Tag: kinky

Debunking Natural Hair Myths

Hey lovely people, welcome back to my blog! If you’re returning thank you so much for coming back and if you are new here, welcome! Remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this post and follow me on my social media so you can keep up to date with me!

Ever heard someone say something about natural hair and you’re like whatttttt??? Where did you get that from? Well today we are debunking such myths and providing free common sense (lol) to all

Myth 1- Natural hair doesn’t grow!

My answer to this is quite simple: look at anyone who big chopped and their hair now? What is that you say? yh I will wait! Whilst it may be true that for some hair types it’s difficult to retain length, the mere fact that your hair grew from when you cut it is an indication of growth! So your ultimate length is tailbone, floor sweeping hair but that doesn’t mean your shoulder length hair is not growing. Up to some extent your hair length is determined by genetics, after you hit a certain length and it seems your hair is no longer growing, it maybe because you reached your peak. I’m sure you can grow past this length with a healthy hair regime, proper diet and maybe even growth supplements! (Check out my posts on oils http://wp.me/p1uQOd-qx and pills http://wp.me/p1uQOd-qM  for hair growth)

Take a look at this vintage pic of me back in 2011 when I first big chopped! Compared to this pic of me 2 months ago after I got a bit scissor happy (lol, please excuse my face, I had woken up not too long ago!) you can also take a look at countless of hair journeys on YouTube as well.

 

Dec 2011
July 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Myth 2- if you wear wigs, weaves, braids, you’re not natural!

I’m sorry, this is plain stupidity! Why would an extension make my hair not natural? So what hair did we have when we had relaxed hair and wore our weaves/wigs? Wigs/weaves etc are a protective style that anyone wears when they want a break from their own hair. It also provides versatility in terms of heat styling and colouring that most people won’t want on their own hair e.g. I will never bleach my hair but I don’t mind bleaching my extensions. I have a thriving collection of wigs lol (Check under the virgin hair tab for reviews) which seem to increase each year and look, I still have my 4c hair underneath! Whereas I completely stay away from weaves for personal reasons, it doesn’t mean when a natural gets her weave done, her natural hair is magically going to change!

one of my fav wigs
one of my fav wigs

 

Myth 3- if you colour or straightened your hair, you’re not natural!

Ok with this I can understand where the person is coming from when they say this but I feel like it’s taken out of context. In our community, natural hair is the absence of permanently chemically straightened hair right? As in the use of relaxers so that the hair that grows out of your scalp and the hair on your head are two completely different structures and textures. Take a look at this picture back in 2011 when I was cutting my relaxed ends off, you can see the completely different textures (boy, I’m really digging deep for these pictures lol)

getting there anndddddddddddddddddddd
you can see the difference in textures Dec 2011

 

relaxed hair
completely relaxed hair, Feb 2011

 

If you want to be technical, nobody on earth has completely natural hair because all our shampoos, conditioners, leave in conditioners etc have chemicals we add to our hair and will affect its chemistry but it doesn’t straighten/ drastically change the texture because that’s not what it’s supposed to do. When a natural colours their hair, all they have done is add colour to the hair and not chemically straightened their hair. The same for straightening, I have temporarily re arranged certain bond structures in my hair so that it’s laying ‘flat’ or straight instead of curly or coily. It will easily revert back with the addition of water.

I am going to leave it here because I don’t want this post to be too long but I will be back for part 2! What are some of the common myths you hear about natural hair that makes you wonder if there is still hope for humankind lol. Leave your thoughts below. Also do you agree with my answers? What are you thoughts on the myths above? I would love to hear from you!

If you are a UK based natural hair company and would like to be featured in my UK brands series please get in contact! The email is sarah_fynn@hotmail.com and we can work something out!

Until next time

Love

Sarah

Anita Grants Natural Hair Products

Hey family, how is everyone? So taking a much needed break from our Lush Cleansers series, we will be going back to our product collections for natural hair ( y’all thought it was over? Lol). Today we are looking at Anita Grant, one of UK top brands for natural hair. They have a lot of products so let’s dive right in!

Shampoos, Cleansers and Co-wash

  1. African black soap
  2. Babassu alma shampoo bar
  3. Babassu lavender rose shampoo bar
  4. Curl conditioning clay hair wash
  5. Organic kelp and ylang babassu shampoo bar
  6. Peppermint babassu shampoo bar
  7. Unscented babassu shampoo bar
  8. Curl cleansing co-wash conditioner (citrus mint, rosemary mint, unscented)

Most of the shampoo bars are 110g however they also provide bars in smaller sizes e.g. 40g

clays

Deep Conditioners/ leave in conditioners

  1. Banana rhassoul deep condish ( 90g and 940 g)
  2. Black strap molasses and organic slippery elm deep condish block
  3. Curl conditioning milk ( different versions)
  4. Marshmallow rhassoul deep condish
  5. Original rhassoul deep condish
  6. Raspberry rhassoul deep condish

curl milk

Natural Hair pomades

  1. Organic sapote and coconut pomade

Floral Waters and spritzers

  1. Aloe rose oil free hair spritz
  2. Aloe vera gel
  3. Aloe vera seaweed gel
  4. Grapefruit floral water
  5. Jasmine floral water
  6. Lavender floral
  7. Organic rose geranium floral water
  8. Organic rose water
  9. Organic witch hazel
  10. Ylang ylang floral water

