Brittany’s Regimen/Less than Fancy Favorites :)

Bonjour!

Since my hair is very different from Roxy’s hair type, I’d like to show you some of the hair products that I use that not only make my hair more manageable, but aid in maintaining the length and moisture that’s so critical to my hair.

My regimen is EXTREMELY simple. I’m not one to do much with my hair in terms of experimenting with various colors, etc, however I love my styles. I wash my hair once a week, and when I say wash I mean with shampoo, conditioner, my deep treatment, the whole pamper session! My shampoo’s are either Kinky Curly Come Clean or Yes to Carrots shampoo. I much prefer Yes To Carrots because although it does lather, it cleans my hair. I’m not to much of a fan of how Kinky Curly feels, however if I’m low on Yes to Carrots, Kinky I shall use.  I shampoo as many times as necessary until my hair is clean, which is usually once or twice.

After my shampoo session I detangle with Tresemme Naturals Moisture conditioner or Herbal Essence Hello Hydration. These two conditioners are staples, they make detangling my hair a breeze. I’m not the type to pour a whole bunch of conditioner in my hair, so these bottles last me quite a while.

For a deep conditioner, I do my homemade honey deep treatments. Mix in honey with some oils or conditioner of your choice, warm it up in the microwave and I’m done. This recipe is online, I just modify it to my use. I put on a shower cap and walk around in my robe for an hour or two while it does it’s thing. I used to use brand name treatments, but I’m still searching for one that screams “I’m the one girl your search is over!” For now, my honey does me justice.

Voila! My pamper session is over. After this I use either my Giovanni Leave-in Conditioner, Homemade recipe, or shea butter/jojoba mix and I’m done. My hair is usually in twists, braids or cornrows and that lasts me a while. One go-to hairstyle I’ve grown to love is the high bun since my hair is long enough to do so now.  If I do a bun, I use shea butter mixed with jojoba oil, tie down a satin scarf, and wake up with smooth hair. I do style my hair often though, those will come later ;)

My hair is not difficult to manage, nor is it extremely time consuming. It took patience, but I finally learned to listen to my hair, and I take care of it according to it’s feel and needs. That’s it!

Haiti! :)

Roxy's Favorite Hair Products That Don't Break The Bank :)

Hey Oh My Afro readers!!


I want to show you some of my favorite products that I used as I was transitioning and I still use today.
I love these products because they get the job done, and they're cheap! I am very picky with prices, I like to keep everything within my budget :)

$7, Wal-Mart

The shampoo and conditioner AVEENO NOURISH + MOISTURIZE are fabulous! It leaves your hair feeling so soft after you wash it, it's unbelievable because of how cheap it is. Doesn't give my hair the ultimate shine, but I have other products to show you for that. It leaves my hair clean, smelling great and feeling soft. The three things I NEED in my shampoo/conditioner. I love it! You can get it anywhere from Wal-mart to Sally's, just go to the shampoo aisle and find this hidden treasure.

$9, Sally Beauty Supply

I had been hearing for a while that Moroccan Oil is the "best thing on this earth for hair," giving it shine and moisture and magic-- whatever, it's not a good price. At all ($40). What?! I was not about to spend that much. So! I went to Sally's and got the best thing after it: ARGAN OIL. Some say it's an imitation, some say it's pretty much the same thing only a different name. Either way, I love what it does to my hair. Right after I wash my hair, I pour maybe a quarter size drop in my palms (I have a LOT of hair, start off with a little and then increase the amount), I spread it out and then apply it all over my hair. It smells good, not like perfume, but doesn't stink either. It gives my 'fro all the shine I want and a soft texture. When I put Argan Oil in my hair, I don't put anything else, I make my 'fro a puff, or just leave it out all wild and crazy. 

$5, Target

I've been using GARNIER FRUCTIS SLEEK & SHINE ANTI-FRIZZ SERUM since I used to straighten my hair. What I love the most is how it smells!!! I'm a big aroma person, my hair NEEDS to be smelling good all the time or I will freak out. If I want a poofy afro that doesn't really have "defined perfect curls" and instead it looks more like a sponge, then I use this product, spread it out all throughout my hair for a soft, perfumed and shiny 'fro. Make sure you always (ALWAYS) have some sort of amazing conditioner to nourish your hair because this product alone won't do it. Only use this every once in a while when you're in a rush and you're just going to have your 'fro out or in a puff or something :) 

