Homemade Flax Seed Gel

In February of this year, I used BotticelliBabe's (of Botticelli Botanicals) Flax Seed Gelee with enormous success. Unfortuneately, I then fell of the CG bandwagon and completely ignored my hair over the summer months. Since flax seed gel is an all natural product, it doesn't keep for too terribly long, and I've been without flax seed gel.

Today, however, I decided to try making my own. While BB provides a fabulous service, my purse strings are tight. Whole, raw, golden flax seeds are only $1.99/lb at Whole Foods. I also picked up some oils for scent/preservation, and some agave nectar. All in all, my cost was about $20 (and it was only that much because I have to buy a huge thing of agave nectar because they were out of the smaller containers). Considering that I will be able to get many, many batches out of what I picked up today, it will work out to be a very inexpensive product.

First, a little about flax seeds. The flax plant probably originated in the Fertile Crescent region of Mesopotamia. Ancient Egyptians cultivated it like mad, using it for fibers. The plant parts can be used in a variety of applications, including fabric, dye, paper, medicines, fishing nets, hair gels, and soap. The plant produces fruit, which contain seeds. The seeds are what are used to make the gel (yay obvious naming!)

The seeds look like this. They are pretty tiny, so having a medium mesh strainer is important for the gel making process.There are 2 basic types of flax seeds: golden (shown above) and brown. All reports say that golden seeds are preferable to brown for hair gel making. No one can seem to point of the difference between the two types however. They contain the same amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and have the same nutritional values. However, the more experienced gel makers say that golden seeds result in a gel with better hold, so golden seeds it is for me.

I used BotticelliBabe's basic recipe for making my gel and added in some things. The fun thing about making this stuff is that you can add in whatever the heck you want. You can customize the scent with essential oils, you have add hold and shine with agave nectar or honey, you can add moisture with aloe, you can get curl enhancement with magnesium sulfate (epsom salt), etc etc etc! It's a fun and easy way to figure out what your hair likes and in what doses, and since flax seeds are pretty darn cheap, it's not so bad when you find out your hair hated a particular add in!

Plain and simple, here is what you will need:
1) Large saucepan
2) Measuring cup (or my mother's ability to guesstimate amounts remarkably accurately!)
3) Large bowl (your mesh strainer should have plenty of room between the bottom of the strainer and the bottom of the bowl)
4) Medium mesh strainer (I use an 8inch strainer I got at walmart with holes that are just small enough to trap the seeds. You don't want an extremely fine grain strainer because they gel will not go through it easily, or at all if you make it thick)
5) Tear-drop shaped wire whisk
6) Container for finished gel. I use on of these which I got at walmart. It's called an H2O mini or something like that
7) a funnel

Ingredients:
1) 2 cups of water. Some people prefer distilled to tap, I just used tap for the ease of it
2) 1/2 cup of golden, whole flax seeds (not ground!)
3) your add ins. I personally added: 1 and a half teaspoons of agave nectar (for hold and shine), several drops of vitamin e oil (helps preserve the essential oil), and a couple drops of orange essential oil (for scent).

I keep my gel in the fridge and go through it quickly. This recipe will make about 8 oz. This stuff will go bad. You can add a preservative like grapefruit seed extract or citric acid (6 drops/oz) or keep it in the fridge. Only keep what you plan to use in a week or two in the fridge. If you don't plan on using it all up, it will freeze in a ziplock bag to kept longer.

Procedure:
Pour 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of flax seeds into the large saucepan. Turn the heat up as high it will go, and stir the seeds occasionally with the whisk so they do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Once the water starts to boil and a thin film of jelly appears, turn the heat back (my stove has a scale of 1 to 10. I cut back to 4). Start stirring gently but nearly constantly. Watch for the point where when you stop stirring for just a second, the seeds suspend in the jelly instead of sinking to the bottom of the pan. When you dip the whisk in, and pull it back out, the liquid should be jelly-like, like the consistency of egg whites At this point, turn the heat off, give the mix a final stir, and IMMEDIATELY pour the mix into the strainer over a bowl. The gel needs to be hot to strain effectively. At this point, you may want to clean out your saucepan, because if the gel dries in there, it'll be difficult to clean. Once your pan is clean, see how much of the gel has gone through. With my first batch, it all went through pretty well, but there was still a little bit left clinging to the seeds, so I whisked the seeds while they were still in the strainer. This got some more gel out of them, but also forced some seeds in. If you have stray seeds, you can restrain. I'm lazy, and I left them in there. I don't mind taking them out when I use the gel. Now that you have your strained gel in the bowl, add your additives. Whisk them in. Then, put your funnel into your gel container, and pour your gel into the container. It will still be very hot and very runny. It will thicken up a bit as it cools. Some have used xanthum gum as a thickener. I personally like this gel a bit on the runny side, because that way it's very very easy to distribute in my hair.

When things go wrong:
1) It's too thin post-straining. I urge you to keep in mind it really will thicken up when it cools. Mine went from runny like egg whites to very globular over night in the fridge (I'd compare it to like Kinky Curly Curling Custard). But if you still think it's too thin, throw it back in the saucepan and boil it for another minute or two.
2) It's too thick to strain. Add water to the saucepan and try boiling it again for another minute. Then attempt restraining.

The results: I cowashed with CURLS Coconut Sublime, then used Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose as my rinse out. Once out of the shower, I completely saturated my hair (use about 2-4 times as much of this stuff as your instinct tells you to). It's virtually impossible to overdo this product, but it is very possible to underdo. I scrunched out some excess water with my Curls Like Us towel (favorite!), and let it air dry since all I had to do today was study for some finals. Here's how it looked when dry :) Click to enlarge
I got a good bit of crunch, indicating a good amount of hold from that agave. All in all, not too shabby for a 1 product styling (I used nothing but the flax seed gel). I will continue to use this on a regular basis because it's easy. Here is a picture of the gel itself so you can see what it looks like/how much I got out of the recipe.

An Update :)

Hello curlies :) School is keeping me very busy, and I don't have time to think about my hair a lot right now. I don't even venture to the General Hair Discussion board on CurlTalk anymore because I know there are probably about 1000000 methods and new products and stuff that I would be tempted to try, but then I'd probably fail out of school!

I'm doing another Aphogee treatment right now. I haven't done one since my last post, so it's been a good, safe time period. My hair is kinda blah right now. When I do style it, which is becoming rarer and rarer, it looks good, but I've ceased experimenting. I really really need to get some more KCCC and/or flax seed gel but I'm so broke right now! Those will have to wait until after Christmas. I am planning on trying my own flax seed gel once finals are over and I'm home, however. Anyway, when I do style my hair, I've been using Curl Junkie's Curl Assurance Leave In or Kinky Curly Knot Today underneath Boots Curl Creme and LA Looks Sport Gel. None of these are new products to me so you can find more about them by searching the blog most likely.

Anyhoo, I finished the Aphogee treatment and styled with what's left of my Kinky Curly Curling Custard. My hair looks really dry right now because part of the Aphogee process is a sulfate poo, so that's to be expected. You'll also notice it's getting long again. I'll probably be getting a cut over my winter break. But here is how my hair looks right now, post-treatment. It will look better in a few days. I'll post pics in a couple days to prove my point. Click the pic to enlarge it.

Fall is Here, and Deep Treatments!

I love fall where I am. It's two weeks of perfect, wonderful weather. Warm sunshine mixed with a nice breeze and clean air. Just had to get that out of the way since the weather where I am is quite literally perfect today! I also got to wear my new boots (these!) and so I'm quite the happy curly today!