Organic natural hair oils

  1. Organic virgin argan oil
  2. Cucumber kissi hair and body oils
  3. Japanese camellia kissi oil
  4. Monoi de Tahiti castor hair oil
  5. Monoi de Tahiti tiare
  6. Organic andiroba oil
  7. Organic babassu oil
  8. Organic burdock root oil
  9. Organic carrot oil
  10. Organic sapote oil
  11. Organic virgin castor oil
  12. Organic virgin coconut castor hair oil
  13. Organic virgin coconut oil
  14. Pink grapefruit kissi oil
  15. Unrefined baobab oil
  16. Virgin pataua oil

anita-grant-hair-oils

Natural organic hair butters

  1. Creamy café latte leave in detangle conditioner ( unscented , vanilla )
  2. Organic sapote shea
  3. Unrefined shea
  4. Virgin mango butter coconut whip
  5. Whipped butter leave in moisture sealing conditioner (Lavender and sandalwood, monoi de Tahiti, pink grapefruit , unscented and lemon sponge)

1610988_10153509434423982_361041238840160831_n

That’s a whole lot of products from start (Cleansing) to finish (styling). I have been able to find a few videos on some of the products, I also contacted them a while back to ask for products to review for this series but to no avail. Let’s take a look at the videos, I tried to get as many covering different products as most of the ones I found were on the condish cubes.

 

 

 

 

Anyways what do you guys think? Anita Grant is based here in the UK for those of you wondering. For more information or to make a purchase please visit the website> http://anitagrant.com/ . Most of the products come in smaller sizes if you wanted to test them out before getting a full sized product. i got the pictures from their facebook page

Let me if you have any of these products

Until next time

Love

Sarah

Remember if you are natural and live in the UK, there is still time to fill out my survey to help with my project, here’s a link >> http://goo.gl/forms/7sV14kVhLf 

 

 

 

I LOVE AFRO

i-love-afro

 

Hey guys, another UK based product collection! This time we are talking about iloveafro which specialise in hand made hair care products. You can also find a lot of information and hair tips on their website, so it’s definitely worth a look. I will provide their link at the end

They have a range of products so let’s get right into it!

Shea moisture lotion

Moisture mist

Detangling conditioner

Wash and go shampoo

Choco butter melt

Hydrate and hold creme

Shea butter melt

The butter melts come in two different scents- sweet honey and paradise (They sound like they smell so good, even Thandie Newton agrees!)

If you are stuck on what to get, they offer essentials packs with a bit of everything:

The cleansing and moisturising pack contains the wash and go shampoo, detangling conditioner and the shea moisture lotion

The complete essentials pack contains the above plus the moisture mist and a butter melt

The style and moisture pack which contains the shea moisture lotion, moisture mist spritz and a butter melt

It looks like a really good collection and you know me lol, I now want to try it. I have been trying to incorporate more natural products in my collection or products specifically for natural hair. Here’s a link to their website >> http://www.iloveafro.co.uk/

That’s all folks! For reviews you can visit the testimonials section on their website. I have a lot of product collections for you guys lol and reviews too so stay tuned! I also have exciting news to share with you guys! Soon come!!

Until next time

With love

Sarah

 

 

 

CANTU FOR NATURAL HAIR COLLECTION

cantu_product_2

Hey guys! Welcome back. This post will be on the Cantu for natural hair product collection. It’s a very exciting range with lots of goodies and we are going to talk about them (even though I don’t own all of them lol) and where possible, I will include links on reviews or demos from YouTube so you don’t have to do all that work! Excited? Let’s get started!

So the full product range includes

  1. Sulfate free cleansing cream shampoo
  2. Complete conditioning co wash
  3. Deep conditioning treatment masque
  4. Coil calm detangler
  5. Leave in conditioning cream
  6. Creamy hair lotion
  7. Coconut curling cream
  8. Define and shine custard
  9. Moisturising curl activator cream
  10. Moisturising twist and lock gel
  11. Coconut milk shine and hold mist

That’s a whole bunch of products! I like this because it has everything from shampoo to deep conditioners and styling options.  I have 3 of them: the co-wash, leave in conditioner and the hair lotion. My fav is the creamy hair lotion. That stuff is the bomb.com and let me not start on the smell! So nice! It really softens the hair and leaves it moisturised! I love the leave in too. I use it as part of my L.O.C method after washing. For ultimate curl moisture, I use the leave in on soaking wet hair and seal with my shea butter mix, twist and let air dry. The next day I take it down and add a bit of creamy lotion and boom softness and moisture for daysss. The co wash I am torn on, maybe I need to use it more. I mean it cleansed my scalp but I didn’t notice anything amazing afterwards.

my cantu collection
my cantu collection

The leave in cream for naturals is a bit different from the regular version, the one we all know and love. This one contains no mineral oil, parabens, sulfate etc. make the switch if you haven’t already!