$22, Ouidad.com

My favorite favorite favorite favorite products on this whole planet go by the name OUIDAD. I got introduced to them by my stylist because her salon is one of the certified places that can sell the product. I LOVE THEM!!! Especially the CLIMATE CONTROL HEAT & HUMIDITY GEL. Ahhhhhh, it's my magic potion. It's not even fair to call it a gel because it's not, it's just amazing. Whether I have a big event (like prom or a wedding) or just want my afro to be pretty for church or a party, this baby always has my back. Makes my curls PERFECT.... Seriously. It only takes me around 15 to 30 minutes to do my hair, depending on how defined I want the curls and if I'm in a rush or not. Later on I'll put a post up with a lot of instructional videos on how to use the Ouidad products from the Ouidad lady herself. GREAT products! Not too cheap, but definitely worth the price. I get mine at SEPHORA.COM for $38 and it's a bottle almost twice the size shown in this picture. I recommend you get it from there too, sometimes the shipping is free and you always get free samples with your order. 
Here is the link: http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P269810&categoryId=B70

$25-$50, Sephora.com

My favorite "not-homemade-deep-treatment" is also a Ouidad product!!! The 12-MINUTE DEEP TREATMENT INTENSIVE REPAIR is wonderful. I always leave it on for more than 12 minutes, but 12 minutes is all it takes for you to see a radical change in your hair. If your hair isn't shining as before: get this! If your hair is feeling rough: get this! If your hair needs some loving: you need this! <3 

All comments are appreciated!! 

If you use great products that won't murder your wallet, 

post a comment with the name of it, I'll check it out and add it to this list as one of your favorite products :) 
Thank you!

With love,

Roxy

xoxo

Natural Odyssey

~Brittany~
Bonjour! :)
   One thing I love to do is travel. Staying in one spot begets a mindset of one who has lived their whole life in a box. I am logical to an extent and I adore the analytical, but I love creativity, it brings life and color into dull spaces. Therefore, I travel to learn and see other cultures, traditions, sights, whatever I can get my hands on. If you are not able to travel, at least read a book, but if you are, hop on the next plane and go somewhere! I plan on traveling in the next few days, however one thing i do not like is traveling with my hair out. That is a big no no for me (bad experience). So i put my hair in a protective style, pack my diva/prescription sunglasses, and fly out the states.

I hope they didn't think  I wanted them in the picture. Twists in Italy! 15 years young 

For those who don't know, protective styling is "any style that prevents the breakage/snagging of hair."You are protecting your hair from natural elements like weather, or even our clothes (scarves, turtlenecks). I can't stress the importance of this enough. My hair is protectively style 90% of the time. This style of styling allows the hair to take a break from constant manipulation like combing and brushing, and allows it to retain moisture better. I am not an avid weave wearer, but I'm not against it, and I think its a great way to try new styles. However, it's not for me on the daily. But when I'm traveling? Twist me up! I think braids/twists are a great way to protect your hair while staying pretty. To prepare for my travels, I put in twists.

They're so long! I underestimated the length of my actual hair, so we had to twist my hair past my waist so that my hair would be completely covered. It's a lot of hair but i like to make huge buns so it's perfect. More pictures after i come back will be up :) until then, Ciao! xoxo
God Bless
S/o to Gen for doing a great job :-*

OMA! Man Of The Month! December

Krantzy, 20 

1.) First off, are you aware of anything that has to do with natural hair?

  Well. I know what a perm is. Apparently it makes black peoples hair look like a white people’s hair.


2.) So, how do you feel about a girl with an afro?

Dang, watch yourself! That’s my response. Man, That’s different, that’s cool. Its like huh…..at first, it doesn’t really catch me cause typically you wait for the day she busts out with weave or perm so after a year you don’t see that your like dang, what’s up! It takes some time for the true affect to kick in cause it could just be like oh she’s just going for that look but no, that’s her actually hair. It catches my attention.


3.) What are you attracted to, mainly physically, in a girl?
Uh….I’ll tell you what I’m not attracted to. If I have to go grab a ladder, like a mini ladder for me to climb up to her so I can be the same height. Other than that, I am attracted to hair. (laughter) I want you to understand I’m not limited to this, AT ALL! (added emphasis) but this is the truth! Picture jasmine from Aladdin, like fair skin long black hair, the tint of her skin matches strong colors. Nice big eyes, not too big like ET, but strong eyes. But I’m talking about midnight long black flowing hair, thick, yet not thick. Just Black! On her Back! I can accept ponytail hair though.


4.) How do you feel about girls with weave?
I mean if I never came to Southern Adventist University I would’ve been alright, but now? Its gonna take me getting used to. I don’t see it enough over here, at all. I haven’t been around weave so I don’t think about it, I see it time to time, but I’m not around it. So I’m not gonna “not” talk to a girl who has weave, but it would take some getting used to.


5.) Would you prefer to run your fingers through your girl's hair or grab it?
Woooaaahhh!!! Slow down there [laughter]….Grab it.


