Month: November 2019

I have been raving on about my hair, just because I feel like I have finally started to understand it and nail the curly hair look without having to rely on heat and hair straighteners. I have had a love/hate relationship with my hair (still have bad hair days now and again) but I am so much more in love with my natural hair and love seeing girls falling in love with theirs!

I have a new bible, https://curlygirlapproveduk.com/ that I consult before I make a decision on a product, it is surprising how many products on the shelves claim to be “for curly,natural hair” that really aren’t for it!

I am constantly watching hair videos and routines on instagram and youtube but why look for inspiration in strangers when you have people around you. I asked three of my closest friends, who are also on a journey of self hair love and care, to send me three of things they are now doing which have helped them on their very different curly hair journeys.

Andri

I’ve been using the curly girl method for about 3-4 weeks now and have only had a melt down once! Here are 3 things I’m doing right now 

1. Experimenting. I’m more of a wavy curly girl than a ringlet or coily curly girl so a lot of what I have been reading on line I have had to take with a pinch of salt. And I’m not only experimenting with different types of products but different styling methods, different drying methods, different combing methods, different sleeping methods – the lot of it. When I’m air-drying from washed it works for me to style my hair with my head upright (usually tilted to one side whilst I apply product and scrunch), otherwise when I flip my hair it creates tangles and knots and I lose my clumps which is really annoying and doesn’t give me a good result. 
2. Praying. Not just praying for my hair to go right but using the praying method for applying products before scrunching is a god send and is only something I’ve discovered on the curly girl journey. It helps you to ensure that you’re applying product to the whole of your hair rather than just the roots. If you put product in your hand and scrunch you’re only going to get the ends.
3. Scrunch the crunch with argan/jojoba oil on your hands. This step is SO important, especially for a wavy who can’t really use the curl creams / milks. When I started this journey a few weeks ago I already knew that gel and mousse made my hair go super crunchy and I really wanted to avoid that so started using curl defining creams / milks for ADDED MOISTURE and I’m yet to find something that actually sits well on my hair without making it look like I’ve bathed in coconut oil. One day I read about scrunching out the crunch and it has changed my life! Once the product (gel/mousse in my case) dries and creates a crunchy ‘cast’ over your hair apply a couple of drops of natural oil such as argan or jojoba, turn your head upside down and scrunch your curls (shake your roots if you want to add volume). This gets rid of that crunchy look and feel and leaves you with beautiful, bouncy, well defined curls, as you can see from my ‘after’ photos. Being a wavy, it’s too heavy on my hair to add a curling milk in before my gel / mousse so I skip that part and have been getting some amazing results.

Shanice

So lets get straight into it, 3 things I do better…

1 – No shampoo! Co-washes only (wash with a conditioner which is cgm approved) and use hair masks regularly.

2. Realising less is more! I’m still on my journey to find my perfect combination of hair products but I restrict myself to using 2 at the same time (making sure they’re cgm approved) I used to use 3 or sometimes even 4 to style my hair and it would just weigh down my hair and make it look limp and lifeless.

3 – Scrunch out the crunch! curly hair deserves dedicated time too! I used to think that curly hair should be easy and you could whack in some hair products and your good to go. Maybe for other types of curly hair this is true but for me my hair turns out best when I take the time the scrunch my curls after applying my products, usually until I get hand/arm ache! and if I’m feeling extra dedicated I’ll add some twists in to help form the curls

Melissa

So I went on a full mission with my hairdresser to grow healthy curls after all the damage I caused it. Probably starting in 2016. Three main things I did to get healthy hair back:

1. Regular cuts & treatments. I used to go for cuts and treatments every 6 weeks to get my colour and healthiness back. Then I slowly started to space my appointments out more and more but began doing weekly treatments at home as well for the time in between using my hood. That all helped the condition of my hair and stopped it breaking.

2.Stopped dying and wearing extensions. Wearing my extensions used to break my hair too because I was wearing clip ins every single day.

3. Used less heat on my hair (in the form of drying and straightening).

Now there are quite a few patterns I pulled out from the above comments, that also ring true to me and are probably the best starting points on your curly hair journey. Reducing the heat damage on your hair, experimenting on products (everyone has different things that work for them and I don’t think any of us have found THE perfect combo) and scrunching that crunch to activate those curls!

Now to end off, here are my picture updates (thank you ladies for sharing your pictures, I know that its hard to look at your before pictures when the hair was not glowing as it is today)

Happy Monday!

Not that I have had anyone hounding me for posts, but it has been a while and the truth is, I have been busy growing. Work has been busy, there have been personal strains and my focus was on everything and nothing.

I listened to a podcast, “On Purpose” by Jay Shetty today and it talked about growth. He mentioned these five stages and it stopped me right in my tracks.

We all always want to be winning, but you cannot win without going through the struggle. There is no one moment that suddenly makes you win, growing and getting closer to your goal is through micro-moments. No matter where you are right now, you are in one of the five stages of growing and its up to you to recognise this stage and embrace it

1.Learn 2.Experiment 3.Perform 4.Struggle 5.Thrive

Without learning and experimenting how do you know if something is for you. The famous saying by Edison “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Some people are so impatient that they would rather skip the first two stages and go straight into it (eg. starting up a business you know nothing about) in hope that they will thrive, but then fail without stopping to learn.

I have been learning and experimenting so much when it comes to understanding my health and body. I learnt the power of my gut and how the foods I eat are causing me more headache than worth the taste for a few minutes. And since I took my intolerance test at the beginning of this year I have been experimenting, what can I eat, what does my body tell me. I am still struggling to fully give up certain things that are harming my body (eg. Bread, rice). I have cut it down but not completely out but I have been learning through the process of elimination the kinds of food that make me bloat, make me have flakey skin or scalp or even give me bad skin in general. The truth is, some learning and experimenting phases last a few years and you learn, experiment, perform and sometimes learn again.

My hair is another growth journey. When I was younger, I HATED my curls and frizz ( living in a humid climate did not help). I relaxed my hair constantly straightened it. It was only when I was around 18 that I decided to grow out the relaxer and let my natural hair grow but I still never got to grips with my curly hair. From products to styling. It has only been recently that I have taken the time to learn about my curls, the curly girl method and understand what products are good and bad for my hair. Watching videos to the point that my whole instagram feed is now invaded by curls.

With that, I am also in the experimenting and performing stage (separate post to follow)

What about your career? Do you sometimes feel that you aren’t performing or thriving? Well guess what – it wouldn’t be normal for you to work and THRIVE! When I first started my career in SEO I was right at the bottom, doing analyst work. Now 6 years later, I am managing my own team in house and two agencies and I have expanded into SEO and PPC as two integrated marketing channels (Google Search). Not only did I have to learn something new, I threw myself outside of my comfort zone and told myself I should try it and then decide it if was for me – now I am performing and doing well!

But the truth is, the stages of growth are a cycle of growth because you never stop growing. At a point in life you could be thriving at something but then you decide you want to try something new, swim in new waters.

So the next time you are hard on yourself, or before you tell yourself you aren’t good enough – stop and think about which stage of growth you are in, in whatever aspect in life. And remember, everyone is at the stage at some point and you need to be in it, in order to grow.