A Natural Story–Winsome!!

by kcurly on February 23, 2012

in A Natural Story,Featured Ladies

Thanks for sharing your story and your lush hair, Winsome!!

How long have you been natural? How long did you transition?

I have been natural for 6 years, I stoped relaxing right after my 21st birthday. I’ve always loved how black models on TV or in magazines only had big kinky or curly hair. So I always wanted that look so one day I just quit. I didn’t do the big chop right away, my hair stylist wouldn’t let me. But when I finally did I felt free. I had about 3 inches of hair on my head but I was happy. Since then I have inspired a lot of people in my family to do the same.
What have been your biggest obstacles to overcome?

Finding time to style my hair everyday used to be a challenge, now I try to find products that will keep my hair looking done for more than a week. I can deal with washing and styling once a week anything more than that is just a chore. I’m a busy girl I need low maintenance hair and for me natural hair is anything but that. I’ ve been using signaturetexture from www.signaturetexture.com. It keeps my crazy hair in check. I don’t have wash and go hair. If I don’t slab on tons of heavy conditioner it won’t curl up. if I don’t style it, it just doesn’t work. I don’t like walking around with a huge fro I live in Florida that does not work out here. The weather is just too hot and humid.I have a mixture of textures so my hair has a mind of its own, so styling is a must.

What are your favorite styles to wear?

All the way out, Half up half down, then after a week of the same style I ponytail it until my next wash.

What are your favorite products?

I use signaturetexture I like it because it’s heavy enough for the kinky areas of my head and it gives hold to the kinky curly areas too, my perimeter is kinky but it gets no shrinkage, it tends not to curl up that much. The areas that get shrinkage, curl really well with this product. Having a mixture of textures is really tricky. For Shampoo and Conditioner I use Aussie Moist. I love it. Since I have tried this shampoo and conditioner I’ve been hooked. After years of being natural and trying any and everything (including lotion) now I use 3 products and that’s it, I really like a routine that doesn’t take much. SignatureTexture works as a moisturizer, a sealer, a curl definer, it adds shine, and it last for days with a touch up or 2 in some areas. I love Aussie because the price is good and you get a lot of product, I can find it anywhere. The conditioner is extremely heavy I use it as a gel, If I am too lazy to put on signaturetexture, but it will only last 1 day as a gel.

Any advice for the newly natural ladies out there?

Do what works for you. Try different products until you find the ones that suits you. Its OK to be a product junkie until you find what you truly want. These days less is more so find what you love and stick with it. I think your hair will love a routine. The same way hair becomes happy when you find that one great stylist I think it gets happy and good behaving when you start giving it styling products that it becomes used to.

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You were born to WIN, SuchAnAfroholic!!

by kcurly on February 20, 2012

in Give-a-ways

Congrats to @SuchAnAfroholicfor winning the CaraB Naturally giveaway! Send me your contact information as soon as possible! Thanks to all who entered!

To all my readers, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA lately. As I may have mentioned, I’ve just returned to work after a year long break with my baby and getting back into the swing of things has been kind of hectic to say the least! I’ll be spending today reading and replying to emails, and getting some posts ready for this week!

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CARA B Naturally Review and Giveaway

by kcurly on January 31, 2012

in CARA B Naturally,Product Reviews

CARA B Naturally contacted me awhile back to try out some of their products. In case you’ve never heard of CARA B Naturally, here are a few tidbits of info about them:

• Natural Products Association Certified- the only personal care product line specifically formulated for ethnic children to earn such a distinction
• Promotes the idea that  ”Children Are Always Beautiful Naturally”
• Products are free of parabens, petrolatum, phthalates, sulfates, mineral oil, artificial fragrances and preservatives
• Available now in select Targets and coming soon to CVS

What I found to be the greatest about these products is that they worked on both my hair (3c/4a) and my kid’s hair (3a). Let me preface by saying that my children have extremely sensitive skin. My son was allergic to disposable diapers and my daughter runs the same tendency to break out with certain lotions and soaps. They both get irritated eyes from “mild” shampoos.

I was sent four different products to try out, so here is the breakdown.

First, since presentation is everything, here is how my products arrived. Cute, huh?

