CONDITIONER Ingredients : Purified Water,Cetearyl Alchol ( from Palm Kernal or Coconut Oil) Cetrimonium Chloride ( from Palm Kermnal or Cocnut Oil) Cyclopentosiloxane, Dimethicone, Dimethiconal, Polyqaternium-10, (from Cellulose), PEG-7m, Lecithin (from Soybean), Macademia Nut Seed oil, Panthenol (vitimin B5), Wheat Germ Oil (source of natural vitimin e), Maltodextrin (from Corn), Hydrolysed Wheat Protein, Organic Olive leaf extract, Organic Aloe, Organic Chamomile Flower extract, Organic Ginseng Root extract, Silica, Magnesium Mitrate, Methylcholorisothazolinone, Maganesium chloride, Methylisothiazolinone

A couple of weekends ago I was strolling down the Strand with C when he decided to pop into Superdrug to pick up something. I think it was razors, but I’m not sure because as soon as I get into a drugstore/health food store/ grocery store, I immediately head for the hair care aisle to see what strange and random product they carry. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this line of hair products by Natures Organics. I purchased the Dry Moist conditioner that boasted the following on their label:

* • NO Sles, Sls, Ales, Als
* • NO Parabens
* • No Petrochemical cleansers
* • Cruelty free
* • Plant based packaging
Containing olive leaf extract designed to smooth and shine as well as replenish moisture to dry hair. Your hair will feel manageable and healthy, helping to reduce split ends and damage.

Let me just say this product is AWESOME! It is now my absolute favorite. It left my hair smooth and little shiny – but not fake shiny, has pretty good hold, but mostly it made my hair feel soooo soft. Worked really well after a Cherry Lola treatment, and worked well with a twist out.  The company that has great ethics and best of all it’s price tag was under £4 pounds. You can check out the website here

Unfortunately, this product isn’t in every Superdrug- but I’ve been to the one in Westfield and they carry it there too. So try a larger store. For some reason Superdrug’s website doesn’t carry it- I’ll keep looking for those who need (or prefer) to order online.

Ingredients: DI Water, PVP/VA Copolymer, Propylene Glycol, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Laureth 23, Glycerin, DMDM Hydantoin, Fragrance, Polyquaternium 10.

Acording to their advertising, this is the number one selling product in Naturally Curly’s CurlMart. I picked up this product in December, from Shesells.eu a site based in Europe that carries a few natural hair products including Curls and My Honey Child. I bought it there because Curly Hair Solutions doesn’t ship to the UK. It’s a Canadian product create by Hair Stylist Jonathan Torch. You can check out the website at Frizzoff.com He is also the creator of the “tunnel cut” which is a hair cutting technique that scares me just watching him…

I bought this right before I went Natural, and then forgot about it- getting side tracked with things like Shea Butter, Coconut oil, henna and such… And I kinda thought that I wouldn’t work on my hair 3c/4a hair.

Now I wish I had tried it right off the bat because it has got me thinking.

I’m kinda torn about this product. Let’s talk about the good stuff first. This is silcone free liquid that you apply to drench hair and then let air dry. Which is exactly what I did. And once my hair dried it look great. My curls were really curly although more of an flat S shape then the small ringlets i get from other styling aids. Plus it made my hair a richer color of black which I loved! I had my hand in my hair most of the day, but it didn’t effect the shape of the curls. And it lasts- I went 3 days with this stuff and normally I can barely make day 2 hair. Plus C like it. He said that this was his favorite style so far.

However. My hair felt really crunchy at first. The more I played with it the less crunchy it was but even by the end of the day my hair felt dry- not really “touchably soft” which is how I like it. Maybe this will be different if I put a leave in conditioner in first. Plus, I had to use alot, like 1/3rd of the bottle, which normally would be an issue except that once you add shipping and exchange rate this stuff cost £30. Which is a lot, in my opinion.

Overall I give it a 9 for performance, 5 for feel and 2 for affordability.

As I said, it’s got me thinking. This is an oil free product. After using this product I have had some second thoughts on using products with oils in my hair. My curls seem to like being oil free, even if they felt funny. I’m not sure yet….This weekend is going to be all about testing!

