Blog #47 - Natural Hair Journey, pt 1

So, it's been a minute since I've blogged about anything remotely happy or interesting in my life, but I decided to take this natural hair care journey really fast. I was looking at a lot of things that I use in my hair and just analyzing my hair care routine overall when its curly or straight and decided that 1) I was putting WAAAAAAY too many things in my hair and 2) all of the things I put in my hair aren't the greatest things. I decided to purge my hair care routine and go natural - the henna blog and the kinky curly blogs are the actual start of my journey. What really kicked this off was I was in Walgreen's one day to pick up this conditioner that someone on youtube recommended as an alternative to the "Knot Today" from Kinky Curly and this Russian guy was looking for natural products for his wife. We were looking on the back of labels and I picked up some things that I use(d) and had a "wtf is this" look when looking at the back for the ingredients. I think that was my moment that I said "eff the traditional products" and I gravitated towards this brand called Shea Moisture.

The Shea Moisture Shea Butter shampoo is like THEE best shampoo that I've used on my hair in forever. I can wash my hair on a Sunday, wear it curly and then go to wash it again that next Sunday, and my hair will STILL feel like butter as I'm just standing under the water letting my hair get wet...and it will smell like shea butter, even after a week. I love it. At first, it doesn't really look like much, but when I get it in my hair, I can definitely run my fingers through it after rinsing the shampoo out. I bought the conditioner a few days ago and it's a pump and thick...I'm not too big a fan of it, but I'm willing to try it again. I really like the Tresemme Naturals Moisture Rich Conditioner for my hair as a followup to the Shea Moisture shampoo.

The next product I use is Kinky Curly Curling Custard. Yeah, I know I tried it before and it was an epic fail, but I decided that it was a fail because of the henna so I waited for it to grow out a little bit and then try it again. I think I did the henna in December, so I waited until about March to try the KCCC again. I love it! I just wish I had a different haircut to provide more bounce and body and shape to it because my hair is pretty one dimensional and flat right now. I need more body and bounce and shape!!!

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a natural yesterday about how I felt really good when talking to this girl at Walgreen's about natural hair care (she rang up my purchase for the Shea Moisture Conditioner) and how the girl was telling me what she uses in her hair. She showed me the product and I told her to junk it ASAP because like the 2nd or 3rd ingredient is Sodium Laurel Sulfate, and that's why her hair is so dry. I continued to tell my friend how I haven't had a relaxer since around November and I wanted to try and see how long I can go, so...I guess this is my official start to this. It's already been around 3.5, 4 months so I think I'm doing pretty okay. I've flat ironed my hair before and it came out really nice and bone straight at the roots, which is good...considering all I used was my shampoo, conditioner and some argan oil before I blew it dry. I'll have to try it again to see how it comes out again. I think it was a little greasy, so I'll try to put in less of the oil...that should do the trick. I have to put pics up, though to document this journey.

I also need to find a natural hair dye for the summer time. I want to lighten it up a bit. Oh well...onward and upward on this journey!