Friday, November 30, 2012

Tyra Banks and "Good Hair"

Last night, I just came across this for the first time on YouTube. Tyra Banks was talking about 'good hair' on her show. Apparently, this episode aired years ago, but I'm just now seeing it.
Don't laugh at me. I don't really watch TV.
It's a five-part show, so there are four other videos with this. She was talking about hair around the time when Chris Rock created that documentary called "Good Hair" (which I need to watch again, by the way). It was an interesting Tyra episode... very informative, inspiring, and sad at the same time.
How many of you have little girls who have gone to school and gotten teased for their hair? Perhaps their hair isn't long enough, or straight enough, or even short enough. There was one little girl on the show who was teased because she was black and her hair was too long. Really!? Since when are you ridiculed for having long hair? Oh, I know. Because the other girls in her class are ridiculously jealous of her. Poor thing. She has what most people want and yet she gets handfuls of her hair pulled out at school.
Kids are just so mean.
But what's even more sad is that you can't blame the kids. It's not their faults. It's the parents. However your child acts in school or behind closed doors is a product of what you created. If you are telling your little girl that her hair is ugly and nappy, then she will grow up with low self esteem, tease and bully other girls who have long, straight hair, and when she's old enough, perm her hair relentlessly and burn it all out. A lot of women don't realize that because they've grown up and their mothers possibly did the same thing to them, they are damaging their own daughters as well.
One woman on the show had even started to perm her 3-year old daughter's hair. Three!? Ouch! That's how old my daughter is. I wouldn't even dream of putting such a harsh chemical in her hair, especially at that age. Her hair is still growing in delicately!
I feel sorry for these poor little girls. Their mothers have already taught them that there is such a thing as 'good hair' and 'bad hair', and that if you have 'bad hair', you won't get anywhere in life. That's the negative perception that we all have about our hair. Society will not accept us with our knots and coils. There was an author of a particular book about black hair on the show, talking about why we all have this perception and where it came from. She said that it went all the way back to slavery, when the slave masters had sex with a black woman to get a mixed child, and that child was light skinned with long, wavy hair. That child got  opportunities in life that a regular, all black slave child never had. That light skinned child often got a greater chance at life... better food, shelter, clothes, and education. So we've automatically been brainwashed into thinking that if we are lighter and look as much as possible like a white person, we're good. We're on top of the world and we can get the same jobs as a white person. We can fling our hair like a white person. We can be rich like a white person... if only we had good hair.
It's just so sad that a lot of us still have that mentality. It's simply ignorance that we've grown into. We're portraying it to our youth and don't realize it. We have to do better with raising our young girls. I applaud the mothers who have gone natural and allowed their daughters to go natural as well. We should be embracing our culture. I don't mean do anything stupid... run a muck with afros, screaming 'Black Power', bring back the Black Panther party, protest in the streets or anything like that. Just give our youth better self esteem, and that there is no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' hair. If you have some hair at all, you're good. Ask yourself... would you rather be bald instead of having the kinks in your head, and not have the opportunity to wear a wig or a weave over it? I'd rather have something than nothing! Why do you think cancer patients have it so hard in the hair department?
Yes, taking care of our hair is difficult. It is. But that is where we educate ourselves on how to take care of what we were born with so that it becomes easier. This is where some mothers are just plain lazy. Instead of perming the kid's hair, they could braid it or do something less harmful that takes the same amount of time as perming it does. There are so many things to do to a child's hair so that it won't take long to quickly fix in the morning, or even at night. Doing those home perming kits takes about, what... 30 minutes or more for the whole process? In that amount of time, you could have detangled and done a protective style! Oh, and let's not forget the blow drying and the dreaded flat ironing process... that's too much for a little kid to go through. Some mothers are just lazy and lack the knowledge on how to properly care for the child's hair, so they make it as easy as possible... for them, not the child.
This is yet another reason why I am homeschooling my kids, because if either one of my daughters ever come home crying with a chunk of their hair cut off because some jealous brat got trigger-happy with scissors that day, or my son comes home with his rat tail gone, I'm going to go a-wall on somebody's parents.
So parents... let's get our acts together... for the sake of causing more harm to our kids.
(steps off soapbox)

