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Thread: Kinky 4s' thread

  1. #11
    Member FroandBeyond's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ricky22 View Post
    lol I'm not a chick but of course I got that hair texture

    WASSSUPP

    Heyyyyyyyyy!! U are everywhere. So, did you get your curly fro?
    West Michigan (Grand Rapids) Curlies
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  2. #12
    Member FroandBeyond's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Beesweet View Post
    MY daughters have it. I'm their hair manager. I do braids, twists, twist-outs, all washings and conditionings, have relaxed, started and maintained locs, and currently practice natural hair care. Does that count?

    Sure that counts. You are welcome to be in here too. You have done alot...I noticed you mentioned relaxing and maintaining natural hair. Have you help anyone transition to natural as well?
    West Michigan (Grand Rapids) Curlies
    April 3, Curlies will unite at 6:30pm for a Dinner and the Color Purple Play.
    Message me for further details about being part of our Meetup group.

  3. #13
    Member Ricky22's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FroandBeyond View Post
    Heyyyyyyyyy!! U are everywhere. So, did you get your curly fro?
    lol it depends on your definition of a curly fro but I think I'm making progress
    heres my myspace:

    "Life is but a dream"

  4. #14
    Coil, Kink, Napp Buddaphlyy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FroandBeyond View Post
    Congrats! I know that must be exciting. What kind of hair drama are you having?
    I AM excited. I've been natural before, but this was the first (and last) time I decided to stay natural.

    As for the drama, I'm having some breakage due to extreme dryness. But I've been looking for some recipes for moisturizing spritzes (is this a word). And I'm wearing braids as a protective style, so hopefully my hair will turn around soon.
    IMHO, one can never have too much conditioner. ~Proverb from a PJ~
    Lady Bey of Twilight Cloud in the Order of the LongHaired Knights


  5. #15
    Curled all around Starr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buddaphlyy View Post
    I AM excited. I've been natural before, but this was the first (and last) time I decided to stay natural.

    As for the drama, I'm having some breakage due to extreme dryness. But I've been looking for some recipes for moisturizing spritzes (is this a word). And I'm wearing braids as a protective style, so hopefully my hair will turn around soon.

    Congratulations on the decision to stay natural! I wish you the best of luck! I can't even imagine what a battle that must have been, seeing how my own mother has been battling with the decision for years, stretching her relaxer for longer periods, thinking about transitioning, before finally saying to heck with it, because someone made a comment about it, and relaxing again and feeling bad about it less than a week later. We black women torment ourselves over our hair so much- and we critisize each other over it just as much. To me, relaxed or natural, is fine. . . who am I to judge? To me healthy hair=beautiful hair regardless of what's put on it.

    Have you tried a mix of glycerin/aloe/distilled water yet? I can't give you an exact ratio, because I usually just guess, but it's definately helped me out with the dryness issues.
    Lady Starr Weaver of the Celestial Heavens in the Order of the Long Haired Knights
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  6. #16
    Member FroandBeyond's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Starr View Post
    because someone made a comment about it, and relaxing again and feeling bad about it less than a week later. We black women torment ourselves over our hair so much- and we critisize each other over it just as much. To me, relaxed or natural, is fine. . . who am I to judge? To me healthy hair=beautiful hair regardless of what's put on it.

    Have you tried a mix of glycerin/aloe/distilled water yet? I can't give you an exact ratio, because I usually just guess, but it's definately helped me out with the dryness issues.

    Starr, I agree with this. I work in the schools and if a student gets upset because one does not agree with his or her behavior, the first thing the kid blurts out is about hair. Also, the kids do it to each other. To me it is sickening and tiring.


    B Phlyy have you tried using a mixture of water, conditioner and olive oil?
    West Michigan (Grand Rapids) Curlies
    April 3, Curlies will unite at 6:30pm for a Dinner and the Color Purple Play.
    Message me for further details about being part of our Meetup group.

  7. #17
    Member Beesweet's Avatar
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    This is going to be long! I never have anyone to talk to about my girls' hair who understands! Yes I have helped both of my daughters transition from relaxed to natural, at different points in their lives. They are only 12 and 14, but hair, no matter what the texture, is always about more than hair! It can be so emotional.
    First off, we live in a melting pot. It's awesome. I have a 4a daughter whose hair is pretty easy to care for. Now it doesn't look like the white girls, or most of the Trinidad or Puerto Rican, South American, or even white/black biracial hair. It's far more curly. It's less curly than her Jamaican and Haitian and some AF. Am. friends' hair -- they ALL relax.

