Kinky 4s' thread

[chen bao jun]

Chen, I rarely wear my hair out. The only ones I see who wear their hair out constantly are those who are relaxed bone straight, or those with TWAs.

That's pretty much what I saw in Houston.

My hair wasn't a twa, but not that far off, at ear length so I'm thinking some of those twas were hiding long hair.

[hydrationseeker]

Thanks for the congratulations everyone!

I wound up washing my hair but not using the okra. I found out the hard way that my shower filter is worn out and my hair was reacting poorly to everything. I figure I'd better wait until I can wash my hair with better water to properly judge the effect of the okra.

Hi I'm just growing out a shaved style, so nowhere near the lenghts of the fellow posters here. But in my bid to have the healthiest hair for me I've experimented a lot....

A tip for you Colochita try Desdemona's miracle water recipe, I don't think she posts anymore but her recipe is in the archives.
A tiny bit of Vit C powder to counteract the chlorine and Citric Acid to chelate the water. Helps if you have pH strips, like from a tropical fish shop.

I use roughly 1.5g of Vit c and 2.5g of Citric Acid to 5liters of water. I have tiny measure spoons with drop, smidgen, dash, tad and one more I've forgotten, I use the smidgen to dip out. These are great to have consistency but I would weigh the optimum amounts when your working out what is good for your area's water, testing as you go.

Pros - better rinsing power / less water required. Really cost effective.

Cons - Have to use a bucket! Going back in time might not be to everybody's schedule or living set up.

However until your get your shower filter sorted this is a great way of appeasing your hair and your hair products will work better for less.

HTH.

Edit to add link Miracle water I hope this works....

Edit because that link didn't work, so lets try this one....http://archive.longhaircommunity.com...ad.php?t=51184

[ClassicAim]

chen bao jun - Sorry about your mum not telling you about wet detangling. It may be that she felt guilty for not having time to do it? Also, Britain is pretty humid in the autumn /winter (near constant raining/ fog/ ect) and I put my hair in mostly protective styles in the winter. The shrinkage causes tangling I cannot be bothered to deal with, plus it give me a good solid block of near constant protective styling for half a year at least. If its just for a tropical holiday you could bun all but bangs?

[hydrationseeker]

Curlycap, I feel you. I think our problem, at least my problem, is that the sites where a larger amount of women have hair that is more similar to mine are not useful for me to hang out in for extreme amounts of time, because they tend to be places where most of the members are altering their hair and the advice is geared towards that. People are always saying how there is a black (I have a black hairtype, not just a curly hair type but an African ancestry hairtype) 'natural' community and how there are all these great sites to support natural hair, but when you get on them, not really. I have no problem with people calling themselves 'natural' simply because they gave up chemically straigtening their hair, but if the site is all about blowdrying, flatironing and still making the hair straight in other ways, its not useful for me because I don't want to do that. I also, frankly think that a lot of the elaborate 'regimens' on these hairsites and products they recommend even when they are not straightening are all about people trying to have a looser curl than they naturally have, although nobody will say straight out that this is the goal. They will keep talking until the cows come home about their being more 'manageable'. But honestly, to me, any 'manageability' that doesn't take into account that my hair is going to have extreme shrinkage, because it just DOES; that my edges are going to be 'fuzzy' and not 'lie flat' because they just DON'T; that my hair likes to go upwards, or at least sideways, rather than down and that it doesn't swish around much but stays still more is not actually 'manageability', it s a desire for a whole different hairtype. Even if you are attacking your hair with cremes and potions and lotions and lots and lots of manipulation, rather than heat or chemicals and talking about 'curl definition' rather 'bone straight'. And I'm just not interested. I like the LHC methods because they 'keep it simple' (and also cheap, Vo5 conditioner and tressemme is way cheaper than miss jessie's or whoever's 'curl' product); and buns work very well with curly hair types that like to go upwards, because hey, buns are naturally 'up' and nobody here cares a hoot about either their edges or mine and I feel fine posting photos with fuzziness to the nth degree going on. Of course there is some lack of understanding of how curls work (the endless, how long is your hair really if you are measuring stretched) and not everybody anywhere is openminded about qualities they aren't personally familiar with. But its pretty good here. And there is the bonus, for me, that your hair can be just hair and not an endless political issue. I use this site as relaxation and it wouldn't be, for me personally (others may differ) if people were always going on about which companies needed to be boycotted because they are not 'our' companies and profiting from us, or complaining that they are being oppressed because one or the other private school, or business company or the US army wants them to keep their hair tidy (or in the case of the army, wnats it to be so that their hair fits under a helmet, for safety reasons in combat, you know?) Maybe these people are all oppressing people with big hair all the time, it could be, I don't know, and maybe I'm wrong or in denial or something, but I just want to relax sometimes and think about nothing else rather the next hair toy to admire, even if that is shallow or silly or whatever else you want to call it.