~Epic Realist~

Friday, November 23, 2012

Shower Hair

Hiya, guys! Hope everyone had fun on Thanksgiving yesterday. =)
I just wanted to make a random post about how my hair looks straight out of the shower. It was detangled in the shower with my Tresemme conditioner, and then rinsed out. My hair is still drastically falling out, but I think it may be getting better because of the castor oil. Not sure yet; still in testing phase.
I don't really have much of a set routine as of lately. The only thing that is for sure is that I wash my hair every week, and the shampoo that I use has not changed. I still use my Shea Moisture Curl and Shine shampoo. I haven't really gotten hip to co-washing, mostly because I'm not in love with the Tresemme conditioner and the fact that I don't have much time to co-wash in the middle of the week. I do spritz my hair with distilled water throughout the week, though, and add an oil such as coconut oil or castor oil on top of it.
My hair never feels too oily until the end of the week on wash day, when there is some product build up from other products.
I haven't flat ironed my hair in ages... almost a year, probably. I am dying to see my real length, but recently, when I was going to flat iron it, the darn thing shorted out on me when it was plugged in for five minutes. So it on longer came on at all. I had to throw it away. Cheap thing. I'd only had it for year. it was brand new and it was a gift from someone. It was a Revlon iron, so I thought it was of good quality, but apparently not! Now I have to wait until I can get a new one, a much better quality one.
Right after a shower on wash day, I dry my hair with an old T-shirt and apply castor oil directly to my scalp, and give myself a 5-6 minute scalp massage with my fingers. It feels great and the oil absorbs in well. It doesn't make my scalp itch like everyone else says it does. LOL! It's probably because they put the JBCO on dry hair instead of on wet hair.
Any oil is best used on wet hair, and JBCO doesn't work best at all on a dry scalp.
This is a new thing that I added to my routine, and I'm looking forward to seeing more hair growth.
After I do the massaging, I separate my hair into four or six huge sections and gently detangle with my wide toothed comb, then just twist or braid each section. Then I wrap it into a silk scarf before bed. The next morning, my hair feels soft, fluffy, and amazing, and ready to style into whatever style I want.
Well, that's my little hair wash routine for now. I'll be back with more hair tips/styles. Peace curly mamas!

~Epic Realist~

Friday, November 16, 2012

Epic Dryness! O_O

The weather has been wrecking havoc on our hair lately. It's abnormally cold here in Georgia this year so far, and I'm trying to keep my hair and Syriah's hair pinned in up and moisturized at all times. Definitely no fros!
I love trying out new random styles in Syriah's hair. It seems like I never do the same style twice... except if it's just two strand twists for bedtime. Haha!
We're all struggling through a bad cold at the moment, yes, all five of us, so I've been slacking with everything. But I shall get back on things soon enough!
For the dryness, I've been doing the simple stuff... my shea butter and water. I spritz distilled water on the hair until it's damp, and use the shea butter mix to twist. With my hair, I don't have time to take down my twists every minute and re-do them. So I just spritz my hair while it's in twists, rub the shea butter on my palms, and smooth it into my hair. Very little manipulation. If Syriah's twists are not too frizzy, I'll do the same for her.
Last week, I washed my hair with fat twists still in for the first time. It greatly helped. I didn't have to worry about serious detangling, and the massive hair loss that I've been going through did not show up in the shower drain again. I washed and conditioned with the twists in, so when I was done, it was easy to apply shea butter and re-twist while wet.
I think that I will be sticking to this for the winter... or at least for now. Thanks to YouTube, once again!
Oh, and I ordered more of the Jamaican black castor oil!  Kinky Curly Coily Me (https://www.facebook.com/KinkyCurlyCoilyMe?fref=ts) is having a castor oil winter challenge starting in December and I have joined. I really want to see how castor oil grows your hair.
There's been a huge rave about this stuff, and I just ran out of the one that I'd bought at the hair show. I had already seen some growth then! My edges have gotten thicker since using it. I'm already amazed. Ha! Maybe it'll make my hair stop shedding. Hopefully.

