MY Hair Update 2018 + Dye Issues.

Hiya, curly mamas! 

It's probably been forever since I talked about MY hair.

This picture (s) was taken and edited last month, I believe. I had just redone my pink color over my blonde again, and it looked wonderful, as you can see. However, if you have dyed your hair before, then you know how fast reds and pinks can fade. LOL

So, I bought an Herbal Essences color shampoo and conditioner to see if they would hold the color in longer. I have yet to see if that's true or not. I am still experimenting with that. 

As far as my hair health goes, my hair is in a really healthy state right now. It's flourishing and growing! I had mentioned in a Youtube video last summer that I wasn't gonna cut my hair at all for any reason for a while, and I hadn't. I only gave myself a light trim a few months ago, and that is only because the hair at the crown of my head is always way longer than the rest of my hair (kinda don't like that) AND those ends were kind of split. So I cut off like a half an inch and trimmed some split ends off the rest of my hair, which were probably caused by bleaching.

Just two years ago, I said that I would no longer dye my ends. Apparently, I lied. I love the way that ombre hair looks and I love having my bangs fully colored. I just have to take care of my hair BETTER than I did 2 years ago, when I was still preggo with baby Kyanah. 

I have also learned more about my hair and I have been sticking to just TWO product lines as much as possible, as far as moisturizers. I will elaborate more on that soon.

Thanks for reading!

~Curls of Innocence~

Check out the website & SUBSCRIBE to Youtube!

http://curlsofinnocence.com/natural-hair

Bleached Hair Damage + SHEA MOISTURE Haul!

Hiya, guys! I made a quick video showing what happened to my hair after bleaching it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5l-0syfKwA

So, as you can see, my 3B pattern got more loose after using the dye, but I really don't mind it.  I knew what could possibly happen before it did.
But I wanted you guys to see what effects bleaching agents have on my hair.
My hair is also mega dry, and it breaks much easier now! The bleached areas are more fragile and weak, and I can't put too much stress on them. The LOC method, or even the LCO method (even using shea butter on top) does little to hold moisture in my hair now, which is no bueno lol! I have to add a little bit of protein to the moisture every once in a while, although because I am protein sensitive, it's often hard to govern how much of a balance is needed to keep my color from being damaged even more. I am still working to figure that out, but being natural is a journey... a long, exciting one! ;)

Ideas I may implement: I may start adding keratin products to my hair to protect the color... and also these Shea Moisture products that I bought the other day.

I went to Walgreens on a 50% off day. I didn't even know that was the case until I went in, and I bought these three Shea Moisture products. They are wonderful so far. I will have a video done about this soon, and also reviews. Oh, and I finally found that black lipstick that I'd been looking for for ages! Woo hoo! ;) #geekpower

More updates and blog posts coming soon.
In the meantime, check out the latest videos from my channel.
Peace out! https://www.youtube.com/user/curlsofinnocence/videos

~Epic Realist~

Lightening Hair...Completely NATURALLY! ~PART 2~

Hello, again, curlies! I have completed my first hair lightening technique with natural products! For details, see Part 1 of this post. http://curlsofinnocence.blogspot.com/2013/08/lightening-haircompletely-naturally.html
 I can't see any lightening yet, but I plan to do this every week or every other week until I see a change.                                              BEFORE rinsing
So I left that cinnamon mixture in my hair for about three hours, because I wanted to wash it out while my kids were down for nap. When I took the bag off my head, my hair was kind of reddish looking, but very soft & it smelled VERY good.

I began to wash the stuff out. It was super grainy! Cinnamon grains were all over my hands with every touch. I washed my hair leaning over the tub because I wanted to use my shower hose to really get the mayo and stuff out. The part of my hair that had already been dyed looked lighter with the treatment in it. Maybe that's how it'll look in a few treatments. ;)

It took forever to rinse this stuff. I didn't use any shampoo because I have read that when you do a deep conditioner with mayo, it's best not to shampoo just yet. Surprisingly, my hair never smells like rotten mayonnaise or sour eggs after washing it out. So I kept rinsing and rinsing and rinsing until my back hurt.

All of the mayo was out, but the cinnamon granules just kept coming out!

 Oh, well. I got up and softly squeezed the water out of my hair with a towel. More cinnamon invaded my fingers. Mad softness, indeed. I think the cinnamon and honey did a great job along with the mayo to condition my hair. Like I said, no color results yet, but not only will I wait until it completely dries to tell for sure, but it takes a couple of treatments like this to see color. I am so excited to try this again!
                                            
                                               AFTER rinsing

If I notice any other changes to my hair after doing this treatment, I shall let you guys know soon. I hope you enjoyed this review of a natural hair lightener... for us black folks. Peace out until later curlfriends!

~Epic Realist~ 

Check out our Facebook and YouTube pages for more info and hair tips.

Lightening Hair...Completely NATURALLY! ~PART 1~

Hiya, curly friends! I am so bored with my hair and do not have the funds to get another Shea Moisture dye to attempt to dye the ends of my hair again. So I decided to find a completely natural way to lighten my hair... without dyes.
I've heard of all kinds of things before, but some of them involved peroxide or bleach. I said, hell no, definitely not the bleach. Way too damaging from what I have heard. I searched YouTube, where there are tons of videos with women dying their hair with simply... cinnamon and honey. Cinnamon is the main ingredient; apparently, it has lightening properties, which is awesome. I have heard of this a few years back, but was always skeptical to try it because it takes more than two tries for your hair to begin getting lighter.
But anyway, I came across this website http://blackhairmedia.com/healthy-hair/3-natural-ways-to-lighten-hair-or-add-highlights-using-cinnamon/ and found recipes that have actually worked on dark hair. Not blonde, not auburn, but dark brown and black hair. It was a simple recipe. I had all the ingredients, so I said, why not? How hard can it be? The kids were watching their morning TV, so I gathered everything I needed and mixed it all up. For the deep conditioner, I used my homemade one: mayonnaise, honey, grapeseed oil, and EVOO. The amount of honey in the recipe was what I used for the entire process... the DC (deep conditioner) and the lightener recipe.
The mixture started out thick, but as I added the liquid type things, like the lemon juice, it got a bit watery. Couldn't help it. Blah. This is a pic before I dampened my hair to apply the mixture.

It smelled SOOOOOOOO good, I wanted to eat it! But I didn't. LOL! Although it's edible, I don't think that this concoction would taste as good as it smells. >_> 

I draped a towel around my neck and used my fingers to apply it all over my head. At first, I was going to only do my ends, but why not? I needed the deep condition, anyway. It was a dripping mess, though. :/ 

 So this is what my hair looked like as I was applying the stuff. It felt good in my hair, but the cinnamon made my hands all grainy and brownish. It was also a little cold because the lemon that I squeezed juice out of had been in the fridge. They say that cinnamon burns, and my head is burning a little right now, but it's not bad, not like I have a relaxer kind of burn. I used every drop of the mixture because I have a LOT of hair. Then I tied a plastic bag over it and threw my shower cap OVER the plastic bag for more heat penetration.

My ends were already lightened from the Shea Moisture hair color that I used in April. I am hoping that this works, but they say that you have to try it about 3 or 4 times for you to noticeably see results.

So I am going to leave it it for as long as I can... probably all day if possible. Not sure if I will be able to see results after one time, but I will come back and show you guys what my hair looks like after rinsing it out.

Peace out till lata! xD

~Epic Realist~