My curls are also happy happy campers lately because on Monday, I did my very first Aphogee protein treatment. I know for absolute certainty that my hair lurvessss protein! It really can't get enough. My hair hasn't met a protein it didn't like, which is just a result of it being fine in texture and not picky in terms of products. My hair also hair low to medium porosity, so it's not anything shocking that my hair loves protein like it does. Generally, fine hair needs protein, coarse hair often does not. This is because coarse hair comes pre-loaded genetically speaking with an excess of protein. Adding more often reacts badly with the hair, creating a straw-like, dry feeling. Of course, there are always exceptions, and many coarse haired curlies use less intense proteins in moderation with success. Some examples would be keratin and soy proteins. Wheat proteins, oat proteins, etc are often too much for coarse hair.

But my fine hair loves any kind it can get! I usually use Aubrey Organics Glycogen Protein Balancing conditioner as my protein deep treatment, but I was at home where I have a Sally's close by, so I thought I'd give Aphogee a whirl. I bought several packets of the Two Step Protein Treatment. The picture above shows exactly what it looks like, except that mine does not have the third pouch with a sample of the Aphogee Shampoo.

Lots to talk about with this product. The packet has one pouch that contains Step 1, which is the protein treatment, and the second pouch has a Balancing Moisturizer.

Honestly, its the scariest product I've used. It is extremely potent. It even says on the pouch: "Serious Care and Protection." It also says "Stops Hair Breakage, Rebuilds Hair Stucture for Six Weeks"....translation: do not use often. The most common recommendation I've seen is once a month, and that's if your hair is damaged and full of breakage. I will probably try again in a month because, as I'm sure you've noticed, I love protein. I wouldn't do it any more often that that though. However, Aphogee has another protein treatment called the 2 Minute Keratin treatment which is less intense and can be used more often

If you are in need of protein, Aphogee will provide it in excess. It's fabulous if you know your hair loves protein, but if you don't know yet, I'd start with something else. Give some products with lighter doses of protein a try before you pick up this stuff. This is for experienced protein users only!

That all being said, let's get into it. The first ingredient is Hydrolyzed Collagen (aka protein). Also high up on the list, we have a urea product, which is a nitrogen rich organic compound. Right after that, there is some magnesium sulfate, which my hair also likes. There is also Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein. They used to use animal protein in the formulation; however, veggie protein supposedly stinks less (we'll get to this). Then we have a complex derivative of dimethicone, so a low poo is needed after this treatment. Everything else after that is pretty typical stuff.

Here's the basic breakdown of how to use this stuff. I followed the directions on the packet very closely while adding in a cowash. This is one product where you do NOT want to deviate from the given instructions:

1) Shampoo hair with a sulfate poo. The hair needs to be stripped in order for the protein to really be able to get into your hair effectively. A cowash won't cut it, but you might be able to try a low poo. I just did a sulfate poo to be safe. Don't apply any conditioner after your shampoo. I just did this step in the sink to save some water.

2) Apply Step 1 (the protein treatment) to wet hair so that the hair is saturated. You don't want to do this step with a shirt on. I did it with a towel on in the bathroom. You also may want to put the treatment in a squirt bottle to make it easier to manage. I used my hands and it worked fine, but I'm not going to lie to you curlies, this stuff smells god awful. It smells exactly like soiled cat liter to me. I recommend using a well ventillated area. I had the bathroom door and window open and the fan on and I still felt queasy. Very nasty. Supposedly, the use of vegetable protein rather than animal protein has improved the smell from what it used to be. I call BS. Anyway, I applied using my hands using raking and scrunching in every which way. I then washed my hands in the hopes that the smell would come out. It does. You can then comb through with a wide tooth comb gently if you wish, but I didn't want the smell on my comb!

3) Do not touch your hair anymore. Leave your hair uncovered (no caps!). Use a hard dryer or a hand dryer to completely dry your hair. This is the interesting part. You hair will transform into a solid helmet. I've never felt my hair be so hard and stiff before. You need to dry it completely, so blowdrying rules go out the window unless you want to be there for 2 hours (aka take the diffuser off). I used high speed air alternating between medium and high heat. The package says medium heat, but let's be realistic. I only have so much time. The important thing to get it totally dry and do not agitate it when drying.

4) Now that you could withstand the ceiling collapsing with minimal injuries thanks to your new found definition of helmet hair, hop in the shower and let the warm water make your hair soft again. This is where I deviated from the steps just a tad. It says to remove all excess protein by just rinsing. I added in a cowash at the advice of a couple threads on naturallycurly just to make sure everything is out and to make your hair feel normal again. Plus, you just did a sulfate poo, so your hair will be wanting moisture anyway. So here, I cowashed using a protein free cowash (Suave Aloe and Waterlily).

5) Apply the Step 2 (Balancing Moisturizer). It's a pH balancing conditioner, but it does have some more 'cones. Felt good in my hair though, nice slip, good distribution. I will have to low poo soon to get rid of these 'cones however. Apply and rinse as you would with any other rinse out

6) Now, according to Aphogee, you are finished. However, based on experience, naturallycurly posters many times over have said that now you must must must give you hair a nice moisturizing deep treatment to apologize for all the stress of sulfate shampoo and high intensity protein. Because I was at home, my first choice of Curl Junkie's Curl Rehab was not available to me. I decided rather than use nothing, I'd leave some GVP Conditioning Balm in my hair for an hour or so wrapped in a warm towel. My hair seemed to enjoy this, so I'll have to keep it in mind for the future. After that, I just combed my hair and let it air dry.

Results? After air drying, I could already see a difference. My hair was very coily, considering that when totally air dried I usually don't get much definition at all. I even had hints of root curl! I was very excited to style it the next day. When I did, it was happy happy happy! Very coily, root curl, happiness!

I'm very happy with the treatment results. I will definitely use this again, but I sort of hope the next usage coincides with a stuffed up nose, because man does this stuff stink!

Lots of Experimenting!

I've gotten some new fun things to play with (too many for one post) so let's get right down to it!

DENMAN!
Why oh why didn't I buy one of these sooner?? This little brush is pretty fantastic. It has rows of smooth, nylon pins with no balls on the end like a paddle brush you'd typically see at any drug store (aka what I used to use). Those little balls on the end of traditional brushes like that may make your scalp feel nice, but they also contribute to split ends. Also, many drugstore brushes do not have smooth spokes. There is often a ridge where the plastic meets up to form the spoke in the mold. Running a plastic ridge over your curls = bad idea

So that leaves us with getting a nice brush, finger combing, or wide tooth combing. I have. until lately, been wide tooth combing or paddle brushing. Finger combing just doesn't work for me (kudos to those it does worth for those because it's very gentle!). I like to start with a sheet of soaking wet hair when I style. It's just personal preference.

So that leaves me with wide tooth combing or getting a nice brush. Wide tooth combing works. It'll leave my hair detangled and ready for styling. But it does nothing for my scalp.

Hence, we arrive at the Denman. Easily found on Amazon or at any of these stores in the US, this brush is the best of both worlds for me. It combines lovely scalp massaging spokes with detangling and gentleness. And, of course, on CurlTalk, there are about 17 million threads that tell you various ways to use the Denman for product distribution, getting clumps, etc etc. Great tool to have in your curly arsenal!

Posts to look forward to: Donna Marie MiraCurls Curling Jelly, Sally's GVP Condition and some Curl Junkie products!

50,000 Page Views!

Woohoo! We passed 50,000 page views today! This is absolutely incredible to me! I really never expected anyone to actually read this thing when it first got going to be honest :P So thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's read anything on here because this makes me feel all warm and happy on the inside :) Love you all ♥

Alright back to business!! Today I tried out two new things! I shall not tell you what they are because I'm saving this post for after I get this stinking organic chemistry exam on Thursday out of the way. So, until then, may your functional groups always be found in ring conformation because ring conformations are more like curls than straight chain conformations. Ok so I'm reaching..big deal.

Quick Update :)

I did my first cowash today since all I have to do today is study for my genetics and organic chemistry exams (oh the life of a premed student) and I didn't mind if my hair didn't look good since I won't be going anywhere today.