Peace out, curlies!

~Epic Realist~

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Hair and... Politics!?

I do not view going natural as a political statement, because frankly, I do not care about politics. I believe that politics are fake, and that they only portray into the media what they want the masses to believe.
I went natural for two reasons. For one, I was sick and tired of society's view on bashing black women who did not keep their hair straight and 'manageable', and secondly, I already had a passion for 'naturalness' my whole life but I didn't really know it yet.
I got tired of buying lotions and hair creams that 'didn't work' for my hair and skin because they were full of chemicals. I would complain to my sister about commercial lotions that we'd buy and use, and the next day, we were so ashy, it was as if we put nothing on at all. 
I would get utterly frustrated when I got a cream for my hair, lather my hair in it, twist or braid it up, and the next day, it would be as dry as the Sahara Desert. When I did get perms, I only got them every 4-6 months, so I was pretty much wearing my hair natural and curly, anyway. I went to college with my hair still wet a lot, and people called me 'white girl' because my hair was long and wet, and still looking good, even though it was damaged. So 'big chopping' after transitioning for two years wasn't hard for me and it wasn't a hassle. 
I did, however, have to learn how to really take care of it, and that's what I continuously do today.
The rise of natural hair products has definitely made me feel better as a black woman, knowing that we no longer have to succumb to buying crap in the stores because that's all there is. We can wear our natural hair as we have been so afraid to do for years and not have it break off due to overuse of parabens, sulfates, and petroleum.
Going natural is like going on a choosing a healthier diet; you cut out a lot of the bad things, but you have to learn what healthy things you should substitute for and put into your body as well as how to care for your body. You can't just say, I want to eat healthier but I'm not going to research how to do it, so you continue to eat the same way and not exercise. Sorry, not going to work. You won't get anywhere anytime soon with that kind of mentality. 
It may seem that going natural is harder than being relaxed, because in a way, it is. Everything that we are supposed to be doing right is automatically going to be harder. That's just life. We were born natural, so taking care of our curls is what we were born to do. Growing your own food will automatically be harder than just going to the supermarket and picking up any type of food you want with no hassle, because that's the way the world was originally supposed to work. We've just gotten lazy over the centuries, and we don't want to do any more work then what we are allotted to do. Constantly spritzing, detangling, moisturizing, twisting, parting, and styling seems to be harder than just going to the salon for a relaxer every six weeks or so, but that route has it's share of hard work as well. 
Technically, your hair may require more care with a relaxer than our natural curls, only because the chemicals wear our hair down, but hey. Either way you rock your hair is still work to look nice and be as healthy as we can.
Natural hair maintenance can be super hard work, but it's worth it, ladies! Peace out till later, curly mamas! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Curls-of-Innocence/256662627753918

~Epic Realist~

Sunday, November 4, 2012

MASSIVE Hair Loss from Thyroid Issue!? O__O

Does anyone have or has ever had thyroid issues that made your hair fall out in clumps? I think that's what I'm dealing with right now. Been like this for about three-four months... and not letting up. In fact, it's getting worse.
I thought that this was still postpartum shedding from when I had my baby nearly five months ago, but this has gone way beyond shedding. It's falling out... literally... every time I wash/manipulate my hair.
I have 95% of the other 'normal' thyroid symptoms that have nothing to do with hair, but I do not have health insurance and I DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT want to take any freakin medications for this. It's only an iodine problem, but it's apparently not the type of iodine that we get from normal salty foods because I eat more than enough of that.
Anyone have any natural solutions for this? If so, please help a sista out because I don't want to lose my beautiful thick hair! T_T #haircatastrophe


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Curls-of-Innocence/256662627753918?ref=hl

Peace, my curlies!
~Epic Realist~