Defining My Curls - Type 3C Hair

I've been wearing my hair natural lately and I want to define my curls more. I tried Carol's Daughter hair milk and it didn't do very much. But yet recently I like IC Fantasia Olive Styling Gel, it is really good and doesn't leave my hair with a crunchy dry feeling at all. Plus it defines my curls much better. I co-wash everyday so I I'm able to put the gel in everyday and so far so good. You can buy this jail just about anywhere, I bought it at a swapmeet but your best bet to get some would be Sally Beauty Supply. I apply this after I wet or condition my hair and when it's dripping wet. I take some sections and run it all the way through my hair by twisting it and sometimes combing it through. I have extremely thick type 3c hair and I cannot comb through it well especially when it's dry but the IC gel has given really good definition that dries well.

My Natural Hair Regimen:

I have 3c SL (unstretched) hair BSL (stretched)

I cowash almost everyday to every other day
I wet my hair everyday
I deep condition every month
I use IC GEL and a spray bottle with water to hydrate my hair and define curls
I just wash - n - go however I tie a tight scarf on my hair in the front in order for it to lay down in the front
I lightly brush out some baby hairs however most of them stick out regardless

Tip: Use Your Fingers to twirl the curls around sometimes in a clump together and then lightly separate.


Results on My Hair:
(Before)
















(After)











Disclaimer: I have a bunch of straight pieces so my hair isn't curling at the ends anymore until I grow it out which I will next year. The straight ends are here due to a flat ironing incident that had completely straightened ALL of my hair in 2008.

Product Review: Olive Oil Deep Conditioner

This left my hair really soft and I bet it would have worked better with an overhead dryer but me being ghetto used a hand dryer and it still gave me great results. I know I need pictures of my hair. But I still recommend this product, use it after you shamppo and use conditioner for about 10 to 15 minutes. I try to deep condition once a month. It's the only special thing I do to my hair besides some leave-ins and heat protectants. But try it!

Am I 3c or 4a?

There is such a fine line between 3c and 4a hair and I'm not quite sure where I belong. They say 3c has curls the size of a pencil and they are but overall I think my hair is too densely packed to be a true 3c. I call it 3c/4a but what am I more of? I feel more like a 3c somedays when I have all my curls defined but when my hair is just too big and hard to comb through I call it 4a. There's nothing wrong with 4a hair at all but it has a world of its own completely different from 3c. Right now I have these idiot straight pieces on the bottom of my hair because of a flat ironing incident about a year and a half ago. I have about 2 more inches to go until it's all gone because it was all over my head. I really want to cut it off now but I might chop my BSL hair to SL by accident and then I'll be angry when my hair is straightened. I think I'll just get my ends trimmed once again and see if that will help some. I deep conditioned today and washed. Tomorrow I will cowash and try to shingle. I still very much dislike the look of my natural hair because of all that dead weight from straight pieces sometimes I want to get those scissors so bad but I always have to stop myself. However before I got so much heat damage I enjoyed my natural hair and it looked more 3c. I miss it so. But next year this time I'll be back to the way it was. :)

Biracial Hair Poem

I saw this poem a while back but had yet to reflect on it. I find it to be a beautiful poem that outlines the very real struggles of my own hair that did not fit into the man-made "good" or "bad" hair categories. I've been told my hair is either too "nappy" or too "good" for certain styles. I was always on one side of the fence or the other. Just like this poem, hair has always been a large part of my identity and of course my self-esteem. I remember girls in elementary school that were "oohed" and "ahhed" over just because they possessed the rare combination of light skin and curly hair. My skin was very light but my hair did not pass the length/texture test when it came to being the class beauty queen. Who, as the golden child, was not only beautiful but did everything perfectly such as write well and had the most supportive parents. However, I was not a jealous person at all and instead I decided to reexamine myself and try to grow my hair out which I ended up doing and discovering how my own hair curls. I got backlash and praise for wearing my hair natural but I did it ever so often and was able to grow my hair out to almost MBL from shoulder length in the 8th grade in about 2 to 3 years. I definitely have this biracial hair that, contrary to popular belief, my ancestors were not raped by the masters to create and I do think that if they were, their traits would not be showing up now. Wouldn't you be like 1/64th white by now if your great-great grandma got raped in 1863? I mean how often do we look like our great-grandparents? Anyway, I carry African, Irish, and Creole (French and possibly, just possibly Native American Choctaw/Cherokee blood). I had a full blooded Irish great-grandmother on mom's side and I believe my father's side has the Native/White/African roots. My hair is certainly a product of so much mixing being that I don't have a brown skinned Black or white relative for quite a few generations as in a grandparent.
I still consider my hair mostly African and I only press it, I've never permed, colored etc. I don't like wild hair styles either. I prefer to embrace the hair God gave me sometimes and when I straighten it I still call it natural hair because I can pour water on it and it will come back to life in a sense. Biracial hair, to me, is not just the texture of hair on your head. It was a lifestyle that you had to endure especially through childhood by being on the thin line between the man-made categories of "curly" and "kinky". I embraced these categories accordingly as well as the un-categorizable hair and process of wearing it that makes my hair my own and not limited to 3c/4a.