I decided to keep it simple and I went with Suave Naturals Coconut Conditioner as my cowash and I used my Curls Coconut Sublime Conditioner as a rinse out. Hair and scalp both felt clean and happy when I finished. Then, to keep things simple, I just scrunched in some Herbal Essences Totally Twisted Gel, scrunched out extra water with my CurlEase towel, and air dried.

It came out fine. Nothing special or worth noting really. Whew my hair is dry. Some of the underlayers have some shine, but the outer layers are dull dull dull. I know it's from sun bleaching (not intentionally mind you, I just work outside during the summer and can't help it), and from chlorine, and then obviously the sulfate usage. It's only the first cowash though. I'm going to keep on cowashing and maybe use my Curls Cleansing Cream once a week. I ordered a deep treatment last week and it should be here tomorrow so I'm excited to use that. So much to look forward to :)

I'm Back

For real this time. Obviously, my last post did not come to pass. I'm sorry for any false hopes. I did notice however, that in my hiatus, the number of page views for my blog is nearing 50,000! That's unbelievable. I imagine most of that is due to people checking out my CG guide from being linked to it by the lovely ladies of naturallycurly.com, so I'm super happy that even in my absense, the blog was helping some curlies out!

So here's the hiatus explanation. I had some serious hair issues this summer. My fair felt nasty and my scalp was a disaster zone. Not even my beloved brown sugar scrub could zap the flakes and gunk. I tried co-pooing (combining a cowash with a low poo), which worked for a while then quit. I tried low pooing exclusively, which really dried me out and made me tangly and nasty. Finally, I threw in the towel and started using Aussie Moist Shampoo (main cleaning ingredient: Ammonium Laurel Sulfate. Yikes) and Aussie Moist Conditioner (this is actually not too bad, the only non CG thing is a bis-aminopropyl dimethicone). I very rarely actually styled my hair since using CG products with a non CG routine just doesn't work for me. When I would style it, it was very obvious how dry it was. I really didn't want to be on CurlTalk during that time because it was very frustrating doing things that I knew were not good for my hair but seeming to have no other choice.

I think now that my hair has been sufficiently sulfate damaged yet again, my hair may finally be ready to try CG again.

Here's the gameplan. I bought some of the Curls Cleansing Cream and also their Curls Coconut Sublime Conditioner. I figured that going from using an ALS shampoo straight to cowashing would lead to some funky greasiness since when I'm on sulfates, my scalp gets oil build up (and I have to wash it every day). So, I figured I'd give a really gentle low poo a try for transitioning sake before I try straight cowashing with Suave Naturals Coconut again. And if straight cowashing doesn't work out, then I have a nice moisturizing low poo to fall back on/alternate with cowashing.

This stuff is a little pricey, but I tried them today and I've gotta say I'm impressed. I really like the texture of the cleansing cream. It's very thick, which is a good sign. Both of these products come in pump bottles, which is really nice. I like the conditioner, but my hair really ate it up. I think I was around like 10 pumps before I was satisfied. Hopefully the amount I need will slow down as my hair recovers from the summer, but I can see why the cleansing cream comes in an 8oz. bottle and the conditioner comes in a 16oz bottle! By the way, they both smell fantastic. Very coconut-creamy. Yum!

After I did my Curls washing and conditioning, I applied a nickle size blob of Kinky Curly Knot Today and then scrunched in some Curl Junkie Coffee Coco Cream. I'm airdrying for the first time in a longggg time. I forgot how long my hair takes to air dry even though it isn't long or thick. I'm at 2 hours now and I'm just starting to feel a slight bit of crunch forming from the Curl Junkie.

I have lots of exciting new products and techniques to try once I finish adjusting. I'm going to stick with the above routine for at least a week or so. Then cowashing, and hopefully an easy adjustment!

I'm Free!!!!

The semester is finally over. I'm now coming to you live from my couch at home with a plate of yummy home cooked food by my side. I don't have too much to say now, but I'm going to reveal my plans for this blog for the summer.

1) Updates. Something that has been lacking sorely of late.
2) The real plan: I want to look at every single product I have ever tried and strenuously review it. I want to give you all full breakdowns of every property of every product in my arsenal, including things like towels and dryers as well as product.
3) Fight the mid atlantic humidity

That is all for now. Much more coming soon :)

I'm Angry

For those who don't know what the above is, it's an EpiPen, which is an auto-injector of epinephrine which treats anaphylactic shock (a severe allergic reaction which is life threatening). I must carry an Epipen because if I injest any tree nut in any minute amount, I will undergo a severe reaction. So what does that have to do with hair, you ask?

Also for those who don't know, there has been quite the controversy on the curltalk boards of late regarding what I see as extremely irresponsible and quite frankly stupid business practices that the Deva company is currently engaging in. Deva is the product line of the founder of the Curly Girl method to which I adhere, so it upsets me that Lorraine Massey would allow her company and her line of products to become so tainted by irresponsibility and lack of customer awareness and responsiveness.

The controversy: We have wondered for a long time now why the Deva products contain silicones when Massey recommends using cleansing agents which wouldn't remove them. That is why there is a Low Poo in the Deva line: to remove the a-cone in the conditioner. We thought this hypocrisy was strange and figured that it was due to formulation issues combining with the all important need for a positive bottom line. The Low Poo is $17.95 a bottle at CurlMart. Why not make it so that if they buy the $17.95 a bottle conditioner, the $17.95 dollar a bottle No Poo, and then discover the build up, they then have to buy the $17.95 Low Poo? It's shady business practice in a way when you look at what Massey claims to represent, but it makes perfect financial sense.

That's not the controversy though. The problem now is that Deva says that it is now making their products silicone (and paraben) free. That's fine. In fact, for people who stayed away from Deva because of the silicone present in the products, it's downright good news.

So why aren't we dancing for joy?

On March 24th, 2009, a CurlTalk administrator posted this info from a "Deva representative":

Because of the cone confusion, we went to the source to get the story. This is what Deva says:

"Any trace amount of a cone that was previously in Deva, has been removed. The reason it was there in the first place, was becuase we were unable to find a botanical replacement. However, I am happy to report that as of January 1st, 2009, DevaCurl is silicone free, paraben free, plastic free, resin free, sulfate free, botanically drenched and considered vegan.We have never tested on animals and we will never test on animals.

**Please note that by law, we have permission to finish any unused labels from 2008, but rest assured, any product that was filled in 2009, even with 2008 labels stands by our promise."

This sounds like a load of bulls**t to me. I would like to have Deva site the specific article of the specific law in the FDA which states that they are allowed to mislabel products. As far as I know, there is no magic loophole which says that a company may misrepresent what is actually in the bottle of their product so that the company can "save paper." If such a loophole does exist (and I want Deva or a qualified lawyer to actually point out the letter of the law to me), I think this is a serious error and legislative action ought to be taken up to close the loophole.

However, from the FDA's website, I see no such indicators of the existence of such a loophole.
From the website:

It is illegal to introduce a misbranded cosmetic into interstate commerce, and such products are subject to regulatory action. Some of the ways a cosmetic can become misbranded are:

• its labeling is false or misleading,
• its label fails to provide required information,
• its required label information is not properly displayed, and
• its labeling violates requirements of the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970 [FD&C Act, sec. 602; 21 U.S.C. 362]

The reason I'm so angry about this whole issue is because of my allergies. I know that I don't have it the worst out there. There are people who have allergies that are much worse. When Deva refuses to update their labels to "save paper" (which is a stupid excuse for wanting to save money/just plain lying about what's actually in the bottle because if saving paper was really the goal, they could simply recylcle the already printed and now allegedly incorrect labels), they are allowing incorrect ingredient info to be placed on the bottle. How are we supposed to know whether we have an old bottle or a new bottle? Especially when you're dealing with "botanical ingredients," which people are much more likely to have allergies to than an artificial ingredient, it seems incredibly stupid and practically begging for a lawsuit to not explicitly identify what is in the product.

