Naturally Kinky Hair

I just want to send out a note to encourage women with short kinky hair to flaunt it, and document their hair journeys.  I’m not going to say that no one is doing it but we could use more examples out there.  Personally, I am not one to “flaunt” anything.  I am not stylish or glamorous so I don’t feel like I have much to offer in those terms but I started this blog about my hair because I know there has to be other women out there in the same place I am.  I love to see women that I have something in common with and I’m doing this in hopes that someone will reach my blog that can relate.

I have some theories about why the short haired women do not blog as much.  Before I decided to blog, I had the idea that, “No one cares about my hair now but when it’s down my back, I’ll show them.”  I think there is a perception that my type of hair is nothing special, until it’s long and literally down your back.  I think it’s worth saying again that people do care.  If no one else does, I do because I think it’s cool to see where people started and how to where they are today. 

Another idea that is kind of related is about “typical” black (afro-textured) hair.  I always had the idea that tightly coiled, kinky hair was typical or at least common to black women.  I have had to re-evaluate my idea of typical because we have so much diversity in our hair types.  It’s still hard to tell what kind of hair we have when perms are so prevalent and parents are relaxing their children’s hair from a very young age.  I’ve seen the big chop stories of women who had no idea what their natural hair texture really was because they have never seen it.

I am drifting, but what I really want to ask is is tight, kinky, AKA “nappy” hair actually common among black women?  If there were a scale from straight to the tightest kinks my hair would land somewhere near the end of the kinky side.  I ask because if I my only view of black hair came from natural hair boards and YouTube I could assume that most natural African hair is actually curly or can be with the right care and products.

Please don’t take this the wrong way.  I love curly hair and I love and appreciate the ladies who are representing their kinky hair too.  I just think we are not representing ourselves in the same numbers as the curlier ones. 

I see comments on videos like:

Your hair is beautiful, what type are you and what products do you use?

or

My daughter’s hair is so dry and kinky how can I get it to look like yours?

I’m reading a lot into these comments because I can’t see the person commenting but I get the idea that people think if they do the right things to their kinky hair or use the right products, it will jump down a notch and become curly. 

I think it’s a surprise to some of us when we cut off our hair and we don’t get ringlets when we run gel through it.  This extra kinky type of hair is hard to understand when there are unreal expectations of it and few examples of how to care for it properly.

I know we’re all different so some things we figure out on our own through trial and error.  I just wish I could see more women with hair kind of like mine.  Or am I really in the minority?  Let me know if I’m crazy or not.

For the past couple of days I’ve been questioning, is there really any point in hair typing?  It’s been kind of gnawing at my brain so I’ll attempt to write my thoughts on it.  First of all, if you look at the URL in the address bar you’ll see type4hair.com.  I wish I were a little more creative in my choice of a domain name but at the same time I know there is a group of us that identify with the 4a, b, c label so at the very least it can help us find each other for support and guidance.

I can already see that I’ll be all over the place with this but I’ll try to keep it cohesive. 

Andre Walker’s system

I’m one who jumped on the Walker’s type system and readily labeled myself as 4a and 4b.  I have not read his book on hair but I did see Ms. kimmaytube’s book review and it brought up some interesting ideas about this whole system.  Can two  (arguably three) categories completely cover the diversity and complexity of kinky hair types?  Of course not.  It’s almost like categorizing skin tones; look how many shades people come in.  I would bet that we could take 20 different women typed as 4b and get twenty different heads of hair with different needs.

Mizani Natural Curl Key™

As far as I know, this is brand new and possibly just a marketing ploy but I like this system better than Walker’s 1-4 scale.  It at least addresses that there are more than two different types of kinky hair.  By this scale I identified myself as every type between 6 and 8.  Mizani has created this system to make it easy for us to buy their products which are supposedly for our hair types.  I’ve never used their products and probably never will and as I’m thinking about it, I’m having a hard time thinking of any other use for this system. 

Also, I don’t appreciate that they say zig-zag coiled hair has no movement and under elasticity it says “stretching with minimal return”  What does that mean?  Minimal return sounds to me like you stretch your hair and it stays stretched.  That’s not the case for any of my curls/kinks, when you pull on them they bounce back. From all the complaints of shrinkage out there I know I’m not the only one.

