So what is 'IT'?

Most of my hair pictures seem to be taken with the blackberry, which is kinda crappy... I need to get better with breaking out the big dog cannon. Most of the time either I or my hands are wet and its easier to just grab the phone. Anyway the reason of this post is to show what my freshly washed still wet hair looks like.
I really don't know what to classify my hair according to those typing systems. There is very little curl, maybe a couple of 3c curls in the very front, then the majority of hair is "z's" or bends with pen spring coils on the ends. So what is that? It really doesn't matter to me what it is though, its all about 'what it do'. What does it prefer and how will it react to x y & z. At first I got sucked into the trap of buying stuff that was not for my hair but for someone elses hair type that I was admiring, which I think is curl envy. Curl envy will leave you broke and unsatisfied!

First commandment love thy own curls or lack there of! :)

There is no conditioner that is going to give me 3b's, I don't even think I can do a wash and go cause how do you define a "z"?
So keep in mind that the views and opinions expressed by me are base on this stuff right here! If your hair does similar things then you might like what I like, if not keep looking for your hair twin and don't go trying to fix something that's not broken to make your hair look like something it wasn't meant to be.

Namaste
Shawnta

You Know Me & Experimenting

So I’m composing this post in Windows Live Writer.

That’s me about 8 years ago!  I may have posted that pic before but I’m mainly just trying out some features in Writer.  Seems like a cool program thus far.

Namaste,

Shawnta

Picture Trip in the City and Exittheapple with Boogie and Mads

So last Saturday me and those creatures that say they are my children decided to walk around the city a bit and went to Exittheapple shop at 2103 North Charles street. At the shop you can get independently produced and alternative books, music, film, and art. There is black nerds unite gear as well as the ever popular "conversate is not a word" t-shirt. It is also the flagship store for oyin handmade hair and body care products.

Did y'all know that Burnt Sugar Pomade is my crack?

They were sweet enough to give me a sample size of it so now I don't have to pull a piece of my hair and smell it anymore.... I can just open the jar and take a good sniff.

Don't believe how fanfreakintastic their stuff smells........take a look at this

Yup Mads getting high off of some Honey Hemp Conditioner!!
I think you need to get you some! LOL

Anywhoooooo on with the pictures!!!

Truer words have never been spoken!

Charles Street


Don't ask me why I take a pic of the bottom and not the top lol


We use to come to the lil parks on Charles and whatever the hell that cross street is to draw all the time. The buildings were always my favorite because there was so much detail to concentrate on.
The Walters Art Gallery......I love those big ole doors!!!


My next door neighbor


Even if your not Catholic the prayer garden is beautiful and nice use of the space.


I hate you duck-boat-tour bus- thingy and all your passengers with those annoying duck whistles!!!

My aliens looking so innocent.

Alrighty folks, gotta be productive today and spend some time meditating on my "IT" so I can stop this "active procrastination" I've been doing for ummmm years. Which is one of the many gems I picked up from Pierre Bennu's book "Bullshit or Fertilizer" which you can also pickup at the shop!!!
LETS GO!!!!!!!!!
Namaste
Shawnta

Length Check

A lot of people have inquired about the length of my hair since taking down my locs. Tuesday evening I decided to flat iron my hair to see how uneven my length might be and to cut some of my ragged ends that were determined to try to loc back together. I co-washed with Tresemme Moisture conditioner (one of my favs thus far) and deep conditioned with the Dominican conditioner Silicon Mix. My daughter's 2-3b hair loves Silicon Mix, but for my "3c with a heaping globs of conditioner but really I'm 4a" hair, it was an epic fail!! My hair felt so hard afterwards! I was tempted to slather on something else and hop back in the shower, but the Lakers was on and I was trying to wash out the conditioner during half time LOL. I'll probably do a in-depth review of that soon.So for the actual press I used my Maxiglide, some stale ass Wild Growth Hair oil that I probably had since before the locs, and the Fantasia heat protection serum the red jar.

P.S My extra curl formers came!!!! I was thinking about doing a set this weekend, but with all the rain that is in the forecast, the standard twist and curl might be better. I swear I think I have magically been transported to Seattle Washington. Missy Elliot I can't stand rain! (knows it's vital blah blah blah….but still)
Namaste
Shawnta

How I Took Down My Locks

So how do we go from locs touch my lap when seated to what you all have been seeing for the past week or so? What's required?

#1. PATIENCE!!!!!

I can not express enough that taking down the locs is a labor of love. It is very tedious, your neck will hurt, your fingers will hurt, and often you will want to say fuck it and cut it all off. Now I have been one of those people attached to long hair in the past, but at the point I was at with my locs, I was willing to be bald head small head again to get this over with! So how long did it take.....

3WEEKS!!

I was kind of slow walking the process though. Some days I would take out two, some days none. Each one took about 30-45 minutes to pick apart and that was with cutting away some length. So tools of the trade:

#2 A BLUNT BUT POINTY OBJECT

WATER

CONDITIONER or DETANGLING SPRAY( DID NOT DO MUCH GOOD FOR ME)

Basically what you are trying to do pick it out of it's coiled state, so bit by bit little by little you rake through the loc. My trusty letter opener was my bestest friend during this whole thing! It could penetrate the loc but because it was dull on both sides it would not ripe out my hair as you are pulling down the dead hair and lint and gook and stuff.

YES there is lint and gook in your locs!!

Surprised the hell out of me since I was such a minimalist when it came to products, and my locs never had that white lint appearance to them.



EWWWW!!

I used water to moisten the locs and add slip. Some people say conditioner also helps but for me all it did was make a mess and didn't do any better than the spray bottle of water. Sometimes I would also submerge the loc in water and take it out under water. I would fill up a large bowl for that. Now needs to come the understanding that each lock is 50- 65% of that loc is dead hair not connected to your scalp.

Brooklyn was walkin around with some of the hair like it was our new pet, and Madisyn spelled out her name with some of the hair in the hall way......special children have I!

So be prepared for the tumble weed of hair rolling around. I'm still running across puffs here and there.

Plan how you want to do this cause if you start willy nilly in the front of your head then your gonna be looking crazy really quickly. I picked them out row by row starting in the back.

At point I had finished all of the back and for the hell of it just decided to get to work on a side.

The last leg was this bit that was tied up in the front.

#3 A FRIEND

If you can get some help in the process then it will go by much quicker, unless they keep distracting you with food and other random shit lol. I would say my friends picked out about 40 locs between the two of them.

So that is how I picked out my locs. I may do a lil video if necessary. Next post will probably be about what I'm finding out about my particular hair texture.

Namaste