How I Shampoo & Deep Condition my Type 4 Natural Hair

Hi guys! Here's part 2 of the video about washing my hair. You are now members of the small group of people who have seen me first thing in the morning. Gah!!! Anyways, watch away :D

Our first YouTube video!

Hi guys! Finally after months of promising we've finally done our first Youtube video. Sorry for the lack of voiceover but I started doing one and realised my voice is booooring (I'm so used to peppy American voices, so my South London voice sounds dry in comparison). This video is about detangling my hair, enjoy!

  

Bon Annivers(h)aire!!

One year's worth of growth

So guys, it’s been a whole year since I went natural! There have been many highs and lows but overall I’m so glad I did this. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures from when I did my semi-big chop (I know… How annoying?!) but I started my natural journey with about two and a half inches of hair. It’s been a huge struggle to get used to my kinky texture, and to be quite honest, I’ve only just started to accept it and care for it the way I should have a long time ago. This has come through writing the blog (which has acted as a record for the way I look after my hair) and also through slowly building a regimen. I know a year sounds like quite a long time but my hair regimen is only just being created. Prior to this, I was just watching YT videos and attempting to copy everything I saw. It was fun but the routines didn’t last, I was growing poor and my arms began to ache from two-strand twisting every 5 seconds. Through reading natural hair articles and picking Mariama’s brain, I’ve been able to build the basic layout for a regimen that is unique to my hair type, texture and length (I need armpit length hair for graduation - 2015 baby! Woop!) I’ve only just entered that awkward length phase but here are some of the things I’ve learnt over the past year and some things I’ve added to my hair care routine:

• Finger Detangling – It’s made such a difference to my understanding of my texture. When you use a comb, you don’t really get to feel what your hair is like. I’ve been able to really get to grips with my 4c hair (hey! An accidental pun!)  and I’ve discovered that it's a bit 4B as it has a couple of clumped kinky-curls tucked away in there. 
• Co-washing – I’ve started washing with conditioner once a week which is slowly improving my high porosity hair and adding moisture. I need to dabble with the products I use but it’s working slowly! I started this at the beginning of my journey and even though it was working so well, I couldn’t keep up with it. I’m a lot more determined now :P 
• Shampoo – I now only wash with shampoo once a month and then detangle thoroughly with my wide tooth comb and my Denman brush. Finding a shampoo that is moisturising is so essential! I use the L’oreal Elvive EverSleek which always works wonders and… it’s sulphate free! 
• Braids and protective styling – I braid my hair all the time now and attempt to keep them in for a maximum of six to eight weeks. I’ve found this is the best length of time to prevent that gross oily clump at my scalp and also to minimise breakage and unnecessary shedding. 
• L.O.C method – Mariama pointed out to me that I never stick with products and see them out ‘til the end! Using my own advice, I have to see this stuff through. My hair has been pretty dry recently so hopefully using a leave in conditioner, oil and then thick cream/butter will make a difference. I started this method a while back and yeah… I gave up (rolls eyes vigorously).
• Blow-drying – I’ve been loving my blow dryer for adding stretch to my afro texture. It makes it a lot easier to do up do’s and protective styles as well as allowing me to see how much my hair has grown. I’ve noticed that where my hair had a lot (and I mean A LOT) of shrinkage, the blow-drying has helped it to stretch permanently but without heat damage. 

This year, I’ve also given up on twist outs and braid outs for definition. It was a sad day but I just realised they weren’t working for me! I’m waiting for my hair to grow out a bit more before I attempt a defined twist/braid out but I will continue to use them to add stretch to my hair before I do a style. My next goal for my natural journey will be moisture retention (in particular for my edges and ends). As I mentioned above, my hair has just been super dry. As I build a cupboard of staple products, I’ll let you guys know but for now, I’ll continue to search!  

Obviously I'm a bit too pleased with my growth here...

Are there any products you use that work amazingly? Spill the beans – comment and email with your questions and suggestions! 

Until next time… Zee xx

What separates a great shampoo from a poo shampoo?

While some shampoos can leave our hair squeaky clean these same shampoos can also strip our hair of all moisture - a big no-no for already dry afro hair. A good shampoo merely cleans whereas a great shampoo cleans, retains moisture and prepares your hair for the next step: conditioner. So what’s in a great shampoo, I’ll explain below!

Over time hair becomes dirty and smelly due to our old friend sebum. Sebum is great at lubricating and nourishing the strand but attracts absolutely everything it comes into contact with: perfumes, smoke, dirt particles, sweat and man other yucky things. All this and more is trapped on your scalp. The basic function of a shampoo is to break down the smelly sebum and stop it from reattaching to the strand during washing and this is done by surfactants. Surfactants are small particles that weaken the bond between your dirt and the hair, allowing your fingers to rub off the dirt and there are three types: anionic, amphoteric and non-ionic. During the rinsing stage the surfactants also prevent the dirt from reattaching to the strand and voila… clean, fresh hair! 

