed it. That's impressive. I surprise myself with how interesting I am sometimes. People come up to me on the streets to tell me about how I am the most captivating and original person they've laid their eyes upon.

Okay, that last part to reason #3 is a lie. But hey, in my mind that happens. Anyway, I have a poll up already, for those of you who will be my visitors you should vote in it.

All is fair in beauty and hair,
Marissa.