Baka Beautiful Review Coming Up?

Hiya, curly mamas! It's been forever. Uber busy once again. I have a review of the Baka Beautiful products coming soon. It's a 'natural relaxer', and no, it's not one of those freakish gimmicks to make you buy the product, claiming to 'fix' your natural texture. It's all natural and clay based. But it's a kit, with a process that I have to try within about 3-4 weeks, so the review won't be ready until later on this month. I'll do a video about it and probably do a detailed blog post as well. So stay tuned!
By the way, my mini braids are out! ;-)

 They lasted for two weeks, and then my scalp was beyond itchy. So I wet my hair with my aloe vera juice and water mixture and added LOADS of coconut oil to the braids. Taking them out was annoying, but it was a breeze. Three hours compared to the five hours that it took to install them. O_O
Stay tuned to YouTube for the Baka Beautiful review coming soon enough. ;)

~Epic Realist~

 

Changes and Setbacks?

Hiya, guys! I've been mega busy lately with these kids. Everyone's hair has been slacking a bit, including mine. After I had Jalani, who is 2 months old now, my hair has been suffering from me not taking the best care of it while pregnant because I was so overly tired.
I did not keep up on my deep conditioning, which has made my colored ends suffer. Bleh. Working on repairing that now.


Shrunken hair       Stretched hair (I'm at hip length now!)

 

Click the picture below for a video on how I touched up my color a few months ago!

The mini braids in this pic are out now though after having them in for 2 weeks.

So, anyway, I have been full swinging into YouTube now. Video editing is super fun, and I have tons of content to record if I think hard enough, so that is where a lot of my free time goes now. It's good in a way because it keeps me from gaming too much lol!  https://www.youtube.com/curlsofinnocence

I have been doing the new 'Failed It or Nailed It' series that I mentioned last post. It's AWESOME! 

The breakage that I had experienced in my hair a few months prior has been slowly getting better. I still have a lot of short pieces of hair, but it is growing back fast, and soon, I'll finally be able to blend it in with the rest of my hair again and it won't be sticking up all over the place like flyaways. Yay for progress there!

Syriah's hair has been super dry lately, but I don't have time to work deep conditioning into HER regimen. So I keep doing what I've been doing... protective styling mostly, leave ins every other day, water and AVJ spritz, oil mixture, shea butter on top. I've been slacking on her hair care because baby Lani, homeschooling them, and keeping the house clean has been taking up my time. :/

Symari's hair has definately felt the burn of not having her hair constantly moisturized. She has had severe matted bed hair every time I turn around, no matter what style I put it in! She sleeps super wild, which doesn't help at all. 

 

Jam's hair is coming along and growing a lot! I love the new look he has going on. It's fun experimenting with his hair because he has 3C curls, unlike his sister's 3A-3B tresses.

In fact, he currently needs a haircut on the underside of his head again LOL!

Rat tail update (June 26th)

That's all for now, folks! Hope you enjoyed this update. Peace out, curly mamas!

~Epic Realist~

Protective Styling Time!

Hiya, curlies! It's protective styling time for me. Life is extremely hectic right now. So I put mini braids in my hair again. My hair has seriously grown from the last time I did these, which was October 2013.

October 2013

Now (June 2014)


Excuse the creepy faces and the blue lipstick; I was being silly lol! But yes, my hair has grown a ton since this pic. Ironically, I had the same shirt on. ;)

I uses whipped shea butter and Eco Styler gel as I always do when doing this style. It holds up extremely well. Most people think that this is a weave because it's 'so pretty it looks fake', and they are shocked when I tell them that it's not. lol

Here is my latest video! I hope that you guys enjoy the topic. Sorry that I have been MIA a bit, but these kids are a lot to handle. With a newborn again, I am extremely sleep deprived and whatever little energy I have left nowadays often goes into trying to build up my YouTube page. So enjoy... and SUBSCRIBE!

~Epic Realist~

Mini Braid Takedown

Heya, curlies!

New video alert! I took down my mini braids. They lasted for two weeks and it was definitely time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orM2uu2vlJc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUq2NN4aY3jcyJ2TNTwMwQHA

Hope you enjoy! I'm trying to do at least two videos a week to get more of a following. I already have almost 850 likes on my Facebook Curls of Innocence page, but hardly any subscribers here on Blogger or on YouTube. So I did this video and another one showing Jam's rat tail, because I never show him in my vids. Silly boy.
Rate my videos, subscribe, and comment please! ;)

See ya soon!

~Epic Realist~

My Recent Length Checks... and Hair Tip #5

Hola, curly mamas!

I haven't posted about MY length checks in a while. Life has been... well, life. Three kids under four, marriage, homeschooling, working from home, housework, the list goes on. So today, I will show you guys how my hair has been doing lately as far as my growth.

I am beyond pleased with my results lately. Shea Moisture products, deep conditioning, and those KCCM challenges have really been working! I've also been doing more protective styling... mini braids, twists, buns, etc. This is a lot of growth for two months.

Now the last KCCM challenge I was in, I had to basically drop out of because I was without internet for a little while. So I couldn't do my check in questions every week. But I am so ready for the next castor oil challenge, which is coming up in September.

Waist length hair, here I come! Hehe.

The ends of my hair and whatever portion of hair that I dyed back in April is still healthy. I haven't been able to purchase another dye just yet to enhance the color that I have, but the little red that I have in my hair is moisturized and strong. I keep water on my hair, and always seal with oil. Coloring my hair hasn't damaged it at all, and I'm very grateful for that. 