LOIS

I haven’t explored LOIS much but it does seem to be the most descriptive of the hair types and a more realistic way of identifying one.  It’s a mult-part assessment of your hair type.  Honestly, it’s more work than I’m willing to do to come up with a hair type especially since I don’t really see the point in claiming one anyway.

Is there any reason to consider hair type at all?  The more I look into hair care via videos, blogs, and forums, the more it seems like hair type doesn’t matter as much as hair care.  We all have our own set of factors that play into the behavior and condition of our hair and we all have our individual mix of textures. 

I know there have to be more out there but I just wanted to list a few of the ladies on YouTube that I know are creating and selling their own hair products and accessories.  I am really excited to see that black women are able to have a slice of this multi-billion dollar industry built around OUR hair.  All you have to do is look at the ingredients in commercial products directly marketed to black people to know that 99% of these manufacturers know nothing about what is good for our hair and couldn’t care less.

So I congratulate these women and if anyone knows of others please drop a link in the comments for me.

The links are to their YouTube profiles.  Check them out, rate their videos, and subscribe.  I know they also have separate sites for their stores and I may edit this post later to include those links.

Again, please share more links if you have them. I didn’t include others just because I don’t know who they are yet

BlackOnyx77

http://www.youtube.com/user/BlackOnyx77

kimmaytube, luvnaturals

http://www.youtube.com/user/kimmaytube

http://www.youtube.com/user/luvnaturals

misskrisnew

http://www.youtube.com/user/misskrisnew

yonnea

http://www.youtube.com/user/yonnea

I haven’t mentioned it here but I’ve had a hair cutting addiction.  I have cut my hair every time I twisted it and I have cut it significantly (more than 1/4 inch at a time).   So my hair is looking shorter and shorter every week.  I’m not cutting it to keep it short, I cut it because it doesn’t look right.  That brings me to the other issue, my distaste for wearing twists.

I had been wearing my hair out most of the time because I really didn’t like the look of my twists.  It was kind of weird because I’ve grown my hair out a little with twists before and it never really bothered me but I have not been wanting to twist my hair since I took my braids out.  So I recently just figured out what the deal is.

My hair is ridiculously uneven, or it was.  When I took the braids out (which were essentially locked micro braids) I should have done a big chop to get even hair.  I lost whole braids of hair in the process leaving me with some hair 1/2” long and some hair 6” long.  My hairline was also weak from the braids.  That’s why my twists were messed up looking. Do you know the look of a twist that starts off thick and then gets skinny, scraggly or fuzzy at the end?  That’s what I had and I had patches of long hair and patches of short hair.

So, now I’m wearing twists and I don’t feel crazy anymore for cutting all the time.  When the shorter hair catches up I’m sure I won’t feel the need to cut as much.  I know it is growing too because my twists are looking thicker.  My hair feels thicker all around and I believe it’s due to the ayurvedic powders and protein treatments I’ve been using.  I am noticing much less shedding and breakage.

Since I do intend to grow my hair this year I think I might just have to keep it twisted for awhile.  I play in my hair too much and due the nature of my curl pattern when it’s just left out it naturally knots up in single strand knots (leading to more cutting). 

I’m not so much into trying out a billion different kinds of commercial shampoos and conditioners for my hair anymore but I do seem to be developing into a grocery store PJ.  My hair literally eats better than I do.  I just picked up several items from whole foods that are almost exclusively for my hair care.  Coconut creme concentrate, organic virgin coconut oil (I will be using this to cook also), rose water, apple cider vinegar, red zinger tea (to boost color in my henna treatments), and whole milk yogurt.  Since I was already doing too much I passed over powdered buttermilk, maple syrup, vegetable glycerine, and several essential oils.  I think I can get a better price for those items online anyway.

I justify the spending becuase other than these ingredients I have no other hair expenses.  I don’t pay anybody to do my hair and I won’t be buying commercial products anymore.  I’ve been doing a lot of experiments on my hair but I do intend to settle on a real regimen that uses simple and natural ingredients.