Say someone buys a bottle of Deva One-C from Ulta today. They have no way of knowing what is in that bottle because the ingredient label might be correct (it might be an old bottle) or it might be incorrect because it's the new formulation. It may have the mystery botanical ingredient, which the consumer may then react to. Then they can sue Deva for misbranding of products and for phsyical harm caused by use of the product. And I hope I get to shake that person's hand.

On April 2nd, another CurlTalk administator posted the supposedly "reformulated" ingredients of One-C as being:

Ingredients: Water (Aqua), Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Glycerin, Glycol Distearate, Cetyl Esters, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Oleo Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Melissa Officinalis (Balm Mint) Extract, Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract, Cymbopogon Schoenanthus (Lemongrass) Extract, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricia) Extract, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Extract, Achillea Millefolium (Yarrow) Extract, Propylene Glycol, Cetrimonium Chloride, Citric Acid, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Fragrance (Parfum).

Jillipoo also did a blog post about this debacle a week ago. It can be found here

I have to say as a side note that the email from Lorraine was by far the most unprofessional thing I have ever seen pass between the head of a major company and a customer. Full of typos and chatspeak and no real answers. It was thoroughly disgusting.

Basically what is at stake here is a company that has been completely unresponsive to it's customers. It has refused to blantantly and honestly address these issues of consumer advocacy and consumer rights. It's head has tried to diffuse the issue by sending cute, curl-pun and typo filled messages to a representative of the nc.com community. It has chosen to enter into what is at least legal grey area if not simply illegal area for the sake of saving money on printing new labels. Sloppy labeling could cause someone like me, with severe allergies, to get into serious health trouble.

The reason that I decided to blog about this is because of a new post that came today from an nc.com admin:

Hi everyone!

We chatted again with a very knowledgeable source at Deva and she helped us craft this note, so we know it's got accurate information.

The formulation in DevaCurl One Condition has changed, and is available for sale at CurlMart and at other retailers. The packaging, however, is not yet accurate, though it will be soon. The correct ingredients can be found listed in CurlMart. Deva will begin shipping DevaCurl One Condition with the updated packaging in May.

The formulations of other Deva products are being changed, but these new silicone- and paraben-free formulas formulations have not yet reached consumers. This process will take several months. NaturallyCurly will continue to keep you posted as Deva moves forward in the process of removing silicones and parabens from all its products. Additionally, going forward, Deva will ensure that accurate labels are on all of its products. So when the formula in the bottle changes, the label will also change, at the same time.

We also asked Deva why they kept the old labels on DevaCurl One Condition, despite the formula change. They said:

“Deva decided to use existing packaging (labels, bottles & components) to avoid delaying the introduction and availability of the newly formulated silicone- and paraben-free Deva Curl One Condition as well as to avoid packaging waste. Moving forward, Deva has implemented transition procedures to make sure the new packaging coincides with any new silicone and paraben-free formulations.

We apologize for the confusion and are committed to doing a better job in the future. We appreciate your faith in Deva and your patience while we work on bringing exciting new silicone- and paraben-free products to you."

This new information is equally disturbing as the last. It honestly seems to me like Deva just simply lied at several points in the public relations nightmare. It's all quite shady, irresponsible, and angering. Quite frankly, I've seen enough of the irresponsible practices of Deva and have personally pledged not to buy their products. There are many more reputable companies out there that actually care whether they kill one of their customers due to a mislabeled product.

Long Time, No Blog

Haha I had to. It was just too cheesy to pass up!

Helloooo curly world! I did it again. I disappeared. My appologies. It's that final push to the end of the second semester, and the professors are really piling it on. It's as much as I can do to get enough sleep at night. There simply hasn't been any time for blogging.

But enough excuses. What have I been up to hair wise?

Ugh I've been having some issues. I think I had a pretty good case of build up. I'm not sure what it was from. But when I would scratch at my scalp, I'd get a very healthy portion of white gunk (yuck!) and I noticed a smell coming from my scalp as well. It's not my cowashing technique I don't think since I've been CG for a good while now without this issue, so I figured that I must have just reached my limit and something was just loving my hair and scalp so much it decided to stick around.

So I decided to try and treat it with a lowpoo first. The low poos (I did a couple over the course of a few days) helped; it cut down on the white gunk and smell, but something still didn't feel right.

So I did something bad. I reached for the sulfate poo. A lot of curlies who are CG tend to look at a sulfate poo as a death sentence. However, I don't think that one sulfate wash has the power to undo several months of proper treatment. I feel it's the repeated and frequent use of sulfates that does us in.

I kept my original bottle of sulfate poo that I used to use everyday (had to because my scalp would then overproduce oil and I thought I had greasy hair) when I went CG just in case I needed it. It's Herbal Essences Totally Twisted Shampoo. It's got not only sulfates but also cocamidopropyl betaine (and it claims to be moisturizing for curls *rolls eyes*) so it's definitely a cleanser. It's also silicone free.

So I did it. Oh my goodness did my hair feel STRIPPED! It was really shocking to think that that feeling used to be normal. It felt like it was literally going to scream for help it was so dry and...*shudder* squeaky. I knew that this would kick any build up in the bud though, and if it didn't fix my issues I'd have to look elsewhere for answers. So after I sulfate poo'ed, I slathered on just about every conditioner I could get my hands on. My hair felt better after the conditioner got put on.

I styled using KCCC on top of KCKT. Boy was I frizzy and undefined. I know it's from the sulfate poo, because I've been using this combo with great success lately. Yuck. Bad hair day. Made me wish my hair was long enough for a scrunchie.

Good news though. Whatever was built up seems to have been sent down the drain with the curl-killing suds of the sulfate poo. I'll have to keep this in mind though. I went about 5 months and then needed a sulfate poo. I did about 4-5 low poos in that time. So I'm not good with permanent cowashing. I suppose that makes me modified CG, even though I cowash the vast majority of the time. Eh, it's just a label anyway!

The important thing is that now that I've gotten moisture back into my hair and I'm build up free, things are looking good on the hair front. I've had some really awesome hair days with BB's Flax Gelee, KCCC, and Curl Junkie Curl Pudding (more on this next entry). Still using and loving the curl towels. I've been diffusing on Tuesdays and Thursdays now because I have later classes on those days (9:30am's woo!) and I can get up and shower and officially style my hair. Love the volume I get from diffusing. I'll have to take pictures the next time I do. I've also had one miserable failure with a product. I'll blog on that next entry though :)

Towel Time!

I've told you all about my fabulous curl towel bargain hunting, and now the objects of my penny-pinching are here! I received my CurlEase towel a few days ago so I've been able to try it twice now, and I just got my two Curls Like Us towels in the mail today so I've only used them once, but I'm still feeling pretty confident about my experimentation.

Being the science major I am, I tried to keep everything constant. I used the same products and the same amounts of them. The routine was cowash with Vo5 Strawberries and Cream, condition with Aubrey Organics Glycogen Protein Balancing Conditioner (I feel like I need a good shot of protein, so two days of this is fine and hasn't dried me out whatsoever), rake through a nickle size blob of Kinky Curling Knot Today leave in, scrunch in two finger scoops of Kinky Curly Curling Custard into sections ala the mysterflavored method (video linked in right hand side; called "How to Scrunch"), scrunch with the curl towel, and finally scrunch in about a dime size blob of LA Looks Sport gel (again, using the mysteryflavored method of scrunching). Just a note: my normal dry time with KCCC and a gel on top of it is about 4 hours from product application to totally dry (I would generally scrunch out the crunch at 3 hours)

I will first talk about the CurlEase experience.