6.) What matters most, how her hair smells or how her hair feels?
Dang! That’s a good one. Hmmmm…dang…dang…….I would have to say smell. Yeaaa….because if I touch it and it feels like mine, I’m just not gonna bother with it. I wont touch it anymore, I’ll be cool with it, just as long as it doesn’t smell like dirty rug or burnt tires. But if it smells good, I’m good. It can feel like mine, but it can’t stink.


7.) How do you feel about girls who go bald for the sake of being natural?
[Laughter] Man. If it’s for a good cause I’m down with it. But if its just for the heck of it, I'm not down for it. Like what the freak? Nah. I’ll supply the wig.


8.) How do you feel about a girl who has extremely kinky hair versus a girl with loose curls.
Both are treated as equal to me. I’m down for both. (looks at my picture) Oh yea. Yea I’m down.


9.) Would you prefer an extreme amount of hairstyles or the same two or three hairstyles all the time?
Hmm…I’ve never thought about that. Well, since I’ve never noticed, it doesn’t matter, but wait with all those hairstyles come money!! (Me: No its not I do my own hair.) Well then. Different hairstyles, but please not every day. I envision myself making a joke with my wife about how she never changes her hair. So I’d like a little change up from time to time.


10.) How do you feel about color?
Radar! Radar! My guy radar goes off! I mark her. You know when you’re studying a textbook and you highlight certain things that stand out to you? She stands out mostly on a dangerous extreme yo this girl is a wild one. For me, yea, I like bad chicks. That’s a good thing. I’m just kidding, I like them all, color, honestly, it depends on the color. So it can be good or bad. Normal colors, something that looks natural, that’s cool. Blue, Rihanna red, no, you’re looking for a Chris brown. 


11.) If your girlfriend is thinking about going natural would you encourage or discourage it? Big chop, slow transition, or weave?
 I would encourage it. But you better weave that thing up!


12.) Are you more discouraging of different skin tones going natural?
NO.






Interview by Brittany

A Tale Of Two Afros; Chapter Roxy

So, my hair journey has a lot of loops and turns and twists and shifts, but THANK THE LORD for every single one because it brought me to where I am today.  First of all, let me explain my ethnicity.  My father is Haitian and French, and my mother is Native Venezuelan, Spaniard, and a teeny bit Middle Eastern. So, I’m a big mix. I’m light skinned like my French grandma, I have natural curly/afro hair like my dad and grandpa, but I have facial features like my mommy. Not only was I mixed, I lived in Venezuela where it’s so uncommon to know a hairstylist with black nappy natural hair knowledge. All they knew was putting crazy chemicals and applying heat—almost like a bomb process of lighting up Uranium or something.  They put so much crap on it, petroleum probably was the best deep conditioning available to deal with the level of damage they would put on your scalp (I'm talking petroleum that makes gasoline, not petroleum jelly).  That being said, my safest and smartest choice of a hairstylist was my mommy because she saw me as a little girl and not an atom bomb. 

Anywho, since the moment my mommy found out she was pregnant, she always prayed that I would have an afro. And for the longest time I would whine to my mom for those prayers because it only made my life difficult. But that was a LIE from hell. My natural hair that my mommy prayed for is the most beautiful thing about me and I wouldn’t trade it for anything on this earth.  For twelve years I put myself through torture of trying to defy my DNA and change my hair to something it was not.  Finally at the age of 16 everything began to look like it was falling apart, but instead—everything was falling perfectly into place. 

Let me be completely blunt right away and say my process of transitioning was because of two boys and Brittany. Yes, sounds so pathetic, but hey! Adele has made millions and fame from past relationships, why can’t I?? ;) I started dating this one kid, let’s call him Mr. M. Well I had a dumb crush on Mr. M and I was willing to change myself to please him. Now, I didn’t realize how stupid I was. He was into gothic Asian girls with the perfectly straight asian black hair—there was NO WAY I could transform into that. Yet, I accepted the challenge of mission impossible.  I died my hair black, did stupid crap with make up, but the worst and BEST of all was that I straightened my hair so vigorously that I damaged it to the extent that it began to break from the root, and if I passed the straightening ironer one more time, I would have hair that was 1-inch long.  One: I STILL didn’t look like a gothic Asian; Two: we broke up; Three: I was one step from being bald. The only thing I could do was to avoid all heat of any kind, just wash it and go.

