Saturday, August 27, 2011

LaNatural: You Can't Be Natural and Lazy

Hey everyone!!!
As you know hair can be overwhelming PERIOD. Especially for natural hair. Depending on ones hair type natural hair can seem impossible. Well my dear friends I'm here to shed some light.

During my time in Antigua I had difficulties with my hair. Upon my arrival back to the states I realized I STILL was having difficulties. I wasn't really staying ontop of my regiments. I would do great one week and not so great the next. I was VERY inconsistent. WAIT I have an excuse!!!!!! I just started working again after two year and not one job BUT two yes I was one job away from being called a Jamaican (hehe). Between both jobs I became lazy. Not keeping up with my current regiments, too tired to even brush, detangling it, hell I was too lazy to do anything. I would slap a head tie and push the loose hair up and walk out the door! That became my regiment. Which resulted to my hair being hard and breaking off UGH *flashback*
You know I can't really call it being lazy per-say because I did have day offs but I spent most of my day off sleeping!! Hey don't judge me!!! Yea I was still being lazy

A few other things that contributed to my lazy factor was that I didn't have a car so I was spending most of my time getting to and from work on the transit system and let me tell you MARTA is not SMARTA all the time. It was taking me nearly two hours on some days to get from work to home and vise versa. I KNOW right TWO WHOLE HOURS!!! do you know what I can do in TWO hours??!?!?!? So by time I reached home all I wanted to do crash on my bed face first. I swear I would do the bare minimal and doing the bare minimal was not cutting it. I would go on Hairlista and youtube and see other peoples hair and the length they were achieving and was getting the natural hair woos. I was ready to slap the creamy crack on it and call it a day!! I was starting to regret my decision on going natural at this point. It was like WHYYYYY!!???! Sweet baby Jesus this is not what I expected at all!! Can you say blind sited. I knew going natural would be the best thing but DANG!! I need a lifesaver MAN OVER BOARD!!!!

It wasn't until one day while I was on work browsing youtube on my phone (A NO NO to be on your phone at my job..sshhhhh) and checking up on my subscriptions that I ran across Black Onyx Sealing in the Moisture post. I heard the Heavens sing!! That post jump started and recharged my natural hair ambitions. That same day I went home and began the L.O.C. Method. Since doing that I noticed a BIG difference in my hair oh wow!!!!! Each day I would make sure I L.O.C.'D twice a day. I didn't care HOW tired I was or HOW much I wanted to stay that extra 10 minutes in bed and we all know what that feels like. I knew that I need to Pop, L.O.C. and drop it before I left my house and before I went to sleep.
Can you say that there was a big difference on how my hair felt!!! I was so happy. I had ALL day moisture in my hair. Bye bye dry natural hair and HELLO moisture. L.O.C.'ing was essential to getting my hair where I needed o be. I can do all the pre-poo's, DC, treatments but if I wasn't doing anything else out side of that how was I expecting for my hair to grow?

I became active again with my hair. I have noticed how much my hair responded to the new methods I started to do. I was kicking the LaNautral habit. I was made anew!! After a week of being active it started to become second nature. Yes I know I said that I would have a on week and then an off week. Well its been nearly two months since I started to L.O.C. so I'm going strong baby!!!! *Sticks Tongue out* lol

Here is one more factor that contributed to the LaNatural tendencies..........watching people on Youtube who had completely different hair types than mine, which ultimately made me mad because what they were doing was working. I would be like WTF I so did that and WHY didn't my hair come out like that UGH!!!! So that's when my operation Find type 4c youtubers and Listas STAT!!! Push one 100cc of Shea butter lol I really didn't do enough research before my Big Chop (BC) I just woke up one day and did it and semi did research....see that's that lazy thing. I guess i figured I cut my hair off and everything will flow naturally*SIDE EYE* ladies you GOTS to put in WERK especially with 4c type hair, but don't be discourage once you get it trained to do the things you need it to do it will be a breeze.

So what have we learned here today?
1. Do your research!!!
Although I did slight research I didn't do enough before waking up one day and driving to the barber shop. It is important to really do your research on what you are about to get yourself into and that's in ANYTHING you do. It is not as easy as it seems. Because soon enough your going to be begging for the creamy crack!! I know I was but once I got the hang of things and get a regiment down it all she wrote!

2. Going natural means you have to be active with your hair.
Its not like being relaxed were you can slap it up in a pony tail and call it George (W.I. saying) unless you just have that kind of hair that you can do whatever you want to it and it still grows (Low key jelly)

3. Know your hair type and what your hair type needs.
What works someone with type 3 hair will not be the same for type 4 ect. So get to know your hair because your stuck with it!

Till we meet again
Natural Luv

Resurrection of Natural Luv

So its been a while since I have shared my thought on my Natural Hair Journey. I figured it was time to get back on the saddle and start back writing about natural hair.

So here is a re-cap:

As you recall I began my Natural Hair journey on December 19th, 2009 (Yes its been that long) A month later I went away to Antigua and Barbuda for almost 6 months. While I was there I realized that my hair was not growing and I didn't know why. I noticed excessive hair shedding. After returning to the states my hair began to shoot out of my scalp! This was an odd surprise. It wasn't until one day I was speaking with a mother and daughter who are also natural. They talked about their trip to Antigua as well and they too realize excessive shedding while on vacation. We came to the conclusion that it HAD to be the water. Not only it was the water but also there we resources that we didn't have to our disposal or they were far too expensive. Yes I know it sound weird but that was the only explanation (water). I thought it was something that I was doing. I came back to the states and my hair began to rapidly grow. Now remember I still was doing the same thing I was doing in Antigua here in Georgia. So I let it go and move forward.

After my hair debacle in Antigua with my hair I began to look more deeper into my hair. While in Antigua I found the Holy Grail of hair knowledge Hairlista.com WOW can you say that this site blew my mind!!! I'm not going to lie it WAS overwhelming with information that was on the site. Women around the world talking about HAIR. The hard part was sifting through all non-relevant post. Each day I would go into the chat and talk with other Listas (members) about hair. What I noticed was I was giving all the great advise BUT I wasn't really doing them myself. You might want to know what advise I was giving that I was not using myself. Well here we go:
1. Regiments
2. Deep Conditioning
3. Vitamins
4. Products
5. Treatment, just to name a few.

I thought to my self.....SELF why do you have all the knowledge but don't do it. Frankly the only thing that could explain that was being lazy!!! Yes people LAZINESS was my down fall for my hair not doing so well. Well let me re-phrase that laziness was my downfall PERIOD!!! Now I can admit my hair was very healthy and still is. However my hair can be a lot more longer than it should be. Especially going into two year natural.

Now we are in the present day August 27th, 2011!! After dropping off the radar I am back to fill you in on some great information that I have discovered on the web and through trial and error.

Here's some backdrop on who I am:
Natural Luv
Natural since December 19th, 2009
Hair type: 4b/c
I am currently Ear Length ( EL) Sidenote: I have had my hair cut down twice
I want to be Bra Strap Length (BSL)
I am looking forward to start my new regiment from the NEW knowledge that I have obtained.


Well that's it for now stay tuned for updates on my NEW hair journey.

Love Always,
Natural Luv