Black Girl with Long Hair Naturals Meetup- July 2011

This event was sponsored by Miss Jessie's and the Chicago natural community came out in droves to attend. We waited in line about 45 minutes before getting in, and the line still stretched from 47th to 46th street. Once inside, the vendors were great and we somehow managed to get into the gift-bag line as it was just beginning to form, and we each came away with a precious jar of Miss Jessie's!

Mini twists galore!

For the past few weeks, I have been all about mini-twists! Easiest style I've had-- simple, cute and diverse.



Set on flexirods



French braid with feathers



Tucked & pinned



French braid with a flower

One year down!

April 2nd was my Nappiversary & I was featured on Newly Natural as a "Yearling"!




Visit the site and check out my hair growth over the course of a year!

Evanston-based natural hair company on NBC Chicago

When I first chopped my hair, Ashley Lauren's aloe-jojoba leave-in was one of my favorite staple products. It was nice to see that NBC did a short profile piece on the store.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com.

So I love Kinky Curly even more.... it gave me 5-day hair!

For a while, I've been using Kinky Curly Knot Today as my leave-in of choice.

It detangles well, smells good, and leaves my hair feeling nice and prepped for my usual twist-outs.

After a few so-so attempts at using the Hair Rules Curling Cream, I gave up on trying to replicate the fabulous results I got at the salon. :-p

This weekend, a trip to Target led me to pick up a jar of Kinky Curly Curling Custard.

I LOVE IT! I washed my hair with Shea Moisture Black Soap as usual, then used the Knot Today leave-in, and raked the KCCC through my hair, touching up some of the more visible areas with a denman brush.

Here's how it looked the day of application:

The next day I spritzed with warm water to refresh the curls and it looked like this. Curls were still defined but this style was a little much for work so I ended up pulling it back with a headband.

Day 3, I re-spritzed with warm water, touched up any fuzzy areas with the Denman brush, and wore it as a puff with bangs.

Day 4, same style

Day 5- same process, same style, minus the bangs

I think I've found my newest holy grail hair product! Thank you Kinky-Curly!

I heart Hair Rules New York: review

This week I was in New York for a business trip, and happened to have a free morning on Friday. I always toy with the idea of making an appointment at one of the salons specializing in natural hair when I'm in town, but they book up so far in advance, and I often don't know what my schedule will look like when I'm traveling for work, so it hadn't happened yet.

On a whim, I called Hair Rules, celebrity stylist Anthony Dickey's salon, and to my surprise, they had an opening for me to get highlights and a style Friday morning!

I arrived at 9:30 am and met my colorist, Nile. I shared my inspiration pics with her and she spent a good amount of time assessing my hair texture and talk about exactly what type of results I wanted. I appreciated that she took the time to explain everything.

After the coloring process, an assistant washed my hair with the cleansing cream, which left my hair soft. And followed that with conditioner (rinsed out) and then the kinky curling cream. The stylist used lots of it, but only used her fingers to distribute it throughout my hair. She then had me bend forward, and fingercombed it through the underside of my hair as well. I could see the perfectly-formed curls dangling in front of me. To style, she had me shake my head side to side, and then fling it backwards. (That's it?!) And she shaped it around my face, and sat me under the hood dryer to let it set.

Check out this tutorial.

The results? I love it!

The close-up.

I very RARELY wear wash & go's because they shrink up so much, so this was a revelation to me. It was amazing to have perfectly coiffed hair with a fraction of the work.

The true test: the pouring rain and high humidity. My hair DID NOT FRIZZ! I could hardly believe my eyes.

The only drawback to the Hair Rules products I've seen so far is that although the curls still look fab (3rd day after styling), I feel like it's time to re-wash because my hair is a little dry. They did say to wash every 3 days or so instead of once a week, so that will probably be the cure.

But I still plan on buying a set of the kinky products (they have a special right now on their site) so that I can start to wear amazing wash & gos!

UPDATE:

I bought the Hair Rules kinky curling cream to try at home... Several attempts later, I still can't replicate the results of the salon... and I've used about half the bottle already... I think I'm throwing in the towel on this one. At least for now.

Home results: some definition, a bunch of frizz, and a lot of shrinkage.

I still LOVE the salon though!

Studio Shots