Beating the dry hair blues

READER QUESTION:
"I have very coarse, dry, thick natural hair and I can't find anything to maintain moisture. I've tried numerous products, but nothing works!" -- Maia

 ANSWER:Yes, highly textured hair tends toward dryness (with all the curls and bends, it's hard for natural oil to get down the strand). But focusing on the Three P's: porosity, proper sealing and styling -- it will help you stay moisturized, for good.

Porosity Check

Most curly hair is highly porous, which means it has an open cuticle that allows moisture to easily escape and leaves you open to breakage Here’s how to tell if your hair is porous: Place a couple of hairs in a cup of water. If it sinks in less than a couple minutes, it’s porous.

Now what? Here’s how to care for porous hair: Step away from the flat iron and blow dryer, avoid color, trim your ends regularly, and apply weekly deep conditioning treatments with a gentle heat source (like a thermo heat cap).

Proper Sealing

Sealing is locking moisture in the hair, specifically the ends. To do, apply a leave-in conditioner with water as its first ingredient (try Qhemet Cocoa Tree Detangling Ghee), and then seal with shea butter or oil. The molecules in most butters/oils are too large to pass into the hair, so they stick to the outside of the shaft, trapping in the moisturizer!

When sealing after your regular washing routine, apply your conditioner to damp hair in a downward motion. Then apply your butter or oil, concentrating on your ends, and style as usual.

Protective Styling

A “protective” style is one in which your hair isn’t loose. Whether your hair is twisted, braided, bunned or cornrowed beneath a weave, your strands are woven together and more resistant to breakage – plus, they hold on to moisture very well.

As with everything, less is more! So make sure your protective style of choice isn’t stressing your edges, and that you don’t leave it in too long, and that you continue to moisturize your hair even while it’s protected.

Finally, always protect your hair at night with a satin cap. Over time, sleeping with your hair out will result in loss of moisture. It’s not the sexiest look, but the payoff is worth it!

Hair Color- Help Me Choose

Hey ladies, I need your help with choosing a hair color!

The two contenders right now are:

Textures and Tones Cherrywood

Textures and Tones Blazing Burgundy 

I really like both colors but I'm not really sure which one fits me personally. Feel free to suggest other colors that may be similar, I'm always up for suggestion.

Leave any of your own experiences with permanent hair dye below. Thank you!

Giveaway Time

It's that time ladies and gents! Giveaway time! Thank you Sigma Beauty for hosting this contest!

This giveaway is very simple, the rules are as follows:

• Be a subscriber to my Youtube Channel
• Be a follower of this blog
• Be an active participant of my blog and channel
• "Like" the giveaway video
• Comment on this blog and/or my video with request that you would like to see me do
• Be 18 years old or older or have permission from your parents
• You may comment as many times as you would like
• Contest begins as soon as you see this blog and ends May 17th at 11:59PM EST

The winner will receive the travel size E25 Blending Brush

***Picture shown is full size E25 brush, refer to video for actual size. 

Good luck ladies!

Sigma E25 Blending Brush

I was sent this brush by Sigma to review and give my honest opinion. and that is what I will do. I received this E25 blending brush about two weeks ago and have been using it faithfully.

Here's the brush:

Description:

Oval-shaped brush with gently chiseled sides. Blends and softens the look of powder or cream shadows. Ideal to apply eye shadow primer, base eye shadow colors, and blend harsh lines.

My Review:

I absolutely love this brush. It works very well for applying eyeshadow primer, base, and eye shadows. It is amazing at packing on the color and making it appear vibrant even without a primer or base. The quality of the brush is superior and the texture of the brush is very soft. It is very easy to clean and store because of the travel size. Perfect for vacationing or carrying around in your makeup bag. I would definitely recommend this to anyone that is looking for an eyeshadow brush.

Be sure to check out Sigma Beauty today! They have fantastic, great quality brushes at a very reasonable price.

Thank you again Sigma!

Bodylicious Review

Hey lovelies! Todays review is going to be on MsMicalee's Bodylicious leave in conditioner. First, I would like to thank her for being so generous and sending over this wonderful leave in conditioner along with a few other items, which I absolutely love. Now on to the review!

This wonderful leave in conditioner contains some fabulous ingredients that my hair simply adores. The ingredients are as follows:

Organic Aloe Vera Juice, Avocado Butter, Shea Butter, Organic Cocos Nucifera (Coconut Oil), Ricinus communis (Castor Oil), Vegetable Glycerin, Broccoli Seed Oil, Meadowfoam Seed Oil, Vegetable Emulsifier, Potassium Sorbate, Essential Oil Blend, Tocopherol (Vitamin E)

The description is as follows:

The Bodylicious Leave-in Conditioner moisturizes hair for incredible body and shine. Leaves hair silky soft, and frizz free. Perfect for braid outs, twist outs, and dull, dry, hair. This rich creamy formula is naturally formulated to moisturize, condition, and revitalize dry, brittle or damaged hair.

