Changes to my regimen

(THIS IS AN OLD POST, I NEVER POSTED..IT WAS WRITEN IN MARCH 2011)
Okay, I feel the need to document some changes I decided to incorporate to my natural haircare regimen.
First of all I WILL CONTINUE TO ATTEMPT TO WASH MY HAIR ON SUNDAYS. I should say, SUNDAY WILL CONTINUE TO BE MY WASH DAY.

Since I started to work out, more often and consistently I will have to cowash or even just rinse my hair with water on the days that I work out intensively. I am very excited about the gym. I basically will be doind cycling once  a week. I'll be doing Zumba once a week and some other different thing like yoga, or kickboxing or aqua, once a week. I just discovered those group exercises and I love them.

Now, I will attempt to continue to do braid outs and twist outs once a week. I feel more comfortable with braid outs right now, so I'll probably stick to those for now. I discovered these new bun that i make on "old" braid outs and I'll stick to that for a while. I also like the pompadour in the front and the hair in the back pulled up with 2 flat twists or a flat braid and bobby pins. Hopefully i can come up with other styles, in which I would feel as confortable as I do with the 2 styles mentioned above.

This week I did something different and I kind of liked it, so I'll try it a couple more times and I'll see how it goes. Basically I did an oil treatment in my hair and detangle. I'll try to continue to do thtat. I might do it on fridays or thursdays or even on saturdays. I'll have to see what works best.

I'll do egg protein treatments once per month, on the 1st sunday of each month.
I'll do the flat iron/foil deep conditioning treatments on the same day I do my protein treatments.

I'll take a  vitamin pill every night with dinner.
I'll continue to drink as much water as possible.

Today I tried the Giovanni shampoo and conditioner and will contiue to use it for now.
I'll still use my alaffia shampoo and conditioner once and a while, but I have to figure out a schedule.
Today I did a alaffia conditioner "prepoo" treatment and i'll continue to do that.

Wrap hair at nigths.
Sprizt water in the mornings.
Seal the ends of my hair with oil.
That is it for now.. I'll document my changes.
As of now, my hair still feels kind of "thin" in the ends, but I watched a video that was made on 1/13/2011 compared to a video in 3/18/11 and the thickness and leght seems to have improved.

Back to my English Blog

Hi Guys,
Okay so I admit I had abandoned this Blog.
But, (big "but"), I'm now ready to continue posting here.
I was going to move to Wordpress.com because that is where I have my other blogs:
www.doseoffashion.com
www.afroproforo.com

It would be easier to manage all my blogs there...but I kind of like the fact that this one here is old...I have had it for a long time.. even if I was not posting on it...
Oh well... lets try this again... :-)
Will try to post every week. Probably on Sundays...
I might not stick to the schedule... but we will see.

I will be posting about my natural hair care journey, traveling, and just my life and experiences in general.
I think I should change the picture I have here, but I decided to leave it the way it is, for the same reason I'm going to keep this Blog and not create a new one at wordpress.com : I like seeing my Progress.
I plan to upload new pictures tho. So you can all see that I really truly do not have straight hair anymore..lol.
Thanks for reading,
Hugs and Kisses, Afri

http://www.youtube.com/user/longandnatural/videos?flow=grid&view=0

This a picture of my most recent "Chunky Twist Out"

This is a picture taken the same day as the picture above. We went to the park and shot some videos for my youtube channel and enjoyed the sun and the scenery.

Video of my 2nd attempt of "braidout" with large box braids

Hi ladies,
I tried it again! :-)
I got a better result. Not completely satisfied yet, so I'll probably do a 3rd attempt and will tell you guys about it. Anyhow, bellow is a video wit the results of my second attempt.

Let me know what you think.
Thanks for watching.

Failed attempt of a "braid out"

Last night I made 3 big conrows and this morning I learned that they were not enough for a "braid out".
I need to buy ECOSTYLER GEL and give it a try. A lot of natural haired gurus in youtube use it. I'm not a fan of Gel, but I'm going to try it.
It is funny, but my hair was so straight with just a blow dry, just a blow dry... and for the first time, because it was so straight i could not style it the way I wanted. I think is the first time that i missed my natural curls. He, he; that is interesting.
Since my braid out did not look as good as i wanted, i ended up doing  a "half-up" style, with a bang in the front and this is the result:

I'm getting ready for bed, but i think I'm going to do some box braid and add conditioner to my hair and leave . Let's see what happens.
I'll tell you all about it tommorrow.

3rd Natural Hair Journey (How I got there)

I'm officially in my third "Natural Hair Journey."
This time I'm serious and I have it so clear. There is no way I'm going back to relaxers. NO WAY!
I have been natural a little over a year now, not sure of the date of my last relaxer; all I know is that I'm more excited than ever.
I have been watching lots of youtube natural-hair videos, and they got me all inspired.
My goal is too have bra-strap lenght by or before 12/25/2010.
I'm confident I can do it, and I will.
I'm not very sure of what my regime is going to be, but I have a rough idea.
I plan to post as often as possible, to document my progress, my regime and the challenges I encounter along the way.
I know there is going to be a lot of learning, but I'm ready for it. I actually cannot wait. I feel like a little girl waiting to go to the candy store. It is a good feeling.
So far I decided that I'll try to wash and deep condition my hair every Saturday or Sunday. I'm aware that I might not be able to keep it up, but I'm okay with that.
I also plan to buy a CHI FLAT IRON and strengthen my hair myself, but only once a month.I know that sometimes I might end up not washing my hair for 2 weeks, in order to stretch the length of time that I have the straight hair, but I don't know. I might just flat iron only when I have appointments with clients. We will see.
I want to try different natural hair styles and take pictures.
I have so many things I want to try, but I'm going to take it easy. I cannot afford buying all those products and I do not want to overflow my bathroom with half full bottles. I'm now just trying to finish the products I have, and then I'll start from zero, just buying organic/natural products.
Okay, now let me tell you how I got the 3rd natural hair journey.
My hair journey started when I was borned, because my mom kept my hair natural until I was 14.It was long an beautiful, past bra strap length. For years I begged her to let me relax it, and she finally gave in. It stayed long and beautiful for a year or 2, and that was the end of it. I embarqued in my second natural hair journey in 2006 and after I achieved a full head of long, beautiful natural hair, I made the same mistake of relaxing and that was bad. After falling in the same spot, I standed back up to try it a third time. I starded at the beggining of 2009. I got a big chop in may 2009 and here I am. I do not want to hide in a weave, and I will probably not use extensions when I braid my hair.  I want to stay as natural as possible and my main goal is to one day be able to describre my hair as "long and natural" . "Long" for me is waist lenght.