On my PJ wishlist:

• Aritha (soap nuts) – You can wash your hair and your clothes with this.  That sounds scary but I’m intrigued.
• Avocado, mango, coffee, and sweet almond butter.
• Powdered honey, yogurt, and buttermilk.
• Essential oils so that everything doesn’t smell like peppermint (the only one I have)

I've heard some things about what is in Vatika Oil.  I've seen posts on forums saying to avoid it because it has mineral oil and harmful preservatives.  I don't fully understand all of the the ingredients in my Vatika oil, but mineral oil and tbhq doesn't seem to be there.  Mine seems to be only good stuff but I have some research to do.  Here's the ingredient list.

Ingredients: Each 100ml of oil is prepared from: Mehndi (Lawsonia inemis) 0.10g, Amla (Emblica officinalis) 0.10g, Harar (Terminalia chebula) 0.10g, Bahera (Terminalia bellirica) 0.10g, Neem (Azadirachta indica) 0.30g, Brahmi (Centella asiatica) 0.30g, Kapur Kachri (Hedychium spicatum) 0.10g, Dugdha 0.0375ml, Lemon Oil (Citrus limon) 0.01ml, Rosemary Oil (Rosmarinus officinalis) 0.02ml, Lecithin (Soya lecithin) 0.25ml, Sugandhit Dravyas 0.17ml, Nariyal Tail (Cocos nucifera) Q.S. (Processed as per tail pak vidhi)

Doesn't seem funny that the coconut oil (cocos nucifera) is the last ingredient?  I don't think that has anything to do with the actual volume though, QS means a sufficient amount. I would guess that it makes up most of the Vatika oil.

The ads below are for eBay. I bought mine from theindianfoodstore.com. I think it was about four dollars for 300ml but I had to pay shipping. The best bet for a good price is probably your local Indian grocery.

1 X Dabur Vatika Coconut Hair Oil 150ml USA SELLER    US $5.45

WHOLESALE PRICED 100 pure Dabur Vatika coconut hair oil 300 ml FREE SHIP $25 v    US $11.49

I want to mention that this oil is good for my babies' hair.  They are half Indian and half black.  They have some interesting kind of texture because of the mix.  My daughter's hair is partly curly and partly kinky and her hair will loc up in a minute if I don't detangle it.  I've found that the Vatika oil and glycerine and water mist keeps her hair moisturized and more manageable.

For me, I don't feel like the oil performs much different than just coconut oil.  I love coconut oil for my skin but when I use it on my hair I like to add shea butter to make it heavier.  Otherwise it just feels oily on my hair.  I really like the herbs that are included in the oil so I will continue to use it.  It's probably even cheaper than buying the virgin coconut oil on it own.

So really, what is the deal with the mineral oils?  My Vatika was made in India it is the dark green bottle, not the light green bottle with the round top. I wonder if they make a different formula with garbage ingredients for export.

I think I tried to ignore the Haiti situation.  Still, I won't watch any news about it but I know it the situation is terrible beyond words.  I don't think it's right to go on chatting about my hair issues without even acknowledging what has happened.

My heart and prayers go out to Haiti and everyone effected by this disaster.

I continued to cut my hair yesterday and this morning so I made a new video with my current length check.  Also the twists are out.  I don't know why I feel the need to say this but I'm not wearing the same shirt for two days.  You can't really tell from the video because of the color filter and I don't want anybody to think I'm dirty

My blog is acting up.  I'll have to add the video later.

I had to go to my friend google because I was beginning to think I made this up.  Does anyone remember Kenya dolls?  I was little when they were out but from what I remember they came in a few different skin tones and hair textures.  I want to say that some (or all?) of them came with a perm.  I was young but I remember thinking the dolls were ridiculous because the perm.

But were these dolls a good thing?  I mean at least they tried to represent little black girls.

All of this was brought up because I was reading through naturallycurly.com and they had an article about a line of black barbie dolls.  I feel pretty neutral about Barbies anyway.  I'm not going to encourage my daughter to have one but the day will probably come when she wants and gets one.

I'm not going to stress about it though.  I will just be consciously doing my best to raise my children to respect and honor their individuality because the world around them may not.

I noticed right away that toys are created with messages about gender roles wrapped all around them.  Starting from toddler age, toys targeted to girls are clearly about being pretty, fashionable, and domestic.  For little girls of color the issue of what is pretty goes a little deeper, especially if the image of beauty never reflects what you look like.

Marking my hair progress today with a video. I hope to take good care of my hair this year and it will be interesting to see where I am this time next year.