I’ve been experimenting a lot the past few weeks and have fallen in love with a few products made in the UK.

The first company I’d like to mention is Roots to Ends They make a great pomade to add a little softness and shine to second and third day twists out! An it smells great, kinda of like bubble gum. Remember a little goes a long way!

Here is the ingredients: Castor Oil, Virgin Olive Oil, Wheatgerm Oil, Avocado Oil, Jojoba Oil, Shea Butter, Japan Wax, Hemp Seed Oil, Grapefruit Seed Extract, Natural Vitamin E (d-a tocopherol), Fragrance.

“R2E Pomade is blended from the finest unrefined Vegetable Oils, Shea Butter and Japan Wax and other fantastic,gentle ingredients This pomade will condition your hair leaving it soft, manageable and healthy looking. “

They also make a hand crafted wooden comb:

R2E combs are made of fine natural wood such as cherry, boxwood and other precious wood (from sustainable sources). The wood is sturdy in nature and has fine grains; making it suitable to produce good quality wooden combs. Notable differences between R2E combs and others are the high quality natural woods and selected bamboo that we use for making combs.

Benefits of Using Wooden Combs:

• Improves blood circulation of the scalp

• Helps prevent split ends

• Releases Tension

• Antistatic

• Non Toxic

Advantages of Wooden Combs: R2E Health Combs are in general suitable for daily use and you will benefit from using our combs in the long term.Using our combs promotes healthy hair, increases the blood flow through the scalp if used often enhances alertness. Since R2E combs are non- toxic it is safe to use and can be used as often as possible.

Normal plastic combs in comparison are not very gentle to hair because of its sharp edges, which acts like “knives”. Split hair is often associated with low quality plastic combs. Our high quality wooden combs are anti-static and therefore one can easily combs their hairs without entangling it. Too much static can hurt the hair profile and makes it rougher and brittle.

Technical: Our combs are hand made and are skillfully crafted and polished.No additives or chemicals are added to enhance the surface texture and luster.All combs are manufactured naturally and polished in a traditional way.

Although not a wide tooth comb, I was really amazed at the smoothness of the wood and how each tine seeme to have been wittled so you hair can’t catch on a seam!

When you order you first pomade R2E with include a complementary comb with the purchase.

A big thanks to Roots to Ends for sending out samples for the Natural Hair Meet up in June. They went down really well!

Shop R2E here

Next post is on Curl Harmony!

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…

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who wrote in to give me advice on the henna breakup. There was some great comments and if I decide to henna again (I’m thinking about it…) I will definitely use your recommendations. No yogurt with the henna. Try green tea and honey instead.

I have to share something. Today, I was really frustrated with the state my hair was in, and had been in all week. Fuzzy and not wanting to curl no matter how many times I DT. (I did stay clear of protein conditioners)

I decided to strand test the Cherry Lola treatment to see if therer was any improvement on my sad, sad hair. I liked the results so I did the treatment to my whole head. I left it on for about 10 minutes. Then I rinsed and co-wash and then styled with the Henna Wax Treament. What can I say… the curls came back! Hurrah!
This is not a twist out- this is strictly a wash and go. I did try a new technique in the shower though. I’m going to try it again tomorrow and if the technique works again, I’ll post about it tomorrow. Here are the results :

After Henna

After Cherry Lola Treament

Back of Head

Side View

Front View

Crown

Bangs

How I wore my Hair

Buy Braggs here in the US

Buy Braggs here in the UK

I “hennaed” this weekend again. It was my 4th attempt and my first attempt with Jamila henna. I know a lot of bloggers out there seem to love the henna, but for me, we have to break up. And it’s not me, it’s henna. It has been 5 days since my henna treatment, (which was a mix of henna honey, yogurt, herb infused water and a little olive oil.) 5 days! And my hair still feels like straw. But more worryingly is that there is some serious breaking going on. When I detangled tonight the amount of hair that came out was comparable to when I would take my extensions out. Not a good sign.

This kind of make me sad because the color of my hair this time turned out really nice. It glows a really bright red in the sun, and when I wore my hair in my “PinUp Girl” style I felt like a cute, brown Lucille Ball.

Bottom line though: Henna treats me bad, so no matter how cute it appears to be, we gotta break up.

That and it keeps turning my fingers orange no matter how careful I am with the gloves… this week the nail buffer has been my best friend. Orange tinted nails are not pretty on me… how about you?

Anita Grant’s Rhassoul Clay Deep Conditioner has had rave reviews from all across the web, and mine has finally arrived!!
I order this awhile ago- however, because all Anita Grants products are handmade- it’s taken a while to arrive. But it’s here now!! So I’ll be testing it out this weekend!

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.