Anionic surfactants have an overall negative charge and are the harshest type of surfactant. The original anionic surfactant was just plain ol’ soap, which actually isn’t that great for hair! Soap causes skin and hair damage by causing an increase in pH and by causing the calcium found in hard water to be deposited onto the scalp. These two things result in dry, brittle hair.  Synthetic anionic surfactants were developed to solve these two problems and include anything ending in: 

• Sulfate
• Sulfonate
• Isethionate
• Sulfosuccinate
• Sarcosinate

These synthetic ones are still pretty harsh, but they’re cheap, cheap, cheap! Why is that bad news? It means big companies tend to use them the most so any shampoo/soap product you have in your house most likely contains mostly anionic surfactants. Even worse, the two most common anionic surfactants: sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate, are designed to work in hard water (like the water here in London) so strip away all the sebum on your scalp and hair leaving it dry and unprotected. As I’ve said before, sebum stays on the scalp and upper parts of the afro hair strand so the lower (and older!) parts of curly/coily/kinky hair have no sebum to wash away, instead they become damaged by the harsh detergent. Imagine someone who washes their clean hands over and over again, eventually their hands become super dry and the soap causes the skin to break. That’s what happens to your hair! 

On top of all that (!) your hair needs sebum for protection and lubrication, so when you wash it all away your hair is left open to damage until your scalp produces more. Even conditioners, which are meant to ‘replace’ the lost sebum post-shampoo are only synthetic sebum mock-ups, so it’s best to leave some sebum behind when washing. 

Amphoteric shampoos contain both negative and positive groups on the end of their chains. They are the betaines, sultaines and imadizinolium (aka Miranols) derivatives and are much more milder than the anionics. Usually they are combined with the anionics and stop them from adhering to (and therefore cleaning) the strand as strongly.  

Non-ionic components are the mildest cleansing surfactants and aren’t usually used as they don’t foam as well as the others. In actual fact these types of surfactants are very good at breaking down oils, proving that a cleanser doesn’t have to lather for your hair to be clean. Non-ionic surfactants include polyoxylethylene, polyglycerol and ethanolamides.

So when looking for a shampoo, what you want are more of the amphoteric and non-ionic surfactants rather than the anionics. It’s unlikely that you’ll find a shampoo without any anionic products but you want the betaines and sultaines to at least be in the top 5 (and because ingredients are listed from most to least the amphoteric ingredients should probably be listed before the anionic ingredients).

Next time, I’ll tell you about the most important step of hair washing – conditioners! 

Information from:
Bouillon, C (1988) Shampoos and Hair Conditioners. Clinics in Dermatology, Volume 6, Number 3, pp. 83-92
Gray, J. (2001) Hair Care and Hair Care Products. Clinics in Dermatology, Volume 19, pp. 227-236

Natural Hair Product Review: Dr. Bronner’s Magic Organic Hair Crème

Ingredients: Water, Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Ethanol, Organic Jojoba Oil, Organic Fair Deal Hemp Oil, Organic Lavender Oil, Organic Avocado Oil, Organic Quillaja Saponaria Extract, Xanthan Gum, Tocopherol (Vitamin E)

Uses: Leave-In Conditioner.

Packaging:  There are two versions: lavender and peppermint. There is writing all over the packaging that informs you about how eco-friendly and fair the company is to its employees. The lavender comes in a purple bottle and the peppermint in a blue bottle. Both have a pump mechanism, which is very handy when your hands are slippery with hair oil. It can also be pushed down and locked to prevent leakage. The downside of this is that once you get close to finishing the product, it's difficult to get it out (and you can't decant it into a pot as it hardens when exposed to air). Another negative is that the label wraps around the entire bottle so you can't figure out how much has been used.

Scent: It smells like lavender yoghurt! The lavender is the strongest scent then there are tiny hints of coconut, which to me combines to smell more like Greek yoghurt.

Price: The cheapest I found this online for was £7.99 + £3.99 P&P from the Dr. Bronner site (in the US it’s $7.99, the UK is always getting ripped off!) and the same price from feelunique.com (but with free delivery). I bought mine from ASOS using my student discount, but they’ve either run out of stock or stopped selling it. For that price you get 177 ml (6 US fl. Oz.), which is not a lot, but you only have to use a small amount. Mine has lasted me for the last 4-5 months and I’ve been using it weekly.

Slip: Despite it containing so many oils there is very little slip (it may be because of the ethanol) so you can’t use it to detangle after you wash your hair. It took me about 3 or 4 uses to get used to this, now that I’m used to it I don’t mind. Unfortunately it also means that it doesn’t really help to control frizz.

Moisturisationess: Even though it has no slip, my strands stay moisturised for ages. I don’t even have to use oil and shea butter on top to keep the moisture in. I simply seal with oil and twist up my hair and I only have to spray water and apply oil every 1-2 times a week (as opposed to everyday) now that I’ve been using it.