The towel is big. And it's pink! It makes me feel very girly! I had heard from some other curlies over on CurlTalk that they would not recommend this towel for scrunching and would rather use it for plopping, which of course I'm not doing because my hair is so short now!

Well, it just goes to show that you can't follow everything everyone else says. I've had wonderful results using this towel to scrunch. I use it doubled or tripled over to increase the thickness. I bend over so my hair is hanging, and I scrunch upwards. It takes a pretty good amount of water out. It decreased my drying time by a full hour. After I scrunched upside down, I would stand up straight, and lean to one side so my hair was hanging again and scrunch some more. This may be something I'll need to record a video of myself doing, because it's hard to explain in words how much I scrunched. I scrunched several times all over my hair. My hair felt significantly dryer after using the towel. There were some little frizzies that popped up, so I added the LA Looks gel on top, which took care of them.

Admittedly, the result is a little frizzier than it probably would be if I had just used the products and done no scrunching. But it decreased my dry time dramatically, and to me, that's worth a couple extra frizzies. I also had no problem with second day hair after using the CurlEase towel. Here are the pictures from a go with CurlEase:

I encourage you to click on these to enlarge them to see the curls in more detail. These tiny pics don't do it justice sometimes haha


Ok now on to the Curls Like Us towel. These are super cute. I don't know what it is about the cute piping around the edges but these are just adorable. They feel like a very thick t-shirt. They are designed like a muff; an open cylinder. You put your hands in both ends and rotate it when you need a new, dry area (there's a video on your website if you're confused and curious).

I think this one is easier to use than the CurlEase. Not that the CurlEase is hard to use, but it is a big towel and could conceivably be a little cumbersome. I did the same amount of scrunching, but something strange happened. I had definitively more crunch after using the Curls Like Us towel when my hair was dry, but it took much less time to dry. This literally knocked 2 hours off my drying time. But it didn't seem to take away as much product. Very strange, but I'm ok with it!

On to the pictures. Again, click to enlarge


I'd say the results of the towels are pretty darn comparable. I think there's a little less frizz from the Curls Like Us, and Curls Like Us did a tremendous job cutting down on dry time. But the CurlEase towel did a great job as well. I'd say they're both winners, and I'll use both.

A History of and a Commentary on Shampoo and Society

That title sounds like an essay in the making. I'll try not to go too scholarly on you, but it is midterm time yet again and so my mind has been in school mode lately.

I wanted to take a post and really look at shampoo. As a strict CG-er, shampoo, which I will here define as a commercial shampoo which contains a harsh sulfate (sodium laurel sulfate [SLS], sodium laureth sulfate [SLES], ammonium laureth sulfate [ALS], etc), has not touched my hair since November 1st.

First, let's look at where the impetus for the creation of commercial shampoo comes from. The first recognized cleaning agent other than simple water is soap. Some people believe that the first soap could have been invented as early as early as 4000BC in Babylon. It is believed that Babylonian people discovered that when cooking animal meat, the fat and lard could be mixed with potash (wood ashes) to create a hard cleaning substance. The earliest soap recipe known appears on a Babylonian tablet dating from around 2200 BC (the recipe called for water, alkali, and cassia oil in case you were planning to make some ancicent Babylonian soap!).

Soap diffused from Babylonia through history into Egypt, the vast area that became the Roman Empire, and the Middle East. The Romans took soap to a new level. The Latin word for soap, sapo, appears in a text called Historia Naturalis, in which a recipe calling for tallow and ashes is given, and the resulting substances is described as a "pomade" for hair. Most soap historians agree that the Romans were fairly ignorant as to soap's detergent properties because they preferred to use a strigil (a small, curved, metal instrument) to scrape dirt and sweat from the body. Thus, at the famous Roman baths, you would not have seen bubbles of animal soaps, but rather, cold metal curved scrapers being used to clean. That doesn't sound very relaxing.

A first century Roman strigil

Modern soap emerges in Islamic history. It is in the Middle East that the detergent properties of the soap were fully appreciated, and the concept of adding scents to soap emerges. Our modern soap recipes have not changed much from the recipes used by Islamic chemists, who made soap from vegetable oils, fragrant oils, and lye. Castile soap was introduced in Europe in the 1600s, and is still popular today. Soap production levels soared with the Industrial revolution, and names such as Andrew Pears, William Gossage, and Robert Hudson appear as the soap industry giants of the modern age.

During the early 1900s, Western chemists sought to create a new product that could be cheaply manufacture but provided highly effective detergency. People found that using soap for hair care had the disadvantages of being irrating to eyes and incompatible with hard water (because it left a dull residue on hair).

The word "shampoo" first appears in the Western world after British contact with colonial India. In Hindi, the word "champo" means "head massage" (usually with some form of hair oil). The English usage of the word "shampoo" dates to 1762

The first synthetic, commercial shampoo, Drene, by Proctor and Gamble, was introduced in 1934. This was the first non-soap shampoo specifically targeted toward hair care, rather than total personal care.

An advertisment for Drene Shampoo from the 1940s

Modern commercial shampoo, containing the now sometimes controversial sulfate formulation, came on the scene in the 1960s. This is when the detergent technology we use today was formulated.

Interestingly enough, the 1970s saw a reaction against the synthetic shampoo industry. Companies began marketing "natural" shampoos, containing ingredients like eggs, jojoba oil, wheat germ oil, honey, herbs, and flowers. Labels started to make use of the worlds "natural" and "organic" and "botanical" in advertising. I find it singularly interesting that only 10 years after the introduction of mass marketed sulfate shampoo, people began to react against it (I betcha they had curly hair!)

An ad from the 1970s, when a reaction against synthetic shampoos occured, and a revial of the desire for "natural" took place

Of course, then the 80s hit, and everyone just went out dancing! Actually, from the 70s on, the only things that have really changed in the shampoo industry are the sort of trends that the indsutry goes though, like the lean toward natural, and the technology available. For example, silicones are synthetically created and are being tweaked everyday. Every so often, a new one appears and we are left to wonder about its solubility.

I find it quite telling that my grandmother was very open to my going CG. She was born in the 1930s, so her mother had lived in the era before the commercial shampoo. My mother, on the other hand, born in the 1960s, has been very much against my going CG. She agrees that there is improvement, but she sees not using shampoo as being "dirty" and she insists my scalp smells, even when I tell her how many times I've been complimented on how good my hair smells. I think it's interesting that my mother grew up in the times when shampoo was being launched into the mass market and being researched and modified, whereas my grandmother had a close connection to the time before shampoo. My mom insists you need shampoo to be clean, and my grandmother thinks it's wonderful that I'm going more natural with my hair care.

It's an interesting commentary on the way that people forget things quickly. People were clean before shampoo, but because it's become rooted in our collective conscious that shampoo is the only thing to clean hair (through the masterful advertising of shampoo companies), people just one generation away from the time before shampoo have forgotten that there was a time that was clean before shampoo.

Sham poo = fake crap

Clipping...not so much & Bargain Hunting!

So at my salon, my stylist always clips my hair along my part line before she puts me under the hood dryer. I decided that since duckbill clips were on sale at a store near me, I'd pick up some and give it a try.

Honestly, I'm not sure about clipping yet. I think I can honestly get more volume by just using the icequeen method (rinsing upside down) with much less effort. I was going to post an explanatory post about clipping with some pictures, but since I've decided I don't like clipping enough to really play with it much more (maybe later I'll be bored and I will), I'm just going to suffice it to say that I don't love it, I think it's going to take practice, and I can get similar if not better results with less effort.

On to things I'd much rather blog about, like spending money on hair products. I've made my series of what I'm calling my "Spring purchases." I'm calling them that to give me a sense of justification really haha. Although, I will say this. I'm being a very good PJ because everything that I have bought I bought as some kind of discount/bargain.

