BULLETPROOFsoul’s Neighborhood

I have a full fledged ponytail :D It's not one of those crazy deals with the puff anymore. It's an actual ponytail! I am so excited!!!!

I have a full fledged ponytail :D It's not one of those crazy deals with the puff anymore. It's an actual ponytail! I am so excited!!!!

Some dire mishap occurred with our refrigerated items, so my shea butter is GONE. I paid 10 bucks for it and now I have to find more. Being that I am currently in New York, I now have to find a place around here that I can trust to have the unrefined stuff, preferably East African. If anyone has a suggestion around Rockaway, Brooklyn, or Jamaica  in NY please do let me know.

This post was written by my good friend Myclette, but since her blog is private I asked her if I could feature this awesome post on my hair blog and she agreed. So I bring you: Hair Nazis...

Okay, I'll admit right now that this post will be familiar to about five percent of the people who read my blog, but I have to get it off my chest. 

A while back, I wrote a post about boob Nazis. Boob Nazis are women who berate other women for not breastfeeding.  They treat women who chose not to breastfeed almost like child abusers.  Anyway, now my gripe is about Natural Hair Nazis.  These are black women who are so gung ho about wearing their hair in it's natural state, that they become rigid in what constitutes as natural and what constitutes as cheating or "falling pray to unnatural products." 

Back in 2000, I decided to stop relaxing my hair chemically because it was breaking and wouldn't grow.  I actually forgot that I had a lot of hair when I was a child.  By the end of the year, I had 3 inches of nappy fro.  When I started to research the best ways to take care of it and get in touch with other women who took the "natural journey" I was praised for breaking away from the confines of chemicals and societal expectations of what beauty should be.  This is where I began to have problems with the natural community of sistas.  For me, how you wear your hair is about you express yourself and most of all what you find fun or aesthetically pleasing.  I don't care if you wear a 18 inch blonde weave or a blue mohawk. I went natural because I think natural hair is nice looking and because it's healthier for my hair, not because I'm some sort of militant, Nubian warrior princess. 

Because my natural hair is uh. . .very tightly curled and as close to Mother Africa as it can be, I found it a little painful to comb through without it being wet and drenched in leave in conditioner.  To make things a bit easier, I decided to put a texturizer on my hair. This is a very mild chemical process that loosens the curls of your hair without straightening it.  It helped A LOT!  When I went back to the Natural Hair groups, I saw a forum where they were bashing women who used texturizers by saying, they're cheaters and shouldn't refer to their hair as "natural hair".  I just rolled my eyes.  As I read further, they even had problems with people who didn't use all natural, organic hair care products!  Some girl said she really liked the Suave conditioner and all hell broke loose!

I mean for crying out loud ladies! Is it that serious? I made a video of my ever changing hairstyles because I think it represents how hairstyles change with the times and most importantly with a woman's mood.  It's not always about "the struggle".

My response was this::::

wow this was a great set and a great post. i will have to feature this on my hair blog : http://notsonappy.vox.com srsly i understand what you mean about the hair nazis. it's crazy how they cant just ENJOY their hair and stop killing other people's enjoyment of their newfound naturalness. Going natural to me means more about getting back to YOUR roots as a person, not necessarily the roots of your ancestry or the roots of your hair

I just found out about this hair care forum called The Fabulous Hair Project. A friend from NaturallyCurly.com was advertising it. It is a nice place, just starting out and all that... I joined today. It looks like it will be an ideal place to get hair stories and product suggestions :D 

OMW!! If you would have told me that I could put my hair into 4 braids and have a braid out by this time this year I probably would have laughed in your face! I did it, though. It was one of those just can't believe it moments. Did I take pictures? Yes. But they are not very good pictures, as they don't show the full gorgeous that was my hair today.

4braidout

I realize today isn't the 24th but I wanted to show you something DRASTIC:

feb 2008

hair growth mar 24, 09

hair growth mar 24, 09

au natural

Seriously, I have been rocking braid outs for a while now. It's been most of the winter. My braids used to hit the very bottom of where my hair ends on my neck. Now, I have about 3 inches of braid past where the hair ends! I am totally in love with my hair. It's softer, shinier, and more manageable than ever before.

IMG_1200

Yeah I took pix finally: