Hair Products

So, I just snuggled onto my couch, flipped open my laptop and began my usual website rounds: email, facebook, news, and I generally check out a site designed for the curly girly every now and then. I'm not sure which one I came across today, but under the products section it stated that their personal fave was products by Jessicurl. I have seen those products referenced before on other various websites, so I decided to check it out for myself. WOW! is all I can say... Jessica McGuinty has created a fantastic website! I am very impressed. She features instructional videos that are easy to follow, extremely relevant, and useful to help style curly hair (even without her products). I also love that she explains the "why's" of everything: why you should not brush your hair, why you should not touch it when it is wet, why the product you use leaves your hair crunchy, why you should use which diffuser and when, etc. She has certainly shed some light on how to handle curly hair. I also love that the products are created for different types of curly hair. Richer, thicker products for thick, long, heavy hair and light, airy products for shorter, thinner, finer hair. Brilliant! I find myself to be a very frugal person, but I was so impressed with her line of products (and how stunningly gorgeous her own hair is!), I purchased a combo pack of 6 products designed for thicker hair. I bought the products in the "Island Fantasy" scent which is a yummy concotion of coconut, vanilla and citrus (coconut is hands down my favorite scent of all time!). Buying that combo pack also addresses another one of my gripes for curly hair: It is difficult to find worthy products that all smell the same... My hair ends up smelling old lady-ish with the combo of products that I have to use. So, with all this said, the jury is still officially out on the effectiveness of Ms. McGuinty's products, however, when they arrive some time in the next week I will surely update you on how they stack up to my current cache of hair prodcuts. I'm so excited! Can't wait to try them all!! :)

Curly Celebs

Here are just a few of my favorite naturally curly celebs...








Gorgeous hair, right? :)

January 2008 Hair

This is what my hair looks like as of January 14, 2008. Not as bad as I thought... Maybe just a little reshaping and I could actually like the way it looks... Oprah-ish or no? I vote no...

A little timeline

From top to bottom:
1. Natural curls March 2006
2. Long, shiny and relaxed March 2007
3. Growing out. Top half curly, bottom half straight. 3 or more inches of relaxed ends. This is what transitioning hair looks like when it is raining. October 2008, on my birthday, right after my first chop.
4. November 2008 after my second "sugery." 2 or more inches of relaxed ends. Forced to straighten every day.

Hopefully, I will have a current picture posted tomorrow with my hair curly. One of my friends said its style resembles Oprah's... Not sure if that was a snarky comment or not, but I think Oprah knows what she's doing!

Oh, the begining...

Well, both mama and papa have curly hair and neither of them like it - Dad keeps his hair cropped short and mom diligently straightens her hair on a daily basis. Lucky for me, out of the three kids they spawned, I was the only one to inheret the curly hair gene :) Mimicking my gorgeous mother, I have spent the majority of my 24 years tugging my ringlets (often to no avail) straight. I am a long hair girl, meaning I always wear my hair long and prefer long hair on women in general. So in my neverending quest to achieve long, silky, pin straight hair I finally cracked and let someone relax my hair. For those of you who are not familiar with the term 'relaxing', it simply means perming your hair straight, as opposed to curly. Ah, September 29, 2006 was destined to ruin my life. On that day, I let a reckless stylist ruin my hair... At first, I loved it! Shiny strands, reduced straightening time, frizzless on the most dreary New England day, but then, very shortly thereafter, the honeymoon ended. My hair became very dry and took on this fried appearance, clumps started falling out of my scalp in random spots, and then the regrowth... Fuzzy curly roots became the bane of my existence for the next year or so. Imagine having two different textures in your hair! It was simply awful... Which leads to me why I am writing this blog. Eventually the fried, straight, gross hair had to be cut off. I decided it was time to just reconcile the fact that Mother Nature put every ringlet on my head for a reason. I decided to cut my hair on October 4, 2007, shortly before my 24th birthday. Traumatic, seeing as I only had a year's worth of regrowth which really only amounted to about 6 inches of virgin hair. So my stylist went slowly: at first just past the shoulders, then brushing the collarbone in November, and finally in December hovering above the shoulders. All in all at least 5 solid inches was shorne from my cascading mane... So devestating! But I quickly got over it once I decided that having my hair short(er) in its natural state is worth more than having long fuzzball hair. So here I am, slowly learning to love, nurture and maintain my ringlets. As hard as I am working to enjoy what nature gave me, I am quite eager to enjoy it at a longer length. So for the next year (or more?) I will lament the trials and tribulations of resisting the urge to chop and letting it grow. I will furnish this blog with photos of the progress and rap philosophical about my triumphs, pitfalls, envies, products, and just life in general. I hope you at least get a kick out of a girl whose vanity leads her to spend actual, valuable time to muse about her hair...