Consistency: It’s very thin and watery, not sticky at all. Because of this it dries quite quickly compared to other heavier creams.

Overall Score: It loses points for the lack of slip, but wins me over because it moisturises and lasts for so long. It also helps that it supports Fair Trade and is eco-friendly. I give it...

 Mariama x

Protective Styling: A Beginner's Guide

Hello guys :D

I’ve been using “Protective Styling” for a very long time now but to some people it’s still a bit of a mystery. To be honest, it’s pretty straightforward and is often used (as the name suggests) to protect your hair from things such as the weather, styling tools - like combs and pins - and also your little mitts! (I can never stop touching my hair. ‘Hand in Hair Syndrome’ is alive and kicking!) Protective styling is incredibly important when trying to retain length and moisture as afro hair doesn’t retain moisture as well as other hair types. Not protecting afro hair from damaging actions such as those mentioned above can cause the strands to become brittle and snap off – more commonly known as breakage. 

Like many women (and men) with afro hair types, my edges are my main concern! After a Jheri-curl that went horribly wrong back in 1996, the hair at my temples has always been incredibly fine. It’s sparse, drier and breaks off more easily than the hair on the rest of my head. It’s a problem that I’ve seen far too much here in the UK and within the black community as a whole. Regardless of whether hair is natural or relaxed, it seems that edges are always the first to bounce. This is usually down to overuse of gel on the hairline, pulling from tight hairstyles (such as braids and weaves) and sometimes... it just happens! :’( My loss was a mixture of pulling my hair in all sorts of directions (ah primary school days. I had lots of gel and NO CLUE what I was doing majority of the time), overuse of chemicals (the Jheri curl was the first straw, frequent and subsequent relaxers just took away the few sparse hairs I had left!), and also just lack of knowledge. In this sense, going natural and including protective styling in my regimen was the best option for me. 

So, spill the beans! What is Protective Styling?!

Put simply, all you have to do is make sure your ends are covered in some way. That’s it! The ends of your hair (as I’m sure you’ve heard many times) are the oldest parts of your hair, and for this reason they can dry out easily preventing you from getting the long, luscious and healthy locks you’ve always desired. Here are some tips on how you can use protective styling and still enjoy your hair: 

Oooh yeah, looking good :P

1. You can try twisting your hair in sections and pinning these into an up-do. This helps your ends stay covered and still allows you to leave the house without looking like a rag doll. I aim to do this once or twice a month. It also means I can put my deep conditioner in and run errands. Yay for multi-tasking!
2. Using extensions are my all-time favourite! Braids, micro-braids, Senegalese twists, kinky twists, Havana/Marley twists… You name it. There are so many styles to try and with the extensions in, you can achieve a completely different look. I recently just discovered that 6 weeks is the perfect length of time to leave my braids in. No breakage occurred and there were no tangles, plus it was just the right time before I started missing my own hair lol. (I leave the braids in for 6 weeks and leave my own hair out for 6-8 weeks. I can review my new growth, try some new styles and then protect it again before the windy weather comes back to attack.)
3. My favourite of all... The turban! The silk scarf is a woman’s best friend. The silk has anti-ageing properties for the skin, keeps hair moisturised and prevents tangling. My turban is used on days where my hair is getting on my wick or days when I haven’t got much to do but still want to look after the fro. 
4. Other extensions such as wigs, weaves and tracks. Although I haven’t worn a weave for a while, they were very good to me for a long time. My hair underneath always managed to stay moisturised because the weave creates such a warm environment (That sentence makes me sound a bit like David Attenborough). Again, I wouldn’t exceed 6-8 weeks with a kinky hair texture like mine. I’d be inviting back the breakage!
5. General styling can also be protective. For example, high buns/topknots, and roll tuck and pins protect the ends of the hair. My hair isn’t quite long enough to do a bun, but I’m getting there! All I’d say is, if gel is used, keep it minimal or be prepared to wash it out. (Remember, excessive gel products can lead to hardening and breakage of the hair shaft.)

So, there are loads of ways to style in a protective way. Mine is the roll, tuck and pin as well as my beloved braids and the turban. Mariama loves her top-knot (especially with all her new found length.) Find your favourite way and protect those ends! You can thank us later ;P 

Zee xx

Afro Hair & Beauty Show 2013!

The Afro Hair & Beauty show is an annual show celebrating afro hair. Regardless of whether you;re natural, relaxed or wear weaves there's something for everyone! Zainab and I went this year, had a blast and got loads of freebies. If you're around London next year at the end of May definitely check it out (although take a Berroca or something before you go, you'll need the energy to get you through the day lol).

Zainab put her braids into a loose fishtail plait

My hair was a 3 day old twist out 

Excitement because of the freebies!!! 

And we both met the lovely Wunmi Akinlagun, the creator of  Woman In The Jungle

Zainab and I each bought a jumper (2 for £25), and Zee bought a Dr. Miracles pack for £10

Free stuff, and yes some were FULL SIZE items!

Mariama x