    This daughter was natural for her whole life. She was starting to bug me, because everyone either had "boingers" that laid down their backs, or they relaxed. My parenting style tends toward "natural consequences" so after much pestering, I told her that she could do a texturizer. My friend does an easy one on her daughter -- who has two Af. Am. parents and still has hair less curly than my daughters. So I did her. It was long after texturizing -- about BSL, and you know what -- she hated it from the first minute it was dry because the texture changed and felt bad to her. Gone was the softness. It broke off like mad. She immediately realized that it wasn't a good thing and we began growing out from there. That day! It made me sad, but she now has no desire to relax her hair. She's all about how stuff feels.

    We transitioned a half an inch at a time, doing a big chop about six months into it. Cut to just about shoulders when the curls were pulled down. She's now growing out from that. Asks if "it is all gone yet" and would I "please take off another 1/8 of an inch all over."

    I cut her hair all the time now. She is gaining length still, but not a lot. What is good is the fresh growth is so nice, no breakage, that her boring old styles that she hated -- two puffs, two strand twists, french braids, and now pleasing to her because she works so hard not to break off the hair.
    She's thinking about Sisterlocs.
    I've also done my older daughter. Sadly, she hates her hair. Everyone in her school with her hair texture relaxes. There are just a few girls with locs, and a few who wear twists regularly.
    Her hair texture was more challenging than her 4A sister's.
    I don't think there are only two type 4 hair types, by the way.
    She's 4B and had a hard time even keeping her scalp healthy as she would wear NO styles that were good for her hair type-- refused to twist, or braid it, or otherwise protect the hair from breakage, while opening up the scalp to sun and air. She would only wear one ponytail back. Not flattering to her. Never dried. Honestly -- it was so dusty up under there, I thought it was mold. She also didn't trust me to do her hair with natural products, probably because we had tried so many things and so many things had not worked. She was addicted to Pantene Relaxed and Natural.
    She had so much breakage -- all the time, because she wouldn't let me care for her hair the way it needed to. At 14 I was still sectioning her hair out for sleeping and showering, she hadn't learned to do it herself. Wanted nothing to do with it. She never has appreciated her curls. So she relaxed professionally in January. Her hair looks pretty good, and the stylist did an amazing job. She will only take her every three months, as she is very conservative with the chemicals.
    She can do her own hair now, which pleases her. She does a nice job.
    Funny thing is when it was natural she had people crazy for it -- she models. All the agents told her -- wear your hair out for auditions and castings. Now that she relaxed, she looks like everyone else -- just a pretty girl with hangy hair. Kind of blah, but she feels good, and her scalp is healthy. So it's an esteem thing when you are a teen, I guess.
    She is now letting me do ACV rinses, and uses no-poo, and natural conditioners. I pried the Pantene from her claws and she uses Whole Foods 365, Vitaki oil, coconut, and once in a blue moon, Eluscence, which has cones, but works when we ACV once in a while. I think her relaxed hair is holding up better with natural care products.
    It would be better if more girls wore natural hair down here. She is not into standing out at all, where as her sister is. We henna her sister and she wears her hair out -- red and wild --in public, just not to school.
    I love doing my daughters' hair.
    My favorite way to transition to natural is to cut! Something about the relaxed hair, lifeless and limp hanging by a thread to a bunch of fresh springy, shiny growth makes me want to snip!
    I'll be visiting all your albums today.

  8. #18
    Member Beesweet's Avatar
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    I don't know how to do a quote -- but I agree about the hair teasing and torture -- the kids at school are always bringing up hair.

    My daughters are not really bully-able, and they are instructed to defend a bully victim -- and they come home with a whole range of insults of "things she said, and then she said, and then she did this....." They make Don Imus sound like Mister Rogers. It's rarely white vs. black either, or hispanic vs. white, or hispanic vs. black. I guess people tease their own hair types....
    I know girls have tried to tease my baby about her afro puffs (that look awesome by the way!) but she not easy to tease, so it doesn't go far.