Hair Tip #5

The trick to permanently dying your hair is that before you even attempt to do it, your hair should be in TIP TOP shape. By tip top, I mean your hair shouldn't be a stage where it's falling out a lot, with tons of split ends, excessive dryness, bad breakage, none of that. If you don't feel that your hair is at it's best, DO NOT DYE IT until it is! You're only going to cause more harm to it. Your ends are probably going to feel brittle and break off. Doctor your hair up for a while and then try dying. 

If you feel that your hair is already in tip top shape, then by all means, go ahead and try some bold color! ;)

So that's my advice for today. Peace out till later! Take care of your curls!

~Epic Realist~

Mini Braids On Doll Hair?

Hiyas! This is a quick post about an old doll... of mine, actually. LOL! Pic is self-explanatory.

These braids are on their second week and still not that frizzy. I used EcoStyler gel and that's it. I don't normally use gel like that on anyone's hair, but the way these braids are holding up for me AND her is phenomenal. Whatever works, rock it! #divachic

Until next, my divachics! (Yes, I have a new name for you guys. LOL)

~Epic Realist~

Mini Braids and Insanity Workout!!!

Hey guys! This is just a post about my experience with mini braids, and that I took my mini braids down yesterday, washed my hair, and now it feels fresh and free once again. LOL!
I haven't worn mini braids since I was a teenager... maybe 14 years old... before I got my first perm at 15. That was my staple hairstyle. That was all my mom knew to do with all the hair I had, with out-of-this-world thickness. I didn't like them then because that was practically all I had my hair in, but my hair had always grown long because they were in for at least a month.
My hair wasn't that healthy because I know my ends were split and straggly like mad, and regular hair grease was used to braid my hair, but it still grew. I thought about that more recently, and although braids take longer to install, they tend to last longer. So I did the mini braids in my hair last Monday and left them in for a week and a half.
I used EcoStyler gel on damp hair. Awesome technique. It worked well, and I honestly didn't get much noticeable frizz until the second week. I don't use gel like that, but for this it worked like a charm. They also looked great on me.

 Now, they're not as small as some people would probably do theirs, but ain't nobody got time fo'dat! Not with three kids! This size was great for me. Bad enough it took two hours to do, which is a miracle for my hair.
When the second week began, the itchiness began. My hair likes being washed at least once a week and it goes crazy if it isn't washed once a week. So, you see my dilemma. I almost tried washing it with the braids still in, but I knew already that that would cause major frizz. The gel would be washed out of it, and the manipulation and the water would cause the braids to be frizzy afterwards and I knew this. Plus, it would also be hard to condition my hair. So that was it. My scalp was too itchy, no matter how much I spritzed my scalp with my water/peppermint oil concoction. It was time for the braids to go! I was kind of sad taking them out, but I could easily find the time to do them again if I wanted to.
Besides, with the working out that I have been doing lately, my scalp needed the wash to remove sweat. I have started doing the Insanity workout program. Yes, the crazy hard one, with Shaun T. It's AWESOME. I've got some major pounds to lose, about 30, and since I've changed my eating habits greatly, I've already lost 3 pounds. Combine that with the biking and other random exercises that I have started doing (push ups, jump ropes, crunches, squats), I've added INSANITY to the mix and have lost 3 MORE pounds. So happy! I am seeing my baby gut go down finally.
If you do INSANITY, too, let me know. How far are you in it? Challenges? Given up yet? I've only done the first two videos so far.
Ever done mini braids? How long did it take? Did you like the results? How long did they last before your scalp was on it's knees, begging for shampoo? Tell meh! I like hearing hair stories.
Peace out till later, curly mamas!

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Taking Down the Mini Twists!

The time for the mini twists has come to an end! I tried to go for another week, but Syriah had fun at her granny's house for two days and she came back looking like a ragamuffin! I already knew that it would happen, so I prepared for a long time of taking down the twists... a dreaded process.

Come to find out that I didn't have to dread it, and it didn't even take long at all. It took me 10 minutes to safely take down 70 mini twists. I was baffled. That was it? It was easy, too. I just put some coconut oil in her hair, which is something I do before I ever wash her hair anyway. I started from the top of the twist and used my fingers to pry it apart. Easy. It didn't even get tangled. Her hair feels silky and ready to be washed, and the twist out came out fluffy and cute enough to wear outside, if we had somewhere to go today. She's proud to whip it back and forth.
I introduced her to the Willow Smith 'Whip My Hair' song and now she loves it. Go figure. I have my own personal feelings about what that song and that music video is really about, but I'm not going to deprive my kids of music where the lyrics aren't harming them. Since I love hair, why not? LOL!
So, I will be doing these twists again at some point. I don't think I'd want to try mini braids. Braids are waaaaay harder to deal with, and they take longer. I know because I grew up with mini braids. I had so much hair that my mother didn't know what to do with it sometimes, and this is way before the natural hair revolution. I wore mini braids a lot during middle school and high school because I wasn't allowed to get a perm until I was 15. It took forever to take down the braids I had, and my hair is so thick that there were probably about 200 or more of those suckers on my head. Syriah's hair is a medium thickness, which means that it's not as thick as mine is, but I still do not want to attempt mini braids any time soon, if ever. I'm quite sure that it'll take me more than 2 hours to do all that.
Therefore, I'm sticking to mini twists unless I have a change of heart, or unless I have about 5 to 6 hours to devote to doing her hair AND to making sure that they last for more than 2 weeks. If I ever do that, wish meh luck because I'm gonna' need it! Hahaha! -O____O-

~Epic Realist~