I've ordered several new things. First of all, I ordered the CurlEase towel, which USPS tells me is on the way and should be here next week. I already told you all about that bargain though. On that purchase, I saved about $10. I also got an awesome opportunity on CurlTalk's Swap Board to split a purchase of 2 sets of 2 Curls Like Us cloths. The Curls Like Us site is having a buy one set (2 towels) get a second set half price, so I split the purchase of that deal with another poster on curltalk and that way I ended up paying less (including shipping) for two towels than buying two towels would have cost without shipping! On that purchase, by splitting it, I saved about $10. Hooray bargains!

I've also read lots and lots of good things about the Curl Junkie line of products. So I ordered the Curl Fuel Spray, which is rumored to cut down on frizz on second day hair, and the Coffee Coco Curl Creme is supposedly also very good, so I ordered that as well. But because I'm still a poor college student, I ordered them off curl mart (here and here) because I can use a the coupon code "ivillage" to give me 20% off my total, which is always fabulous! So that saved me nearly $5.

All in all, when you add it up, I saved about $25 overall on my latest PJ purchases. Not too shabby! My poor hair product shelf is already getting quite crowded though, so hopefully everything I've got will fit!!

A Little Housekeeping and My Will Power (or Lack Thereof)

A couple of blog housekeeping things so to speak. I want to draw your attention to the right side panel, where I've added a lovely image from weather.com that shows the current dewpoints for the US at any given time. It's neat because the image automatically updates whenever weather.com updates it's dewpoint map. So this can be a handy place for you to quickly check your dewpoint range before you pick what products you're using, since dew points can be so useful in determining what products to use. I definitely don't want to launch into a whole post about dew points, because it's been talked up elsewhere by people who understand it better than me, so I'll give you some links:

http://pittsburghcurly.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/its-not-the-humidity-its-the-humidity/
The above is from a poster on naturallycurly who I consider to be an expert in all things dewpoint.

That really should be enough to get you through the dew point concepts and how cutting out humectants in low dew points is a good idea, and adding them in may be a good idea in higher dew points, but in case you want more reading:
http://jillipoo.blogspot.com/2008/12/cold-weather-hair-care.html

Another housekeeping issue: I've been very lax about tagging/labeling my posts lately, which might affect what results you get if you try a search. I'll be going back over old posts in the next couple of days and tagging them to correct this issue.

One more: I've always meant to go back in and add lots more links to my "Resources" section. I've now begun to do this. I'll be posting links to blogs, threads on naturally curly, and other sites that I feel are valuable reads for a curly girl. If I link something of yours and you want it taken down, just ask and I'll be happy to do so.

Ok, now that the blog housekeeping is done, on to more curly talk!

As I've noted before, I really have no will power. Once I read a glowing review about a product from a curly with hair even remotely like mine, I have to have it. This does not go well with my college budget, but eh..who needs food anyway? So long as my hair gets fed...

So my latest willpower failure is the Curl-Ease Towel. This curl towel normally sells for $20, but it's currently on sale at Aziza Beauty Supply (great site for some good CG products) and if you use the 20% coupon code (the code is MARCH) along with the sale, you can get the towel for about $14 with shipping costs which is a nice discount. A lot of curlies use this towel to either plop or use it to scrunch out extra water after applying styling products, and the word on the boards is that they can really help reduce drying time. With the humidity in the air growing by the minute as we head into spring, I'm starting to think ahead toward longer drying times and trying to think of solutions to make life easier without having to diffuse every day. So I'm intending to use the towel, which I'll hopefully get by the end of next week, to scrunch out the water from my hair and to help "set" my curls now that I do not plop anymore. More on this to come when I get my hands on it of course!

Alright well I was going to talk about my adventures in clipping today, but I think that this is a long enough post for one day. Clipping has some intense pictures to it as well, so I shall save clipping for another day! Stay tuned!

My Ultra Complicated, Fascinating, Super Secret Method for 2nd Day Hair with My Bob

I have found a super awesome product to get second day hair with my curly bob. Here's a picture of it:
Yes that's right ladies and gents. Nothing. Pineapples be damned! Scrunchies be gone! I have found that whenever I sleep on my bob, I get second day hair by simply waking up, shaking the roots a bit, and doing absolutely nothing else. I did try using my water scrunching and aloe scrunching method (scrunch water into hair with hands until wet throughout, then put a dime size puddle of aloe onto wet hands and scrunch it into your hair while upside down) and honestly it made it a little nicer, but all things considered, it's not worth the effort/drying time to do this with the bob! I can literally do nothing, and be happy with the way it looks. Sure, it's not perfect, but with this style, it's very carefree and spirited anyway, so I feel no need to work toward perfection.

So if you needed another reason to get a bob cut for spring and summer, here's one. No effort second day hair. The weather today is GORGEOUS where I am, I'm in shorts and a tank top, my hair is blowing in the breeze (of my box fan in my dorm), and I feel great with my 2nd day hair :) Life is good!

In case you don't believe me about doing nothing and having it look good, here are pictures. Note, this is after walking around for several hours (showing a friend of mine who is a junior in high school looking at colleges to apply to my university) on a breezy day.

Square 1...only better!

As I'm sure you know if you're reading this, a couple days ago I chopped off my length and got myself a curly bob. While I completely love it, I'm sort of back at square one with styling. I've got to relearn what my hair wants, not in terms of ingredients because obviously it's still the same hair coming out of my head, but in terms of styling techniques. I'm going to devote the next couple of posts to various styling methods I've tried in the past and methods I'm playing with now that my hair is quite short!

The biggest adjustment in my styling so far has been ditching plopping. I love plopping. My mom tells me I look like Aunt Jemima when I plop. I even made a video about how I use a long sleeve cotton t-shirt to plop (link is on the right side panel if you didn't see it). I credit plopping with enhancing my curl formation and helping the drying process along a little bit. I would generally plop immediately after applying all of my products for about 30 mins to an hour, depending on how much time I had.

However, now that my hair is short, I can just tell that if I attempted a plop, the curls wouldn't sit in the shirt right when I put in the plop, and I predict I'd end up with quite smushed curls.

Thus, I made the decision to give up plopping for this length. The results have actually been very good.

I definitely lost a little bit of curliness with the length loss, which is a hallmark of my 2c/3a status (we tend to get curlier hair when it's longer). However, I have found that with some good scrunching with my product application, I am still getting some good curl.

Basically, scrunching for me has temporarily replaced plopping. I obviously scrunched in products before, but I am now finding that at this length it is better to rely on scrunching for curl formation rather than plopping because the plop would be messy and all over the place, leading to smushed curls.

So that is my first major method change. In my next post, I'll talk about 2nd day hair. My hair is not long enough to pineapple (or put up at all for that matter!), so I will tell you what has replaced pineappling in my styling methodology.
This is my hair styled today. I used Giovanni Tea Triple Treat Shampoo (had to low poo to get out the a-cone from my Deva styling when I got it cut), conditioned with L'oreal Vive Pro Nutri Gloss, then combed it, then applied BotticelliBabe's flax seed gel (my one and only product that requires no other products along with it for great results!) via raking and then scrunching. I used lots of it because you just can't overdo it with that product. I then just fixed my part and let it airdry. Took a couple of hours, which is about on par for what I expected. This is what it looks like tonight. Tomorrow, I'll be using my 2nd day hair technique and I'll post a picture or two of how it turns out.

I Did It! Introducing my curly BOB!