    I have read a lot of books on black hair, the media, societal stuff, and it makes me very sad.
    The only "bad" black hair I see is the fried, dyed and lied to stuff -- hairlines halfway back on the head from chemicals since age 5. Little girls with baby relaxers.

    The most beautiful thing I have ever seen is when my girls are freshly washed, combed through, and oiled, before I style. I made them walk around like that for a while. I told them I needed a break to cook or something, but really, I just want to see them walk around. They have halos of sheer beauty. Now only my one girl has it. The other is fried and lyed, but she's happy for now. I'm sure it will swing the other way sometime.
    I want to burn magazines, shoot my tv, and bomb Hollywood and the NY fashion world.
    It's a bad message the world gets about black hair. STILL. It is not black hair that needs to be beaten into submission to be "good." It's mostly everyone else creating the media.

    White women torture themselves about hair, too, but not in the same way -- there's an element of hair not being good enough which translates into "us not being good enough" -- so we seek to color, trim, chop, curl, straighten -- and we do it emotionally -- but there is not this hair hatred that I see.
    I know when I have had terrible emotional upsets I have taken it out on my hair in rash ways -- drastic cuts, bad drugstore color. In moments of extreme despair, I've fantasized about cutting all my hair off -- kind of a keening and wailing thing, but it makes me wonder constantly about the emotional connections all of us women have with our hair.

  9. #19

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    Checking in. I'm 4a/4b natural.

  10. #20
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    Hi! I am new on this site. I stumbled upon it while in another forum that was talking about no poo, which I am definitely going to start.

    I am 4a maybe 4a/4b, i think. I relax my hair, or well use to. I am Jamiacan. So is my mother and my father is African. For the past couple of months, partially due to inquiries of my boyfriend who is latin, I have thought about going natural. (He is the ultimate no poo person. He just uses water and his fingers. He has the thickest head of shiny hair that I have ever seen.) Between this site and a few af-am hair forums, I am sure now that I am going to stick it out and do it.

    I had to register today after seeing this thread. Thank you for posting it FroandBeyond! At the moment, I dont have any friends that have my hair type and really no one to talk to about it. The community where I live in Miami is heavily hispanic, mostly Cuban. My mother is a hair stylist.... BUT...lol, She is very old-school and learned her trade in Jamaica during a time of British rule (or the ends of it) and relaxed hair is the only 'appropriate' form of hair that I should have in her opinion. I told her about what I wanted to do and she was not very supportive to say the least. I even tried just educating myself and asking her only to leave the relaxer on my hair for the amount of time specified by the manufacturer, and that was one of the most uncomfortable relaxers I had because she was complaining the whole way through that my hair would not get completely straight. She did not understand that I did not mind because I care more about my hair being broken down more than necessary by the chemicals as opposed to how straight it got. That was a month ago and I am never gonna put chemicals i my hair again!

    I had been meaning to pull out some baby pictures to see what the texture of may hair is really like, which I did yesterday. My hair looked so soft and... beautiful. I know it will take a couple of years to get the 18 inches I got now, but I've got nothing but time!

    Beesweet: What you wrote was beautiful. I was wiping away tears from my face. It is all emotional. Society as a whole causes so many issues for women in general. I am not saying all of us fall for it, and thankfully some of us have great mentors, but that still does not stop us from questioning our appearances, weight, hair, material items, clothing,etc.

    I was crying because I got to thinking about the children I will have someday. How am I going to help them feel good about what they have if I am having issues now coping with it? I dont want them to have to deal with feelings of 'not fitting in.' The world might be a different place then, but you never know. I also thought about being pregnant and not being able to put anything in my hair for nine months and how much easier it would be not to have to worry about any of that!

    I have been a vegetarian for the past 2+ years and have decided to be as natural as possible. I dont take medicines, try to eat organic, use natural soaps on my body, and only use shea butter for my skin.I dont know why until recently it has not occurred to me that my hair and scalp counted. I had started using organic sham/cond's about a year ago but did not think about the relaxer.

    Also, I noticed that most of the people of color who are being used in commercials have natural hair styles. Granted most of them are light skinned and have 3b/4a type of hair, but I am seeing alot more fros!

    So thank you again!

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