To Lye or Not to Lye... That Is The Question!

For all of us ladies who have relaxed hair or are thinking of relaxing... There are things that need to be known about the relaxer of choice. Yes they have chemicals but there are ALL different.

LYE RELAXERS:

Lye relaxers are made with the active ingredient being sodium hydroxide. It raises your hair pH into the range of 10-14. It can be very damaging, like any chemical treatment, if no in correctly. When the relaxer cream is applied to the hair is penetrates the shaft of the hair and breaks down the protein bonds. The weakening of these bonds is what allows the curls to straighten out. After this procedure is finished, a neutralizing shampoo is applied to wash out the relaxer and bring the pH down to a more neutral pH.

NO-LYE RELAXERS

Much like lye relaxers, no-lye relaxers raise the hairs pH, but slightly weaker alkali agents are used instead of sodium hydroxide (lye). Most commonly guanidine hydroxide is used. This type of no-lye relaxer uses the same principle as the lye relaxers... permeating the hair shaft and weakening the protein bonds of hair. A neutralizing shampoo is also needed following a no-lye relaxer in order to restore the hairs natural pH. It is also recommended that a chelating shampoo is used to remove minerals that may have been left behind on the hair and scalp.

Another no-lye relaxer is the thio relaxer... It is used in thermal reconditioning of the hair. It has the compound, ammonium thioglycolate, which is also referred to as perm salt or perm waves. Instead of weakening the entire protein bond, this particular treatment selectively weakens the cystine bonds. This however, thoroughly strips the moisture out of the hair even more so than alkali products.

Most at home relaxers (box kits) contain ammonium sulfite and ammonium bisulfite. These compounds like ammonium thioglycolate, selectively weaken the cystine bonds of the hair over time slowly; this reduces the amount of irritation done to the skin.

Regardless of the type of relaxer you choose to use, be sure that you research in depth the chemical before you apply it to your hair. Happy Hair Journeying!

Have You Clarified Your Hair Lately?

It's no secret, there are toxins all around us. That's why we wash our face and bodies daily. When you have ethnic hair, you are often told not to wash your hair. This, itself, throws you into a conundrum! To wash or not to wash... And with what? Clarifying! Clarifying is necessary. Without it your hair will be similar to a dry sponge covered in petroleum jelly... Try dropping that sponge into water so that it can absorb what moisture it needs... It wont, because of the build up of petroleum jelly. The only way to get the water immediately into the sponge, is to apply soap to the sponge to break down the petroleum jelly and remove it from the sponge...

I have found, for my own hair, that I must clarify once a week (I can probably go longer than that but, I got myself into a regimen). When I clarify depending on what I am trying to strip out of my hair I either reach for my ORS Uplifting Shampoo or my ORS Creamy Aloe Shampoo.

ORS UPLIFTING SHAMPOO

This shampoo tingles when you use it so you may want to do a patch test to be sure you have no allergic reaction. In my personal experience, this shampoo is very good for stripping build up in the way of oils and conditioner has built up. My hair doesn't really get flakes, so I didn't have to worry about getting those.

ORS Creamy Aloe Shampoo

This shampoo removes some of the same build up that the ORS Uplifting Shampoo does. Because it is used as the neutralizing shampoo following the no-lye relaxer, it is a chelating shampoo. Chelating shampoos remove the build up of minerals on the hair shaft. This comes in handy when you live in an area with hard water.

Regardless, of if you live in an area with hard water or if you have too much product build up in your hair, clarifying is a way to remove this and you can do the treatment right from home. I hope this helps any questions you have on clarifying your hair. Happy Hair Journeying!

The Moisture Protein Balance

The hair on everyone's head is different. Some straight, some curly. Some soft and silky, others, rough and wiry. But one thing still remains, it's all hair. Hair has to have the correct balance of moisture and protein, if not, breakage will occur.

Moisturizing Conditioners

Moisturizing conditioners will put moisture back into the hair. These conditioners will list water as one of the main ingredients as water is a necessary component to moisturize hair. Be careful when walking down the shampoo and conditioner aisle, there are many “moisturizing” conditioners that have silk proteins that will actually put more protein into your hair.

Moisturizing conditioners are needed when your hair is dry. You hair may snap off at the slightest touch. This is a good indication that your hair may be dry and need some moisture.