Thank you for articulating your exasperation at a lot of the afro/kinky 'natural' hair sites.
I have similar reasons for cancelling my other accounts, basically my focus is healthy hair and low maintenance as I am quite lazy and over styling dehydrated coarse hair leads to breakage.
I also like the fact that the focus on LHC is on particular ingredients, silicones or not, proteins or not that sort of thing, rather than the next fashionable expensive product line.
However I still need my 'natural' sisters to inspire, motivate and just chill in mutual understanding, so I have a few blogs and vblogs I follow to meet those needs.

Just my 2 pence worth.

[YvetteVarie]

So I have been experiencing a lot of shedding lately, and on another thread, I found out that my glten intolerance/allergy might be the cause. So I'm now being even more careful about what I eat. Sorry just emerging from a 4 day weekend, and my brain is still on holiday. How is everyone?

[chen bao jun]

Thank you for articulating your exasperation at a lot of the afro/kinky 'natural' hair sites.
I have similar reasons for cancelling my other accounts, basically my focus is healthy hair and low maintenance as I am quite lazy and over styling dehydrated coarse hair leads to breakage.
I also like the fact that the focus on LHC is on particular ingredients, silicones or not, proteins or not that sort of thing, rather than the next fashionable expensive product line.
However I still need my 'natural' sisters to inspire, motivate and just chill in mutual understanding, so I have a few blogs and vblogs I follow to meet those needs.

Just my 2 pence worth.

I follow some places, too. And I love being on here!
mixing miracle water this morning, getting ready to wash my hair.
YvetteVarie I hope you soon find the solution to your shedding.

[YvetteVarie]

Chen, I think I found it. It seems it was really my gluten allergy causing it. When I cut out even the miniscule gluten amounts I had been ingesting, my shedding went back to normal.

[chen bao jun]

That's great to know

[Colochita]

Thanks for the recipe hydrationseeker! I've been trying to find vitamin C and citric acid somewhere online. Does anybody have tips? I haven't been able to find both from the same website yet.

In the meantime I'm going to wash my hair with chelating shampoo, perform my usual wash process, and then either use an ACV rinse or a club soda rinse (or both) followed by a final rinse with drinking water.

I'm considering doing the entire wash with a bucket of drinking water but I don't know how much water I'd use and I don't want my parents to freak out (since it's their water). Note: We can't drink tap water here and the drinking water is all we can drink.

[hydrationseeker]

Chen bao jun how did your miracle water go???

Cholochita if it works for you then great!!! Umm about the bottled water thing, hopefully purified water and not mineral .... just as a guide when washing my hair with shampoo to scalp - rinse, conditioner to hair - rinse, deep conditioner - rinse, uses 12 litres of water. I have short hair so I would use less than someone with shoulder length and beyond strands. Umm if your costing that it might be prohibitive in terms of carrying it from the shop home!!
As for buying the Vit C I managed from the healthfood shop and then saw it in the supermarket. Bakers sometimes use it to help rise bread, so a bakers supply might have some. Citric Acid you can use food, medical and cosmetic grade, food is most expensive. I got some from the wine supply and both purchases meant I saved on P&P from online purchases.

HTH