Grown folks, into the pool for adult swim!

one of the topics I've seen discussed repeatedly on natural hair sites is how to workout and still manage to keep your hair looking nice and minimize any risk of damage. well, i saw something today that made my secret swimmer's heart race with glee!

turns out there is a way for natural girls to go swimming wihtout ending up with dried out damaged hair in the process. Kcurly over at Newly Natural has cracked the code!! check THIS out:

"So, fast forward to the next time I went swimming. I soaked my twists with conditioner, applied my lycra cap, followed by a silicone cap and furthered secured with the swim band.

"Now this is a winning combination! My caps stayed on, I couldn’t feel any water seeping in, and there was no need for a chin strap! I still looked goofy, but it worked!"

I am just as excited about the swim band as she is! finally, a way to go swimming without wearing that oh, so inconspicuous chin-strap swim cap.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
yeap. that one.
 
happy swimming!!

it's majik!

last year when i began the transitioning process, i would look wistfully at photos of women with comb coils online and say to myself "that really looks nice, i bet i could rock that look...or end up looking like a stick bug trying."

the stick bug image kept any attempts at this hairdo at bay.

well, for those of us who are not as easily frightened by the prospect of looking like bugs, some witches over in the 214 have come up with a product that can give you geeyogious coils in about 3 nanoseconds. something to think about the next time you're about to plunk down DUCKETS for comb coils that are gonna take hours to be placed.



the lotion that is put on the magic sponge is kinda sticky, so it grabs the hair and helps the coils stay put. so you can walk around feeling all Deep and Thorough on Tuesday and then wash it out to be all Free and Cree Summer on Thursday.

if you so choose.

man, i gotta start going to hair shows...on second thought, never mind. the magistrate will not understand that i spent my rent money on hair lotions, potions, and notions.

and no one is impressed by a well appointed homeless woman.

when there is no Plan B!

i woke up late this morning. so late, i didn't have time to go through my wash and go routine.

all i could do was throw some spritz on my hair and slap in a headband.

this is not one of those cutesy stories where i end up saying something darling like "and the hairstyle i created out of necessity turned out to be adorable!"

no.

before the spritz and the headband, my hair looked like this when i cracked one eye open and looked in the bathroom mirror this morning:

funny, that was totally my expression...

the end result was a slightly less thirsty looking still lopsided afro with a black band around it.

by far, today was my greatest hairdo FAIL.

i have got to come up with a Plan B for hair care on mornings when i'm running late...

My Type of Christmas Giff!

ahhhh, the holidays. hot apple cider, Christmas trees, seasonal carols, sugar cookies, and (of course) the age old question most moms ask ourselves:

once it's all said and done, will i at least have enough money to buy MYSELF something that doesn't come on a dollar menu???

as if in answer to that question, i received an email today from a local natural hair care salon here in my city with some amazing news. i'd heard about this sale once or twice over the summer, spoken like an unconfirmed rumor. it is, in fact, a reality:

Miss Jessie's Christmas Special

Buy One, Get One Free for Items of Equal or Lesser Value.

November 26, 2009 - December 31, 2009

The featured products for the 2009 Christmas Special are Miss Jessie's products that are 16 oz, 12 oz and 8 oz in size.

having never tried Miss Jessie's because of the price, this is something i can honestly get behind. i mean, who WOULDN'T feel better about spending $40 for a 16 oz container when you're gonna get two? ....why yes, that was the sound of a needle scratching a record you heard when you read the words "$40 for a 16 oz container."

nonetheless, go forth and have yourself an awesome natural Christmas.

i always suspected Santa was into natural hair...