Protein Conditioners

Your hair is primarily made up of a specific protein called keratin. The thing about your hair is that it is essentially dead when it comes out of the follicle. Some will disagree, but I will cover that in another post. If you have relaxed hair, you may already know, the bonds in this protein in your hair are weakened in order to straighten your hair.

Protein conditioners will strengthen your hair and will most times list “strengthening” on the label as a characteristic. These types of conditioner are needed when you hair feels mushy or gummy when wet. There are soft protein conditioners and hard protein conditioners. The strength of the conditioner you will need will depend on how mushy your hair is.

In either case, adding or alternating the correct conditioners to your hair regimen is essential for retaining length and having a healthy hair journey.

Stargazer Lilies

Back in June, I received flowers from a very, very wonderful man ;)... They were Stargazer Lilies, if you didn't know this, they are an expensive flower. Even when these beautiful plants are in season during the summer months they can still be $35-$65 for a branch that will have somewhere around 4-5 of the actual flowers upon them. It is easy to see why these flowers can run so high. They are beautiful in a mysterious and exotic way.

In an effort to capture a piece of the beauty that these flowers display, I was inspired to do this tutorial. I'm sorry that the lighting is a little off. I will work on getting it better...

I hope that you enjoyed this as much as I did! Thank you, and please let me know if you all have any requests.

Heart Break Hotel

Heartbreak, we've all been there. When the alarm bells ring, but, we decide that either we know better than to listen to our gut (big mistake) or that we have to try. So we ignore that little voice in the back of our minds. We know we will regret it, but, we do it anyway...

<Insert amount of time here> passes and we realize that it just isn't working, but, neither one of us wants to be the one who ends it, so we pretend that it is working... We pretend that we are happy, only to be disappointed. The relationship ends and we are upset. We hurt, we mope, we may even cry. We tell ourselves, "I knew this was going to happen, and I didn't listen". 

We are all human, we all make the same mistakes, and regardless of what we like to tell ourselves, we will do it again. The truth is, there is no perfect relationship. There is no perfect white picket (or wood) fence. There will be fights, there will be bad nights, there will be disagreements. The part we all have to learn is which battles to pick. Which ones are worth it? Which ones aren't? Which soldiers in these battles are better left unpicked for our own emotional dodgeball games? Those are answers that only we know, despite what our friends think...

Friends are people to, which means... They will disappoint you and you will disappoint them. Like it or not that is the way it is. But at the end of the day, a true friend will be there for you. A true friend will be honest, whether you want to hear it or not. A true friend will let you make your mistake (and not think that they are superman lol). A true friend will disappoint you, but the disappointment will never be so high that they will need to be kicked out of the inner circle. And during that heartbreak, a true friend will try to help you through it. That's what we are here for.

Got Shedding Hair? Try This!

100 strands a day! That is it! I know that for my hair, it sometimes seems that, that is low. Sometimes it seems like 1000 hair strands a day. For me, the shedding is always worse after a relaxer. After many a night spent raiding hair boards, I have found help... Garlic... In your Hair...

I know it sounds very strange but it helps... At least, it helped me. I have not tried using odorless garlic capsules, although I am curious! Here is what I used...

The next time I do this, I will try it with odorless garlic capsules and let you all know how it goes. I hope this helps. Rejuvenate your hair follicles and stimulate your scalp... Happy Hair Journeying!

Getting Much Needed Moisture

If you go onto to just about any hair board, you will find that moisture is essential... Especially when factors like: ethnicity, climate, and texture are taken into account.
When you have dry hair it is never a good thing, your hair becomes coarse, (assuming that isn't part of your overall hair texture to begin with) it becomes brittle, it snaps very easily. To combat dryness, we often condition our hair. There are many conditioners on the market that add moisture to the hair. But, sometimes, just adding conditioning to your hair isn't enough. Sometimes, you need to add a deeply penetrating conditioning treatment to quench your hair's thirst.

This leads me to the steam treatment...

This is an effective way to put moisture back into the hair without spending a fortune... Here is a way that I found to do it at home.

Try this on for size, and let me know how it worked out for you. Happy Hair Journeying.

My Hair Journey

Sitting in an elementary school desk and trying to explain to the other children why my hair is different was hard... It's even more difficult when I wasn't even sure why my hair is so different... I have been on a healthy hair journey since June of 2009. My hair was barely out of the neck length category...

I'm currently somewhere between Arm Pit Length and Bra Strap Length...

I will be keeping you guys posted on this journey... While there is no final destination, it should be interesting along the way.