Shampoo and Body Wash

Price: $11.00

Ingredients: Deionized Water, Coconut Oil (Natural), Cornstarch, Decyl Glucoside, Chamomile Fragrance Blend (Natural), Vegetable Glycerin, Sugar, Vitamin E, Aloe Vera (Aloe Barbadensis) Leaf Juice, Citric Acid, Guar Gum (Natural Thickener), Caramel, Glucose Oxidase, Lactoperoxidase (Natural Preservative)

As you can see, this product is an amber colored liquid. It’s a bit thicker in consistency than water but not as thick as most shampoos. It lathers really well and it doesn’t take much, especially with the kids. I was surprised at how well it lathered because in the past I’ve noticed some natural products such as this tend to not lather very well.  It cleans the hair and body well with minimal dryness. I wouldn’t call it a moisturizing shampoo but it didn’t strip our hair either.

For a body wash, this was great for my kids. If my children ever get the suds from their body wash near their eyes, they immediately turn red and irritated. I wasn’t planning to test this out purposefully because I hate to see their eyes like that but, as luck would have it, my son was feeling adventurous during a bath and decided to dump a bucket of sudsy water over his head. No redness at all noted. The same with my daughter, who had no tears from a few of the suds getting in her eyes.

My only negative experience (and it’s a very small negative) was that I noticed after I drained the bath water that this product leaves behind a small amount of dark, grainy residue. I’m assuming it’s from the sugar in the ingredients. At first I thought “Dang, this kid was really dirty” but no, ha, it’s the product. It rinses out of the tub easily but I thought I’d mention it.

Body Lotion

Price: $13.00

Ingredients: Deionized water; coconut oil (capric triglyceride); shea butter; sunflower seed oil; cocoa butter (stearic acid); jojoba oil; natural emulsifying wax (cetearyl alcohol); natural emulsifier (glyceryl stearate); sugar (glucose); natural chamomile fragrance blend; xanthan gum (natural thickener); aloe vera barbadensis leaf juice; vitamin E; caramel; potassium sorbate; glucose oxidase & lactoperoxidase (natural preservative)

What better way to follow up our bath than with a moisturizing lotion? Lotion is another thing my kids struggle with. My baby (14 months) especially has sensitive skin that I have to shield from certain fragrances. This has been very moisturizing for their skin, as well as mine, this winter. Once absorbed, their skin had a nice, light scent. We loved it!

Leave In Conditioner/Daily Moisturizer

Price: $ 13.00

Ingredients: Deionized water; natural emulsifying wax (cetearyl alcohol); shea butter; jojoba oil; coconut oil (capric triglyceride); vegetable glycerin; natural emulsifier (cetearyl alcohol and cetearyl glucoside); natural chamomile fragrance blend; cocoa butter (stearic acid); sugar (glucose); xanthan gum (natural thickener); natural emulsifier (glyceryl stearate); aloe barbadensis leaf juice; vitamin E; caramel; potassium sorbate; glucose oxidase & lactoperoxidase (natural preservative)

As I said, my children have hair that is about 3a in texture (very loose curls) and it’s also much finer than my own. I tried this a few times in a few different ways in their hair and it just didn’t work out well. It was too heavy for the most part, especially in my daughter’s baby fine hair. I could sometimes use it very sparingly in my son’s hair once it was dry to moisturize it.

As for my hair, it was the bomb.com! I used it along with the Hair Mist (I’ll get to that next) to twist my hair recently (on wet hair). The result was soft moisturized twists. I also used it to re-moisturize my hair once I took the twists out and was wearing the twist out. Great results again! The product soaks into my hair easily which is a plus when getting ready for work in the morning.

Moisturizing Hair Mist

Price: $10.00

Ingredients: Deionized water; vegetable glycerin; coconut oil (capric triglyceride); sweet almond oil; jojoba oil; sugar (glucose); natural chamomile fragrance blend; aloe vera barbadensis leaf juice; vitamin E; potassium sorbate; glucose oxidase & lactoperoxidase (natural preservative); citric acid

This is a light liquid spray. It was a perfect leave in for my kids’ looser textured hair. It gave them just the right amount of moisture and detangling properties.

The detangling action wasn’t as effective for my hair though it did help a bit.  It worked really well when paired with the Leave In Conditioner/Daily Moisturizer. Here are the twists and twist outs that I used those two products on.

After twisting my hair, I used the Hair Mist daily to refresh and moisturize my twists. Overall, I really liked these products and found them to be very effective while at the same time being gentle. And an added plus is that they are now available (in some areas) locally.

