Taking Care of your hair in winter

Winter is hellish for natural hair if you're not careful. Cold air, sometimes dry air, full blast heaters, wind that tangles your curls, and wooly hats that tangle up your ends. What's a girl to do?

Never fear, I am here with tips to surround your hair with loveliness.

1) Protect your ends

Collars, hats and scarves all rub against your ends and cause split ends, knots and breakage. Keep your ends away from your collar by wearing updos or a high bun. Alternatively, use a silk scarf over your collar, old lady style :-)

High bun .....www.agrlcanmac.com

Throw a scarf over jumpers, coats etc so that the ends of your hair rub on the scarf rather than the fabric of the coat or jacket.

Make sure you keep your ends moisturised. Spray, moisturise, seal with an oil or butter.

2) Find a good moisturiser

Moisturisers that work in warmer months might not work in winter. Thicker oils, butters and creams are often good for winter months, such as shea butter, castor oil, or a thick leave in. Depending on your climate, humectants such as glycerin might not be as effective in winter due to the lack of moisture in the air, but I've found that glycerin works fine for my climate in winter.

Donna MarieSuper Buttercreme - get at www.britishcurlies.com

3) Keep your hair in protective styles

Winter is that time to rock all your twists, braids, buns, updos, extensions - weaves (although I'm quite anti straight weave).

Long kinky twist extensions\

Charlotte's pompadour

Hayley's updo

4) Keep your hair covered, protect it from the cold.

Hats, turbans and scarves are great for winter. If you decide to wear a wooly hat, make sure you keep your hair protected by using a silk scarf under your hair, or lining the inside of your hat with silk/satin material.

My turban attempt

www.thebeautyhero.com

5) Go easy on the heaters - try and wear a scarf inside the house if you;re going to have the heating on full blast, and spray your hair regularly to keep moisture levels up.

Peace, Love and Hair Grease folks xx

Product Review: Lush Curly Wurly Shampoo

I'll get straight to the point for once. Free sample from Lush, Curly Wurly Shampoo, Used it, it failed - here's why.

So Lush Curly Wurly has these ingredients:

Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate,Desiccated Coconut,Cetearyl Alcohol,Propylene Glycol, Water,Fresh Organic Lemon Juice, Glyceryl Stearate & PEG-100 Stearate,Perfume, Linseed Infusion,Fresh Papaya, Lauryl Betaine, Fresh Free Range Eggs, Cocoa Butter, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Shea Butter,Organic Jojoba Oil,Avocado Butter, Vanilla Absolute, Vetivert Oil,Benzoin Resinoid,Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Alkanet Extract,Lanolin, Cetrimonium Bromide, *Coumarin.



Sounds decent right?? It sure is, apart from the DESSICATED COCONUT - not sure what smart Lush product creator decided that having a shampoo for curly hair was the ticket for putting chunks of flaky coconut in it. Bad idea Lush, bad idea. I rarely if ever have had to say that about Lush by the way, they usually have great stuff.


This shampoo made my hair clean albeit a bit dry-ish, and I spent ages getting coconut bits out of my hair. It has a gorgeous smell though, and good ingredients. I'm really upset it didn't work :-(.

 Guys, try this at your peril....

Peace, Love and Hair Grease....xxx

Is natural hair just a trend?

So recently there has been a DELUGE (I like that word) - an INUNDATION (like that word too) of naturalism  (this is not a real word) :-). 

I know more naturals now than I've ever known in my life - and my life has been 21 years long. So many of my friends are going natural, even people who I thought would never rock the natural look. I'm happy, pleasantly surprised, and relieved that people are beginning to see the natural light. Or are they??

I've been natural all my life, so I've never had to 'transition' per se, but the mental transition that  I undertook on the road to accepting my hair was definitely a big one.

At 14 years old, when I decided I was going to wear my hair in a throwback Angela Davis style afro, it definitely wasn't the norm. I got laughed at by friends (mostly male friends), had stuff thrown in my hair, and was told by teachers at school that I wasn't 'there to make a statement'. There definitely wasn't a natural community that I felt was rooting for me.  I had to constantly fight the straight or long lose curl ideal that was pushed at me constantly. 

As I got older, and learnt to take care of my hair better, I usually got nothing but love for my hair from people, but it was still seen as something very unique, out there and a bit quirky.

Now, celebrities, corporate CEO's, doctors artists  - everyone, is going natural. I'm glad that people going natural now have better products, a bigger support base and more positive affirmation (although we've still got a long way to go), but I'm hoping that the mental transition that I  had to undertake when I went on the journey to accepting my unique texture is an experience they have also. 

My qualm is that when something is extremely popular, it's easier to not think about the meaning behind it as much. 

For example, the afro of the 70's was  political statement for many, but was also a massive fashion trend. The 80's came, and a lot of the revolutionary 'black is beautiful' seemed to be left behind in the decade before, as everyone jerri curled and relaxed their afros. Even women who I respect tremendously for their part in the civil rights movement of the 70's such as Elaine Brown, (former leader of the Panther Party) I've seen recently with relaxed hair. I don't necessarily think they 'de-enlightened', themselves at all, but it just goes to prove my point that something like natural hair, can become a trend jut as anything else can.

I guess what I'm asking is, is it a problem if someone goes natural, not from a massive journey of self acceptance, but just from a simple - I like afro's at the moment, that's my look for this year? 

Strangely, I have less of a problem with it that one might think. I think any period of time that  black woman is not using a relaxer, for any reason is a good thing. Creamy crack is whack.....

Having said that, I really hope that the 'trend' we're seeing at the moment is much more than a trend for the next couple of years, but a mass awakening that will help little black girls look at their Mum's natural hair and say - 'Mummy, when I grow up, I want my hair to look just like yours'.

Peace, Love and Hair Grease folks! xxx