And so it began; the hair growth process. As I was growing my hair, I was all sad and depressed and bitter because I wasn’t able to change myself (duh!). During that time, Brittany started telling me to go natural and the fact she was doing it too gave me the motivation I needed. So, I rebelled and decided to be natural. When my hair had grown for about two inches, I met another boy! Regardless of the relationship, or him (Let's call him Mr. X), or I or whatever, he was my cheerleader through the whole process and made me believe I was beautiful every single step of the way. My afro and where I am today I wouldn’t have been able to reach without him. He was my cheerleader throughout, and if you want to go natural, a cheerleader will make the ride so much smoother. Let me show you how horrific I really looked back then-- and I thought I looked cute too! The horror! *shivers*

I started to do different styles with my hair as it was growing.  Everything from braids, to big twists to just blowing it out after washing it and calling myself mufasa :D My confidence began to build as I was transitioning, instead of my confidence building when I already had the all-natural-afro.  Best blessing ever! Because when I reached my afro I was already happy and confident, not all doubtful and stuff.  Woohoo!

Two years and some months after me dying my hair black and burning the already dead hair, HERE I AM! Strong, beautiful, happy, proud, and IN LOVE with the way God made me. 

Muah!

Roxy

A Tale of Two AFros: Chapter Brittany

Bienvenue à tous! C'est moi, Brittany!

So Ohmyafro wouldn’t be complete without showing you guys where I’ve come from in terms of natural -> relaxed -> natural.  It was quite the journey for me simply because I still have no idea why I went natural. I did it when it wasn’t exactly the most “popular” thing going around, so I had no resources, advice, tips, nothing! Which is partly why Roxy and I made this blog, to help you out in ways no one else helped us. Let’s start with my typical long luscious relaxed hair from age 7 that eventually lost its length due to my scissor happy self.

From this

        --->

To This lol

When I moved to Florida, there was an immediate change in the way the water felt, and I changed hairstylist as well. We can say for me, it went downhill from there although I still had “long hair” to everyone else (my definition of long hair is so different smh). You could definitely tell it wasn’t my same head of luscious bodacious hair I had before lol

So when I turned 14, I told my mom that I’m sorry lovely lady of mine, but I’m going natural. She laughed, then she asked me why, I told her I had no idea. Maybe I was just crazy. The term we’ll use is looney, because that’s what everyone who knew my relaxed days said about me. So I went natural the most horrible way you can possible imagine. I blew out my hair and flat ironed it every wk thinking my natural hair was the Queen of Queens and nothing could phase whatever was growing from my scalp.

 I’d say that was probably the worst decision ive made in my journey. Heat damage was my new best friend, it was a violent relationship. 

So Short! lol

 So I cut the heat damaged part. Mistake #2!! My hair stylist believed that the back of my hair was “pretty, we cant cut it!!,” so she only cut the front. I don’t even know what to say about the shape of my hair after that, im still suffering the consequences. It was looked like this __---, with the front being shorter and the back being longer, but when you have afro, it just looked awkward. Enter Kimmaytube. *Cue heavenly angels*

 Boy did she save my life. I followed that woman to the “T”, and my hair rejoiced and praised the Father for that. From there its been a twist out, growing my hair patiently, number amounts of styles journey that I would say has been such a life learning lesson. Ive learned patience through my hair, who would’ve thought that dead  filamentous biomaterials on my head could teach me so many lessons and attract so much attention. Anyways, I love it, and I’m letting it do its thing.

You look so much better when you Smile

Ciao dolls and gents, xoxo. God Bless 

The Time Has Come.... *drumroll please ;)*

For Brittany and I to come together and make a blog for all of you that are thinking, or in the process, or already loving being beautiful with your natural hair!!! Yay!


As I was out shopping with my mom today, (as always) I had people commenting on my hair with the most amusing faces of amazement. I heard every comment from "I love your hair!" to "WOW! That's some cool hair you got" to "How long did it take you to grow it out??!" to "I wish I could have an Afro and pull it off" to "MOMMYYYYYY LOOK AT THE BIG HAIR!!!!!!!" an my favorite of all: "I love your hair, I'm trying to go natural right now and I really can't wait for it to be as long as yours. What advice can you give me?"


Yup, that last comment is the reason why Brittany and I decided to make this blog. We hear it all the time. So we want to give you advice, guidance, and motivate you through this process. 


Natural Hair Is BEAUTIFUL. If you don't believe that, oh no girl: we got some work to do. If you do believe that: GOOD! BECAUSE IT IS! IT'S GORGEOUS! IT'S WONDERFUL! IT'S RARE! And with a lot of research, a lot of patience, and someone to look up to: YOU WILL GET THERE! Oh, and you'll love it too. 


It's so funny, when we have (yes because both Brittany and I had it too) damaged permed hair, you know your hair isn't beautiful. You try and you try, but no matter how hard you try to make it something it's not-- that's it: it's not and it won't ever be. When people ask what's the most beautiful thing about you, your hair will not even make it to the end of the list. BUT! When you're natural hair virgins, and someone asks what your favorite thing about you (physically) more often than not, your response will be "oh, my Afro!" ;)

Roxy