She said vs. She said.

back in the day when i was in college, i participated in a day long women's conference which focused on black women and issues affecting us. on a condition of attending for free, the conference organizers allowed students to volunteer to assist in some session (checking in attendees, scurrying about with microphones for the q&a sessions, etc.)

one of the sessions i attended was about black women and hair. and i am pretty sure that of all the women in the room, i was one of the few who had relaxed hair.

during the question and answer sessions, i noticed that a common theme kept getting aired by the attendees: natural was way better and relaxed hair was a huge indicator of the state of mind of the wearer.

and that state of mind was a disaster.

i got my turn at the mike and i asked if it didn't seem a little hypocritial to assume that a women who had relaxed hair was brainwashed when we JUST got finished talking about how women with natural hair are assumed to be angry, militant, and political.

the answer i received in return was the sound of crickets.

so here we are a good 12 years later and i'm now wearing my hair natural. and, when i think about it....i only have a few people i know who chemically relax their hair. my mom was natural and a few of my aunts have stopped relaxing their hair as well. and you know what?

none of us give a hot damn about how another woman decides to wear her hair. not even enough, really, to see Chris Rock running his trap about wigs and weaves.

yet, i'm noticing something going on amongst we black ladies out here: it feel like we're getting line up to fight about something stupid like hair texture and how we got it.

that all being said, there some i'd like to try to communicate without making people go all crazy:

there is a historical basis behind why black women started relaxing their hair in this country. am i saying a woman who relaxes her hair wants to look white? nope. i'm aware that she's a black woman who wants to look like a black woman with straight hair. but i am also aware of WHY having straight hair was so very important not so long ago in our collective history in this country. take a look at racist memorabilia in this country and see what was done to us. any one of us can tell you of an instance in which the word nappy has been used in our lives, and not in a good ass way.

i recall overhearing a white classmate in middle school who lamented, while staring in the bathroom mirror at her straight hair, "ugh! my hair looks so nappy and gross!"

while many of us can agree that you don't have to have straight hair to be considered attractive, professional, or feminine, the messages about beauty and acceptability in this country that all women receive almost constantly don't honor this idea. we get the same treatment with body type and skin tone.

that being said, I found some blogs that address the opposing sides of the Hair Texture coin and one that happily lands smack in the middle.

She Said: Can I Touch Your Hair? Black Women and the Petting Zoo

She Said: Natural Elitist: Please Sit Down and Shut Up

REF!!: Who cares if you have a perm? I don't. 

i completely agree with Assertive Wit in that we all have WAAAY too much to do than to sit around scrapping and biting at each other over our hair. like raising our children, fighting for equity in pay, getting our educations, lifting one another up, and holding it down for ourselves and ours.

we don't know each other's stories. let's just keep open minds instead of coming up with yet another false construct by which to justify our bad treatment of one another.

A convert to the Church of Our Lady of the Satin Cap

i am ready to admit it: despite my research and the numerous blogs i've read, i can admit that i have found myself behaving as if my hair is invincible in its natural state.

confession time: i don't really pay that much attention to the ends of my hair and i do NOT sleep in a satin cap.

now, to my defense i've never used a satin cap. i've been lucky that my hair when relaxed was still pretty manageable after a full night's sleep so i never really bothered. and vanity caused me to decide that i did not want to go to bed looking like Miss Jane Pitman. and by go to bed, i mean "go to bed," ya feel me?

but an incident happened this morning while showering that made my blood run cold and quickly reminded me of the benefits and prudence of wrapping one's hair at night:

i fought the terrible fight with a  pretty tenacious fairy knot.

what's that? you say you've never heard of a fairy knot? well pray you never experience it. in my mind, i imagine the fairies responsible for this hair abomination look like this:

having experienced this (and the sensation of breaking out into a cold sweat while standing in a hot shower), i am convinced. Miss Pitman was a strong, proud, and most likely fairy knot free black woman. I'm praying at the same church she prayed.

but she can keep the water fountain.

FAIL

dear woman,

even before you went too daggone far with the hair, you were committing felony fuckery with the eyelashes. I sentence you to 9 semesters of black literature studies with a concentration on The Bluest Eye and a lifetime prescription refill of Latisse.

sincerely,

everybody