I'm so happy with it! It's so light and bouncy right now! This is my new hair cut, styled with Deva products (she used low poo, one-c, and angell) and a fancy hood dryer, so it won't look like this again but I think that the shape is really fun and flirty and I'm excited to style it on my own! Boyfriend is still in a little shock, but he'll get used to it :P

Anyway on to the important thing! Pictures! Don't forget that you can click on them to enlarge them and see more detail!
So to anyone who wants a curly bob but is a little nervous or scared, DO IT! I'm so excited and thrilled about it :)

Giovanni 50:50 Conditioner, Lustrasilk Revisted, and Haircut Jitters

I just got my wisdom teeth out (all 4...yuck!) on Tuesday so I've been a little out of commission but I thought I'd update you lovely curlies as I recoup on the couch at home with my darling kitties!

I live in a mid-Atlantic state and we got fairly blasted by that winter storm early in the week. 10 inches, which is unheard of for our area, which hasn't seen snow in 3 years! I'm quite jealous that the local schools got 3 full snow days the year after I graduated, but since I'm on my college spring break, I guess I would have been off this week no matter what.

I was planning on doing lots of hair experimenting this week since the wisdom teeth procedure meant I'd be home and not going out. However, mother nature had other plans for my recovery time. The snow storm knocked out our hot water heater, and I might be a trooper in the wisdom teeth area (the recovery has been wonderfully easy), but I hate hate hate cold showers! My mom managed to brave the cold and take a couple of what she called "girl scout showers," hearkening back to her days as a girl scout of the 70s with camp showers from hoses. I, on the hand, refused to bend, and spent the three days without hot water on the couch with my pain meds not showering or doing anything with my hair. Not fun!

But our water is back now, and before my wisdom teeth procedure I tried the root curl experiment, which worked very well for volume and of course root curl but I wanted to back track a bit and talk about a couple of products I've been using lately.

In my new search for some readily available, glycerin-free products, I came across a bottle of Giovanni 50:50 Conditioner at my local Kroger and decided to give it a whirl. I'd read some good things about it on naturally curly, and this stuff is really nice! It's very moisturizing to me, but it seems to be a good option as a glycerin-free, richer conditioner for winter. I've been using it in place of Aubrey Organic's Honeysuckle Rose because that stuff is just so strong that I'm afraid of overconditioning! But if you're looking for a moisturizing rinse-out that has no glycerin I'd recommend this one. It leaves my hair feeling very silky and the scent is very very subtle to me (a nice break from the sometimes overpowering AOHR). I tried this with the root curl method of the last post and it worked really well for that. Just a heads up about a nice, CG, winter conditioner that to me is much milder on many levels than my Aubrey Organic's Honeysuckle Rose.

Also, I have revisted Lustrasilk. After my blech results from the Shea and Mango variety, I was reluctant to waste a wash if the Olive Oil variety ended up giving me similar blechness (there I go being technical again!). However, with my recent discovery that glycerin is no good for me in lower dewpoints, I had no choice with my love of leave ins but to find a suitable glycerin free leave in. I've found that I much prefer the Olive Oil variety, even though the smell is very chemically to my nose. I can't use this every time; it's just a little too much for me I think. However, it works in the rotation.


So there you are curlies. A little update from a recovering curly. I'm currently getting my money's worth out of my tub of Olive Oil Lustrasilk and Giovanni 50:50 conditioner. These two products, along with my suave conditioner for cowashing, my Boots curl creme, and KCCC have formed up a pretty solid winter routine which seems to be working well for me in these horrendous dewpoints.

Also, big news which has been in the making in the last few weeks! I'm getting my haircut TOMORROW!! Ack! I'm so nervous. I'm planning on going for a curly bob if I don't chicken out! I'm honestly more scared of getting my hair cut than I was about going under general anethesia for my wisdom teeth procedure, much to my boyfriend's amusement! I honestly believe that hair cuts are so traumatic for us poor curlies (even though I know I'm in good hands because I go to a wonderful, curly friendly salon) that we should be given the option of being asleep during the "procedure!" Send me some good curly vibes please! I'll post with results and pictures just as soon as I get home! I promise!

Is that....No...But...It's Winter....and I'm a 3a...But...

IT'S ROOT CURL!!!

Ladies and Gents, I've found the elusive root curl we 3a's seek. The genius curlies at naturallycurly.com have done it again and come up with a method that has given me more root curl and volume than I have seen in my life. And it's winter! With low dewpoints! And I have root curl! Wow! My part is really funky. I'll explain later.

So I was reading on CurlTalk and I found this thread. I'd seen it before, but since the title is about clumping, which hasn't ever really been a problem, I hadn't bothered to read it thoroughly.

I finally read it all the way through today, and I saw that one poster had mentioned what incredible root volume and root curl she had been getting.

Ding ding ding! The magic words for this 3a. My curls, if left alone, would start about 3-4 inches (depending on how long my hair is at the time) away from my scalp. Clipping doesn't work for me and I really don't have the patience for it. Plopping helps pretty well, and will get me curl 2-3 inches away from the scalp. Humidity helps, and so do curl enhancers like re:coil. But still, the true root curl eluded me.

Until today. Thanks to that brilliant method in that thread, I got true root curling and va-va-voom volume!

Here's the jist of it. Cowash as normal. Rake through your normal amount of your rinse out (I used Giovanni 50:50 which I have been playing with lately because it's glycerine free) normally. Don't rinse yet. Flip your head upside down (close your eyes and blow out or plug your nose!), take some more conditioner, and scrunch it in. You can then either let it sit for a while while you do the rest of your shower routine, or you can rinse it out, Just make sure you rinse it out upside down. Then, turn off the water, and scrunch out the excess water with your hands. It'll still be pretty darn wet (which is really good for those who like to apply products to soaking wet hair).

I then used products which I exclusively scrunch in. It was a veritable scrunch fest in my bathroom (I'm home for spring break now so I can actually do my styling in the bathroom rather than the dorm room)! Because of the scrunching in of additional conditioner in the shower, I skipped the leave in. I scrunched in a little bit of Pink Boots Curling Creme, and then applied Kinky Curly Curling Custard via scrunching as well. I topped it off my scrunching a tiny bit of Herbal Essences Totally Twisted Gel.

Here's where I think I made my mistake. I decided to try plopping because I'm dependent on it normally. This made my part very funky and I had curls going every which way. It took a lot of fixing, which meant hands in hair, which meant frizz. I think that if I fix my part before applying products and then don't plop, the funky part syndrome won't happen.

This method, although I need a bit more experimenting, seems like a real winner. Here are some more pictures from tonight:'

My Boyfriend: "Your hair is too long, but don't cut it too short"

He's so picky! Haha, but I completely agree. My hair is much too long. When I was a child, my mom kept my hair around my earlobes in a cute bob. My hair was straight and it was just precious. Like Suri Cruise actually. My hair currently is literally the longest it has ever been in my entire life. I'm just not comfortable with it. It isn't me. It's not that it looks bad, although I think the length may be pulling out the curl a bit; it just isn't me.

So I've decided to go for it. I've been scared to take this step, but I just have to try it. On my first cut, I took it from about 2 inches past shoulder length to shoulder length. Boring.

This cut (March 6th), I want to take it from 3 inches below shoulder length to around chinlength.

I know...I'm scared too.

I'm not sure if my curl pattern is tight enough for it. I'm a little worried, but I have faith in my stylist and I'll ask her how short of a bob she thinks I can handle.

By the way, I started writing this post yesterday, and sometime yesterday a thread appeared on CurlTalk asking about curly bobs! A bunch of curlies responded that they wanted to get them. I love curly bobs ♥

Anyhoo, I'm thinking that I might bring in this picture and maybe a couple of others from CurlTalk. Out of respect for their owners, I won't post them here since I haven't asked permission. But I will post this one of Charleze Theron because her picture is everywhere anyway!

My haircut is March 6th at a Deva salon in my area. I've been to this stylist once before and she did a nice job and for a very reasonable price ($45). I'm hoping she'll be able to whack off my icky length (it's not really icky but I think it is because it's too long) without giving me pyramid head or killing my curl!

Baby It's Cold Outside

Darn you Southern Texas, Southern Florida, and Parts of California!