Anyways, I’d love to hear what you think of oil- any kind of oils…

So I’ve used apple cider vinegar (ACV) for rinsing my hair since I went natural. Usually one a week, all though I’ve stopped since I’ve started doing the “cherrylola treatment” So I tell you now that this post is not about hair.

It’s about my skin.

If you’ve been reading my blog you’ll know that I have super sensitive skin. (I also have a very sensitive internal system.) My skin wasn’t always like this. I had normal, oily t zone skin since adolescence and was always on the look out for something to stop the oil. 3 years ago, a product from L’oreal called Pure Zone was heavily advertised on TV. The claims were that zinc helped it reduce pore size and stop your face from getting oily. I bought the whole line. And destroyed my skin. The moisturiser in particular burnt the t-zone area, mostly the area around my nose and around my mouth and chin. It is in this area that women tend to get red and often, breakouts because of our hormones. I now know that zinc plays a big role in how progesterone and estrogen interact with each other. I’m not sure if this is why i had such a bad reaction to it but I’m guessing that it contributed.

Since then I have had seriously sensitive skin. Flaky and dry and yet oily too. Plus Eczema. I haven’t been able to use normal face washes. Anything with sulfates flare my skin up. Same with parfum. For the first year I struggled to ash my face until I decided to try Pears soap, which my mom has used for years. I found that this was a pretty decent way to get makeup off without irritating my skin too much. But it was drying. To combat the dryness I could only, sadly use Vaseline. Everything other cream I used burned. I tried oil: olive, almond, and coconut all to no avail. Even shea butter, which the rest of my body loves, set my skin off. Vaseline stopped the outbreaks for the most part, but clogged my pores. On the worst days I would use the steriod cream that the doctor prescribed, on top of the vaseline.

Last week, on another fluke, I decided to exfoliate my skin with a mixture of baking soda and honey, and followed with a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water, using the mixture as a toner. It has been eight days now and my skin is super smooth, the flaking is almost completely gone, no acne, and i can tell that my complexion is more even. For the last three days I’ve managed to put a frangrance free moisturizer on it and not vaseline!

I did a search online and a number of people have found that ACV is a great toner for skin prone to acne. So I thought I’d post about it, just in case anyone else is having skin problem. This just might work for you too! If it does let me know.

Recipe for Eczema Skin and Acne-Prone Skin:

Cleanser/Exfoilator
2 tablespoons of baking soda
1 tablespoon of raw honey (unpasturised)
1 teaspoon of warm water
Make into a paste. Wet face adn the massage the mixture gently on skin for a minute or 2. rinse thorughly.

Toner
1 Part apple cider vinegar
1 Part water
Splash on to face or apply with a cotton ball.  The vinegar smell will fade

Follow with a plain moisturiser if necessary

A few post back I mentioned I came across this product in Morrison’s and said I liked it. I’ve been using it for a few days and have decided to change my ruling on this product.

I LOVE IT.

I’m going to go so far as to say it’s better then LustraSilk. For me at least. I did a test this weekend. One day Henna treatment Wax, the next Lustrasilk. The Henna wax has far more hold- which I need, and left my hair feeling far more silky. Plus my hair is far for resistant to puffing up over the day. In comparison, the Lustrasilk almost felt chalky. The camera died this weekend so I’m going to try the test again next weekend just to be sure- and this time I’ll take some pics.

View the tutorial here

Over the weekend I was trolling the net researching things about hair, when I came across a really gross article about soy sauce being made from hair.
Check it out here.

Yes, Grooooossssss. I actually think this is just a rumour. But still. Yuck!

Anyways…it got me thinking about Soy Sauce. Or, more importantly, Liquid Amino Acids.
Amino Acids (AAs) are the building blocks of protein, which is exactly what hair is; protein.
I also have Amino Acids in my fridge as I use them instead of plain old Kikkoman or tamari sauce.

In total there are twenty amino acids:
Alanine
Arginine
Asparagine
Cysteine
Cystine
Glutamic Acid
Glutamine
Glycine
Histidine
Isoleucine,
Leucine
Lysine
Methionine
Phenylalanine,
Proline
Serine
Threonine
Tryptophan
Tyrosine
Valine
Minor Amino Acids
GABA
Taurine

There are two types of amino acids:
1. Non Essential AAs – these are the kind that your body produces on its own.
2. Essential AAs – these are the kind that you must get from edible sources. Proteins such as chicken, fish, nuts, and (to a lesser degree) soy are all great sources for essential AAs.