Biracial Hair Poem:

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTnxJdxhU7o

My Trial With Hair Extensions

I'm not into weave and hair dye and anything else that would change the natural look of my hair but my mom wears hair extensions all the time and she wasn't using one of hers so I decided to try it. I mean why not? It's a clip on so I just parted my hair which is BSL and clipped on the extension and BAM i was instantly MBL. It looks really nice and I have it in right now. It is a great protective style since most of the combing I'm doing is of my false hair rather than my natural. I'm not sure what brand of hair my mom used but it's very soft but not Indian Hair expensive either. I really like it and plan on wearing it in the future. I'll still wear my own hair of course but I like the extension piece. It makes my MBL dreams come true and also sets me into reality. As hot as it is in L.A. right now I wouldn't want hair this long 24/7 and I can tell it would be a lot of work to wash and press. I've just flatironed the piece to make it less curly and it looks good. I mean my own family hasn't even noticed and when I told my brother he was shocked because he knows how long and thick my real hair is and how adamant I was against my mother getting pieces put in. But I still think weaves and lacefronts are damaging but wigs are another safe alternative to hair growth/health.

*My hair comes up to wear my shirt starts and the piece is the rest. When I have it all down and if you saw how it looked in the back it is a thick MBL. Clip on extensions are easy and fun!

Ashamed to be nappy...a true "aha moment"

Well my grandmother called my mom today and in the car and she was talking about fashion and such. She was on the speaker so I could hear everything they were saying of course. Just out of the blue my grandmother told my mother just straight out "..is Destiny going to to wear her hair nappy like that now?" I was so shocked by the statement I became really angry and then sad that that comment came from my grandmother but she has also called my hair words that were less than desirable before. I mean my hair is a big part of my identity, I've always wanted it longer and cherished the fact that it was curly although that it was on a tighter curl. I was very proud of my hair this morning because it was thick and curly like I wanted it to look but then this afternoon that comment made me feel so bad about myself I almost wanted to cry and then my mom being the mediator told me that that's just the way older people from the south think and its not me who she wants to personally put at fault.
My mom told me how the "good hair" thing is still a hot topic and important topic among older and unfortunately some younger African Americans who especially have roots in the south. Sometimes people tell me I have good hair and then they tell me I have bad hair so I don't know what I am sometimes. To me my hair looks however I do it that morning and If I put enough time into it. I'm very proud of the way my hair looks being more African and why should I be ashamed of it?
It's ashame that one of the first things I was told about my father, since my parents had divorced when I was a baby and I had limited contact with him, was that he had "good hair" and that he was mixed. I mean, I knew absoluteley nothing about his personality or his likes and dislikes and I believe psychologically having curly or especially LONG hair for me was a way of feeling that I was apart of him. If my hair is nappy then I have even less to do with him than I do at the moment, in consequence with having zero contact with him or his family. I felt that If I had long hair some of the teachers would make a big deal out of me like they did around the other little girls that were very light with long hair. Now I was ALWAYS very lightskinned but I could never be the full package without my hair being straightened and long. My grandmother was always so worried about my hair being short in which it had grown to be very long when I was a pre-teen in which she then worried herself about girls at school cutting it off. However, myt natural hair was never adored in my later years but it possibly was in my younger years when my hair was in the "2s" and manageable. I almost felt like I wanted to go back in time when I saw a picture of me as a little girl with my straighter hair and felt a little bad about the person I had become.
It was ridiculous to think that way however because I know that I've become and becoming something great. I was always the smartest girl in class, and a straight A student and have dreams and aspirations that reach beyond these worthless strands that sit on top of my head. I don't even care about my light color, I'm just a successful Black woman who is trying to change the mindsets of those younger than me. The mindset that was thrown upon us by those who wanted to keep us underneath them.

How my hair changed..and so quickly at that!

The daycare that I volunteer at just found a picture of me when I was a little girl going there at about three years old. On of the most obvious differences between me now and me then was my hair of course. My mom had my hair in a single braided ponytail but my hair was soo smooth. I thought I was 3A back then but I was actually in the 2s like 2c/3a when was a little girl. How did my hair get so kinky? It's still curly I mean its a 3c but I mean GEEZ! Does everybody's hair do this? I hear about white people going from blonde to brunette but I guess black people go from straight to curly to nappy since I was bron with straight hair on my head except for ONE and yes I said ONE curl lol. My face and everything looked about the same but I looked more like my dad it seems like over the years I've morphed into my mom. People call me her clone and if you saw us you'd be shocked too. But my hair went through a very heavy transformation to the point where I needed to press it and my mom could no longer put it in simple ponytail styles anymore but she really had to dig in there and actually comb out all of my really, really curly hair. My hair is fine now but man it takes some styling and some work to get it tame. I will show the pictures soon but my digital camera does not have batteries but you can see the after affects of age in the posts below. Ahhhh jus like some in their 40s and 50s want to go back to their youth in both body tyoe and flawless skin sometimes I want my hair back!

How was I born with this hair type










Have this hair type as a little girl ages 2 and 3


















Have this hair type at ages 4 and 5












And finally end up with this little girls hair type at 7 years and beyond