Brr. I'm cold. And my roommate insists on leaving our window open at night because she's psycho and from Pennsylvania. I don't remember the last time I was warm in my room.

But ranting about annoying roommate issues aside, it really is cold where I am right now and there are low dewpoints to match. I confess I had stopped checking dewpoints for several weeks because I was just having fun playing with products. I think it may be time to get back down to business though.

There are lots of fabulous articles out there on dewpoint and what it means for your hair. A couple of my favorites:
http://pittsburghcurly.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/its-not-the-humidity-its-the-humidity/
http://coloradocurly.wordpress.com/dew-point/

To sum up the highlights, low dewpoints mean that products with humectants high up on the ingredients list will actual faciliate moisture leaving your hair rather than staying in it. This can results in dryness, poof, and fuzzyness (such scientific terms I use!)

I've been dutifully avoiding any thought about humectants all winter, and I think that my hair is starting to pay the price for my ignorance is bliss attitude. Lately I've been, dry, poofy, frizzy, and fuzzy.

I'm thinking it may be time for me to look into severely limiting my glycerin usage. Unfortunately, just about all my favorites have it in them. There are some good standby's that are glycerin-free however. I can switch my suave coconut for VO5, put the LVPNG gloss on hold in favor of glycerin free AOHR, and I can use glycerin free styling products like boots, Lustrasilk, Giovanni DLI, and Herbal Essences Totally Twisted Gel (a CG remnant from my non-CG days...I often forget about this little purple tube shoved in the back of my hair shelf). Although I used suave and LVPNG today, I did use all glycerin free styling products. Hopefully this will help me get some gloss and definition back.

Rant About Curl Bashing, the Beauty Industry, and Marketing

When I began the Curly Girl routine, I didn't really have any idea about just how much it would change my life. Not only has it changed my hair (infinitely for the better), but it has also revolutionized the way that I perceive much of the mainstream beauty industry (I'd like to define mainstream here as being the beauty industry products that we see advertised on TV, read about in magazines, etc). I've developed a skepticism and cynicism that I did not have before, and I believe that I am better for it.

What follows is my own personal rant about curl bashing in the media, the beauty industry, and the marketing techniques used by the beauty industry to get the most money out of people possible and to keep them coming back for more.

There's a whole thread about curl bashing on naturallycurly.com. Every so often, someone will post a video, a blog post, a magazine article, etc that specifically targets curly hair as something that needs to be corrected.

I hate that this sort of attitude (that curly hair is "unruly," "unkempt" and needs to be "tamed) has permeated the minds of people everywhere to the point where it becomes accepted at fact. A quick search of cosmopolitan.com, for example, reveals article titles like "Out of Control Curls" and "Taming Tough Hair." Magazine editors know their audiences very well. Most people who pick up a copy of Cosmopolitan or a copy of Seventeen are young girls. Obviously, their are exceptions, but a good part of the marketing money of these magazines goes toward making the magazine relevant to young girls.

Young girls, like myself in years past, read these sorts of articles, and because people are inherently susceptible to being led to believe almost anything from a "credible" source, they doubt themselves. I think it's really critical that we can identify that the beauty industry is using the mass media to target young girls especially, but women with curly hair in general as well, and tells them that they must buy products and tools that will forever help them be rid of their "out of control" curly hair and give them "smooth and sleek" straight hair.

I cannot stand this attitude. And I feel I'm allowed to say these things because I used to be this way. I used to be a flat iron junkie who thought that my curly hair was ugly and unacceptable. There are articles out there that tell you why your curly hair will turn men away from you forever, and movies and tv shows perpetuate stereotypes that big frizzy curly hair belongs to the geeks and the outcasts; the pretty popular girls will have straight, sleek hair (think Mean Girls, or even The Princess Diaries).

I've been thinking lately about why these attitudes exist in our society. To be sure, they weren't always there. In fact, I'd argue that the straight hair craze, while it comes and goes, seems to have only really emerged in full force in the 60's, when people began widely and regularly using heat to straighten hair.

So why the modern change in hair attitudes? Why the shift away from living with one's natural hair texture? I think it has a lot to do with the coincidence (maybe it's not a coincidence) that when people discovered that they could use irons to straighten their hair, the marketing boom was occurring. Corporations began to pour millions into advertising like never before with the introduction of a tv into the average home. Suddenly, corporations could spread their messages to the masses, and that meant more profit.

If you can advertise a complete transformation, you have an audience. There will always be women with curly hair who want straight hair (and visa versa) and so if you can come up with a product that you can advertise as helping achieve that goal, you can make money doing so.

It seems to me that this simple exercise in capitalism has taken off in the last few decades to where the beauty industry is no longer (if it ever was) there to help the consumer so much as to keep the consumer coming back. Any curly who has straightened knows that the results aren't permament; you will need to buy more heat protectants, more irons, more blow dryers, more creams, more relaxers, etc, etc if you want to be able to have straightened hair frequently. It works to the company's advantage to market that straightened hair is beautiful and desirable and curly hair is not because 65% of the world has curly hair. It's brilliant marketing if you think about it. Tell the majority of the world's population that they need to be completely different from what they are (in terms of hair anyway) and sell them the products that they "need" to achieve "beauty"

It drives me nuts to be honest. It's all about making money in the end. It's the same reasoning behind most makeover shows actively seeking women with "unruly" curly hair, and chopping it off into the inevitable razored bob that gets flat ironed or blown out to sleek "sleek and smooth." (one of any of the thousands of possible examples, although this one is particularly heart breaking because she gets a cut from Lorraine Massey herself). Producers know that curly to straight make overs are more drastic and dramatic than curly to curly or straight to straight makeovers. More drastic makeovers = more viewers = more money

In the end, I've lost any faith I had in the mainstream beauty industry. It seems to me that they too often reject the demands of the consumers (like demands for more natural products) and the needs of the consumers (like a massive mainstream line of curly hair care that rejects sulfates and silicones) in favor of keeping the customers coming back for quick fixes, like silicone serums to "tame" frizz or "damage repairing" serums that just coat the cuticle.

I think the only way to turn around this disturbing chain of events is to create a grassroots movement that tells companies that we do not want their cheap chemical crap. We want actual ingredients that provide real and lasting benefits. That's why I love CG. I see CG as a movement that at its core idea rejects the fake crap (shampoo) that we are told by the corporations that we need to be sanitary. People didn't wash their hair everyday until the 60s and 70s! That's thousands of years of human history without shampoo. So why is it that now if you told someone that you don't use shampoo, they cringe and take a step back? It's because of the mainstream beauty industry, marketing, and curl bashing.

End rant.

I'm Sorry!

I have been neglecting this blog and naturallycurly.com of late! I miss you all though :) Things have been very hectic here at school of late. It's midterm time (it seems like it's always midterm time...until it's finals time) and with the holiday Saturday and my two year anniversary with my boyfriend and friends with birthdays and scheduling doctors appointments and wisdom teeth extractions and hair cuts (March 6th, soo excited), I've been just a tad preoccupied.

Things are settling down quite a bit and I'm very excited to return to active state.

As for my hair, my styling lately has just been rotating between known combos. I've been favoring Botticellibabe's FSG (alone or with LA looks on it), KCKT + Boots + KCCC, and KCKT + Re:coil + KCCC. They've all been working just fine :)

I'm also still loving VO5 (strawberries and cream ♥) for cowashing and I'm still loving mixing Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose and L'oreal Vive Pro Nutri Gloss for conditioning. Dewpoints are sort of climbing, so hopefully I'll get out of this winter state soon.

Also, I just started birth control (on Friday) for PCOS. I haven't noticed any changes in the curliness of my hair yet. Hopefully that's a good sign :)

Anyhoo, I'm sorry for the terrible lack of updates and I will get back to regular updating now :)