Perfect For: 
• Extremely dry itchy hair and scalp
• Fine hair
• Heat damaged or over-processed hair
• Color-treated hair
• Extremely coarse hair
• Frizzy hair
• Relaxed or natural hair

My take on this product is that I absolutely love it! The only complaint that I do have is that the price is something that I personally cannot afford. For me, this product does exactly what it says it will do. It took my dry and dull hair and made it soft, fluffy, and shiny all without weighing it down. This is definitely something that I would purchase with my own money and use as a staple because my hair loves it!

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who can afford it and anyone looking for a great leave in conditioner and moisturizer. If interested please feel free to check out the website here

You can also find her on Youtube

Thank you again MsMicalee, I truly appreciate it!

Eco Styler Gel

I've finally gotten around to doing this review. I've been putting it off for so long, based on pure laziness. This review will be on the famous Eco Styler gel.

Pros:

• It has a nice perfume smell
• Awesome hold
• Price is great for the size
• Does not flake at all
• Leaves a great shine
• Helps define my curls
• Lays down my edges with no problem
• No buildup

Cons:

• There is nothing negative for me to say about this product, if something changes, I will update.

Price:

• I actually picked mine up on sale at Sally's and it was $2.99

Overall I'm happy with this gel. I've also used the Eco Styler gel with Olive oil and I also like that one. It does what I need it to do for my hair and I highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a good holding gel that defines, moisturizes, and holds.

Sassy Swag Wrap

I was so honored to have Sophelia of Sassy Swag designs ask me to do a review for one of her infamous wraps. She was so gracious to send me over a wrap, free of a charge, so that I could test it out and give my honest opinion on it. I first want to say thank you to Sophelia for sending me this beautiful wrap. I was elated to finally receive it and test it out, so here's my review.

The pros:

• It definitely is sassy and has tons of swag
• The design was phenomenal
• It fits very snug and is adjustable
• It gives personality to a boring head wrap
• It does a wonderful job at laying my edges down at this point in my transition
• Nicely made, great quality 
• Helps keep my straight hair in place overnight and leaves it with a wonderful "swag" the next day 

The cons:

• Honestly, I have absolutely none

All information on these beautiful wraps can be found here

Price:

• $15

There is a wide assortment of colors and material on the website so make sure you go over and check that out.

I hope that this review was helpful and I hope you all stop over to the website and check out all that it has to offer. 

Awesome Giveaway

Ladies I have an awesome giveaway for you all to check out. The lovely MyPureBeauty10 has a giveaway going on right now on her channel until the January 25, 2011. You must be a subscriber to her channel as well as to her blog. There's some awesome prizes in store for the winner so make sure you check out her channel and her blog and show her some love. Besides the giveaway she definitely has some great videos on hair tutorials as well.

Check out the giveaway video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CIRXjM62pg

Also check out her blog:

www.mypurebeauty.net

Outre Narissa

Hello lovely ladies! Happy New Year to you all! I hope that you all had a blessed and safe holiday season! I finally took out my sew in after almost a month of having it in but you can find out more about that in my previous blog post. I mentioned that I would be doing protective styles until August and I've been sticking with that. I started this challenge at the very start of December and I've been really enjoying all of the styles that I've been able to do and get.

Now from the title some of you may have guessed that this has to do with some type of hair and if you're big on wigs then you know that Narissa is a beautiful half wig. Now this is my very first half wig or wig period and I must say it's nothing like I thought it would be. For some reason I thought it would be very uncomfortable and that it wouldn't look right on me but I was mistaken on both parts. I love this wig it's very cute, sexy, and fun. I've been wearing this wig for a couple of days trying to figure out how to rock it before I go back to class and I've finally got it.

Initially I lightly flat ironed my hair and used Beeswax and soft rollers but that didn't work because my hair didn't curl. So my next option was to use the hard rollers and maybe that would work, but that was a also a fail and so uncomfortable to sleep on . The last attempt, which should have been my first attempt, was using flexi rod sets (3/4") and that was perfect. So after a couple of tries I finally figured it out and I love it even more. Since I am transitioning and my new growth is a bit wild I use a headband over night to lay down my edges and that works perfectly for me.

I'm loving the curls in this wig and I hope to wear it for at least two weeks, hopefully longer if it holds up. When I was looking through some of the reviews I saw that some people said that after a couple of wears it was a mess and what not but mine is holding up just fine, so far at least. If you haven't figure it out already, I LOVE THIS WIG! I'm so anxious to try on other wigs. This is a great protective style for me and I hope that it helps me to retain my length.

This was one of my practice runs before I actually got the hang of it, hence the reason you can see my new growth and it isn't blended.

Getting a little better with it!

Finally got it. You can still see my new growth but it looks much better compared to the first picture.

Hope you all enjoyed =)