Having said that….Here’s the giveaway info! Thanks again to CaraB for the great giveaway and letting me review their awesome products!

Finally a line of all natural, affordable, skin and hair care products for ethnic babies and kids will be available in Target and CVS!

CARA B NATURALLY has just launched in TARGET stores across the country. Newly Natural and CARA B NATURALLY have put together a fun i-spy style contest for readers! Go to the Cara B Naturally TARGET store locator here www.mycarab.com/target.asp and tweet whether or not the product is in the store nearest you and be eligible to win a $25 Gift Certificate! Tweet a pic of Cara B Naturally on the shelves at any TARGET location and your receive a second entry. To support Cara B Naturally TARGET is featuring a special promotion from Jan 29th – Feb 11th all Cara B Naturally product will be offered at a special price! Entry information is below:

To Enter:
· Follow @CaraBNaturallyon Twitter
· Follow @DailyCurlzon Twitter
· Check www.mycarab.com/target.asp to see if Cara B Naturally is sold in a store near you
· Tweet Cara B Naturally is in my TARGET! or Cara B Naturally is not in my TARGET! along with the hashtag #ILoveCaraBNaturally and @NewlyNatural
· Entrants that Tweet a pic of CBN product on the shelves at Target along with #ILoveCaraBNaturally and @NaturalKcurlywill receive an extra entry!

I will choose a winner randomly using random.org. This contest ends February 6th at noon CST. 

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Ask Kcurly- Trying to “whiten” hair when twisting?

by kcurly on January 29, 2012

in Ask Kcurly,Healthy Hair Tips

A comment from shirley:

How did your natural hair grow so much! Your braid out picture is beautiful! How did you get your hair to grow? All I do is wet my hair, co-wash and put gel in it, it kind of curls. But I have trouble with kinks and nearly loc-ing, which I don’t want.

Shirley, thank you for the compliment. I credit my hair length retention to protective styling and proper moisture.

If you have trouble with matting or the hair locing, you may want to dabble in other styles such as twistouts because, in my experience, they decrease the tangles and knots that cause matting. I personally can not do a lot of wash n go’s without tangles, dryness and, sometimes, matting.

It did give me pause when you said you had “trouble with kinks”.

Shirley, one of the most important things, in my humble opinion, to remember when going natural is that you have to love your hair for what it does, not hate it for what it doesn’t do. If you hair curls a little, great. If it kinks a little, great. It’s your hair, it’s part of you.

I’m not going to tell you to love your hair. Only you can do that and, for some, that comes with time. I will tell you to try and focus on the positives instead of what you perceive as negatives. That is a great starting point. (Example: “My hair has never been this thick before!”)

I also advise you to focus on the health of your hair. A lot of people can do wash n go’s with no problem. However, since you said that you are having issues with near locing, perhaps it’s time to ditch the gel (which always does a number on my hair long term) and practice some healthier alternatives. Good luck to you.

———————

This next comment wasn’t really a question, but something I wanted to comment on publicly.

From Anonymous:

I’m so conflicted about twisting. On the one hand I get the length I crave and definition to my curl on the other hand I feel like I’m trying to “whiten” my hair by making it look curly but isn’t twisting your hair to highlight the curl no different than brushing your hair to highlight the shine? It’s not fair we have such a complex relationship with “our” hair.

Anonymous, we only have such a complex relationship with your hair because we make it so. It’s time for a lot of people to stop feeling guilt over ridiculous assumptions.

First, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with curl definition. I don’t really try to define curls anymore but I’m not going to knock anyone who does. The only time the quest for curl definition begins to become a problem is when frustration arises from trying to define something that isn’t there.

Second, I can’t even equate wearing twists and twist out with “whiteness” because those styles are uniquely ingrained in the styling of Afro-textured hair. Braiding and twisting does stretch the hair out but tribes in Africa were doing those styles and more way before they set eyes on Europeans.

Lastly, the only people who are walking around with completely unaltered hair are those with free form locs. And when I say free form, I mean locs like these (no twisting or coiling beforehand to give a uniform look):

There are some people who make the argument that twisting and braiding are an attempt at being white because it changes the look of the hair.  I’m not exactly sure how far you need to go to make these types of people happy (and really, I am done trying).