From my research I’ve concluded that all AAs are important for hair health, but the following ones play the most important roles in hair:

Essential Amino Acid

Methionine

• A powerful antioxidant;
• A good source of sulfur which helps in the prevention of hair, skin and nail disorders;
• Prevents the premature loss of hair;
• Works in the body to detoxify many harmful elements;
• Works as a good anti-fatigue agent;
• Aids the breaking down of fats to prevent the buildup of fat in the arteries and liver.

Non essential amino acids

Cystine,

• Makes up 10-14% of the skin and hair, vital for healthy development of skin and hair;
• Encourages better recovery from burns and surgical procedures.

Cysteine

(Cysteine and Cystine are interchangeable; two molecules of Cysteine make Cystine.)

• Great Antioxidant and a natural detoxifier;
• Essential in growth, maintenance, and repair of skin and hair.
• One of the three main sulfur-containing amino acids, along with Taurine and Methionine.

Tyrosine

• Produces melanin, which is the pigment that gives the skin and hair its color;
• Vital to the body’s overall metabolism;
• Can improve your moods and is used to treat depression, insomnia, and anxiety.

Now let me just say; I LOVE AMINO ACIDS. I don’t know why, but they cheer me up. At night, C and I usually have a big salad and I always spritz on some AAs for flavor and almost immediately I get an uplifting effect from them. I get a little giddy. After looking around a bit, I think it has something to do with the Tyrosine.

So the burgeoning mixtress in me got all fired up. I decided to put AAs in my hair.

I thought about it a little more. I couldn’t just pour them on my head; I didn’t think that would work as they’re thin like water. So I mixed it up, and here is my recipe:

Yogurt - 2 parts
For the protein and the conditioning properties.

Baking Soda 1/2 part
To make my hair more porous.

Amino Acids 1/2 part
To see what they did.

I’ve used yogurt and baking soda before, mixing them with other things, and they were okay.

But together with the AAs – AMAZING!!!!

I sectioned my hair into eight parts and applied the concoction with my fingers, making sure to coat from root to tip. As soon as I put the treatment on I could tell something was different.
My roots! My roots started to clump together.

This has been my big “issue”; frizz – mostly at the roots. This treatment totally calmed the frizz down and made the roots behave the way the rest of my hair does. It has become curly from root to tip. I was floored by the results. I still am. I’ve done the treatment three times now over the course of a week and the results seem to just get better. I haven’t changed anything else in my regime and have been using Lustra Silk and my own handmade conditioner, or the Henna Wax Treatment, and co-washing every other day with Boots Coconut and Almond Oil Condish. But judge for yourself, here are the pics:

Click here for more on the Cherry Lola treatment

MORE POSTS ON THE CHERRY LOLA TREATMENT

This is my texture un-handled. I’m am 3c/4a hair type for those who care to know

An Average Twist Out

First treatment

First Treatment Results

2nd Treatment

2nd Treatment Results

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3rd Treatment Results

MORE POSTS ON THE CHERRY LOLA TREATMENT

Here’s where you can buy Braggs:

If you try this and it works for you – or if it does not – let me know!!!

I was on my lunch break strolling through Morrisons Supermarket last week. Whilst browsing the “beauty aisle” I came across this product. I’ve never seen this before- but I’m not a born and bred Brit so this may be a totally common item. I saw the words henna and the price of £1.59 for a pretty big jar, needless to say it was in my basket fast.

I gotta say, it’s pretty good. I used it for my twist out last night and it has pretty good hold and added a nice bit of shine. It smells nice and really moisturises. It has great slip. I think this would be a great conditioner for using Terri’s technique. It’s quite thick, so I’m going to try it out this weekend and see if it works. Overall- a great product!!

I decided to wait for day two hair as well- so here is the results

I did an ACV rinse and then used the Lustrasilk to do 2 strand twist and then put rollers on the end and went to sleep

1ST Day Results:

That night I twisted again

2ND DAY : BEFORE FLUFFING

AFTER FLUFFING

Overall – Day 2 was better then Day 1

My hair is really soft, it held it’s shape all day which is new- normally by the end of the day it’s pretty much a fluff ball, and it doesn’t feel like there is any product in it. Plus it’s inexpensive!! All in all an 10± !!