Difference
Difference

So that’s it for my reviews on the products I own. I have searched wide and combed through thousands of footage for… lool, the hell am I on about? Here are some links I found useful on YouTube on the products. There is nothing worse than watching a video and realising it wasn’t what you were looking for. Please note most of these if not all are videos from the US. I’m not sure if we have all the products here in the UK because I couldn’t see some of the ones mentioned on the Cantu website where I got the product list.

Video links

Entire product range

Coconut curling cream

Moisturising curl activator and define and shine custard

Conditioner, mist and lotion

Twist and lock gel, treatment masque and coconut curling cream

That’s all folks! I hope someone found this useful. If you are transitioning and wondering what products are out there for naturals I hope this gives you an idea of some. I will be doing loads more of these so stay tuned! Here in the UK, you can purchase the full range online at BeautyByZara, link >> http://www.beautybyzara.com/cantu/

Some new and exciting products in the pipeline are

Extra hold edge stay gel

Comeback curl

Wave whip curling mousse

PhotoGrid_1435600856544

I think these or some have been released in the US already but definitely not in the UK at the moment otherwise if you spot it let me know. Also let me know of any videos you find useful and I will update the post accordingly.

Until next time

Love

Sarah

Instagram Response: Hair Typing

Natural-hair-type-gude3

 

Hey guys, so if you follow me on Instagram (Which you should btw- @sarahfynn), you would see a post I posted about 4 weeks ago regarding a topic I was researching for my blog. The question was:

Is hair typing absolutely necessary, or are we placing too much importance on it? Do you also know your hair type and how much has that as affected your choice in products or routines?

Firstly, I want to thank all those who responded. J Greatly appreciated. Secondly, sorry it took a while to actually finalise this post lol. I originally wanted to write this 3 days later but then more people started commenting, I travelled to Germany and the rest is history lool.

Anyway first let’s talk about hair typing, what exactly is it?

In its simplest definition, it is a system created to help determine the various textures (Type 3, 4 etc) of hair among women with curly or wavy hair. So to type your hair, (there is a picture chart below and above) you would use it to compare your hair in its natural state with and pick the one that matches closely with it. The different variations e.g. type 4a, 3c etc depend on how closely your curl match the ones in the curl group e.g. type 4, type 3.hairchart2From my Instagram response and also other women I have spoken to, it seems most of the ones that know their hair type are the ones on the natural game. As in they have a lot of knowledge about their hair and how it behaves and also how to manage it. These were the women who have been natural for a while now. On the other hand, newly naturals also knew their hair type for obvious reasons that they were transitioning and also every video/post you see talks about how their hair is type 3 or 4 so that may then have driven them to find their own (I could be wrong).

But does this information really matter?

Some people said knowing their hair texture allowed them to find products that better worked for their hair or were geared towards them. Others felt it helped them choose what videos to watch on YouTube and what hair styles their texture could produce.

What I also found though was discrimination where some types of hair were seen as good hair and better than others. Type 3 regardless of variation were mostly seen as good, nicer, beautiful and easier to manage whilst type 4 was dry, brittle and difficult to manage and ‘nappy’.

My thoughts

First I didn’t really type my hair (Type 4c and actually I didn’t know my exact variation until this year at natural hair week 2015, yh that real) until a year ago I think and I have been natural for 5 years! Then I found that I was really frustrated with my hair not been as perfectly defined as I would see other girls (mostly with type 3) with (I didn’t know of hair typing at this point. I thought all naturals were supposed to have perfectly defined curly hair). My twists outs and whatever outs were not defined as well. My hair as with other girls with this hair type can testify to shrinkage, it’s no joke! I was left wanting my ‘curls’ to be defined as type 3 and if they didn’t turn out like that I thought either the product was defective or my technique was wrong. Obviously, as I have grown in my journey I realised I have no ‘curls’ and my hair will never look like that and that IS FINE!

What I DON’T AGREE with is the discrimination? Wasn’t the whole point of been natural to have healthy hair? And isn’t healthy hair ultimately good hair? Be it type 3 or 4 or 4f. Another thing I don’t understand are these variations? Every year I swear a new letter is added lol, sometime ago I heard about type 4f? Really 4f? What I also don’t understand is no head of hair is exactly one type of texture so what happens then?

Anyway, to me hair typing is not absolutely necessary. You can survive without knowing your hair type. After all, before it was created I am pretty sure naturals were doing fine. I also believe too much importance is been placed on the exact variations and obviously companies are banking on this. (I am happy though that I haven’t seen (so far) any products that transform one hair type to another with promises of ‘better manageability e.g. from type 4 to type 3 or 2 BUT if you have PLEASE let me know) knowing my texture has had some impact in my routine in that I know my hair is mostly coily not curly, what hairstyles I can do and to some degree the products I use too.

So I want to leave this post open ended. Do you this it’s important? Has it had an impact in your hair journey? Please let me know your thoughts!

The pictures below are some of the responses I got from Instagram, feel free to added you 2 cents J

Until next time

Love

Sarah

Responses

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