If I comb my hair, that changes the look of the hair. Therefore, it would appear that the only way to make those people happy would be to just stop combing the hair and let it “do what it do”. That’s “natural”, right?

Nope, sorry. I’ve stopped chemically straightening. This is my natural hair. It is in my heritage to decorate, braid, and further style my hair. It is not an attempt at being white, it is not an attempt at anything but styling my hair.

So, Anon, please rock your hair how you want without the guilt. You know what’s in your own heart and head.

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Hair You Might Know: Damone Roberts Discusses THELOOKBAG and More!

by kcurly on January 24, 2012

in Hair Blog Highlight,Hair Your Might Know

You may have seen Damone Roberts on TLC’s “10 Years Younger” in the past or read his beauty advice on Oprah.com. He has a new project called the TheLookBag that I am excited to share with ya’ll. Plus, I was just super excited to interview him! Read on to find out more!

 I have loved your eyebrows since I first saw you on “10 Years Younger”.  Are there any basic brow tips you can share with us?

Thank you for the compliment! I believe eyebrows are the single most important feature on the face. They add balance & structure. In 2012 we are going for fuller brows & a softer arch. The brow is still groomed, but not as severe. Lastly…no brow should ever be without brow gel! This hold the hair in place, while opening the eye. We will definitely be adding The Damone Roberts Brow Gel in the near future to The Look bag.

Your hair is also always on point! What’s your hair routine? Please include your favorite products. 

I love big, healthy hair. I recently got it cut & have been rocking a shoulder length messy shag. I find the most important thing is to keep the hair healthy, with minimum shine. Obliphica is a great product that will be in next month’s shipment of the look bag. I also talked to Beyonce’s hairdresser Kimberly Kimble today about adding samples of her hair product in the near future and she was very excited.

Do you have any other beauty/makeup/hair tips you’d like to share?

I feel that it is important to not be afraid to experiment with beauty. Something that looks horrible on your best friend, can absolutely be the perfect color for you. I also want to tell women that there is no certain rule that will apply to everyone. A example is we have all heard that you should not wear blue eyeshadow. The truth is there are many different shades of blue on the market now that can work for many. That is another reason why I am proud to be a part of The Look Bag. You can try the color first, before making your decision.

More information about TheLookBag and Damone:

THELOOKBAG isthe newest high-end, luxury beauty sample kit customized by beauty expertDamone Roberts, the undisputed “Eyebrow King” to the hottest A-list Hollywood starlets. For only $10 a month, Damone tailors each LOOKBAG for THELOOKBAG.COM subscribers in an attractive, hand-packaged box of five deluxe, re-sealable beauty samples from established brands to prestigious foreign products such as O.N.E Skincare, Rain Cosmetics, Kim Vo and Yarok hair care delivered to your doorstep.

This makes it easy for the beauty obsessed to test drive the latest and greatest beauty samples on the market: if the subscriber likes what they try and wishes to purchase the full-size product, they can do so at a 20% discount at THELOOKBAG.COM.

 THELOOKBAG aims to take beauty to another level by letting members choose between a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription plan. Subscribers will fill out a brief beauty Q&A so each product in their bag is specifically customized to fit their needs. THELOOKBAG is then shipped out free to members within the first two weeks of every month.

 Damone has revolutionized the beauty industry with his own artistry and personally crafted eyebrow products. Known for sculpting the perfect arches for a plethora of A-listers that includes Madonna, Beyonce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Megan Fox, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, and Britney Spears; Damone can now add expert spokesperson to his resume, as the new face of THELOOKBAG.COM, (www.thelookbag.com) a fabulous, affordable and convenientnew luxury sample club.

He has been featured on many television shows including Oprah, MSNBC, The View, BET, Access Hollywood, Good Morning America, CNN and TLC’s national hit television show “10 Years Younger”. Damone has also been a regular contributing beauty editor forOprah.com.

 Oprah - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af5f9UHl614

The View - www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUbGoBrUy_E

TLC ’10 Years Younger’ - www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkaZog69ZhA

Access Hollywood - www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_fvhObEjhw

 Founded by E! Entertainment creator Alan Mruvka, THELOOKBAG.COM is a celebrity driven online store, which allows consumers to view products through video content, read reviews and expert opinion and shop through celebrity partnered unique online stores with exclusive celebrity product lines.