Book Crazy: Building your home library

If you don’t have a natural hair library, what are you waiting for? I love reading hair related books. I would go online to discover books that might help me better care for me and my daughter’s natural hair. I started off borrowing a lot of books from my local library. However, some books I wanted were just not available to check out so I decided that I needed a book collection for home. I like being able to go back and reference the information in these books.

**Here are the books currently in my home library**

Hair Care

Grow It! How to Grow Afro-Texture Hair to Maximum Lengths in the Shortest Time

Naturally Healthy Hair: Herbal Treatments and Daily Care for Fabulous Hair

Relaxed or Natural – You Can Have Beautiful, Black, Healthy, Hair: Comprehensive Guide to Reaching Your Hair’s Full Potential

Thank God I’m Natural: The Ultimate Guide to Caring for and Maintaining Natural Hair

The Knotty Truth: Managing Tightly Coiled Hair at Home: DIY Survival Guide

Ultra Black Hair Growth II: another 6” longer 1 year from now

Beauty/Recipe

Natural Beauty from the Garden: More Than 200 Do-It-Yourself Beauty Recipes and Garden Ideas

Reader’s Digest Natural Beauty: Making and Using Pure and Simple Beauty Products

Ingredient Dictionary

Milady’s Hair-Care Product & Ingredients Dictionary

**Here are the books currently on my wish list**

Don't Go Shopping for Hair-Care Products Without Me: Over 4,000 Products Reviewed, Plus the Latest Hair-Care Information (Previously borrowed from library but now I want a copy of my own.)

Nappturosity: How To Create Fabulous Natural Hair and Locs (I’m trying to locate a used copy. I just think $27 is a lot to pay for a new paperback copy of this book.)

On various natural hair blogs and social networks, you can find many reviews on some of these popular reads. Upon request, I would be happy to do a complete review on any of the books I own (click here to view my previous book “mini reviews”).

So what is (or will be) in your home library? Do you have any recommendations for me?

Thanks for reading. Be blessed!

CallaLily

On the hunt: Hairveda Review

As a follow up on this post, I wanted to let you know my results on the 3 deep conditioners on my radar. You can read about #1 here. This is the second one I tried:

Hairveda SitriNillah Masque
http://hairveda.com/condish.aspx
Size: 16 ounces
Cost: $17.50
Ingredients: Water, Coconut oil, Castor Oil, Cetyl Alcohol, Glycerin, SterylAlcohol, Stearakloniun Chloride, Dimethyl Stearamine, Orange oil, Orange Extract, Vanilla Extracts, Lactic Acid, Germall Plus, Fragrance
Product description/claims: Our Best Selling Deep Conditioner is wonderfully moisturizing and a little goes a long way. SitriNillah is perfect for conditioning and softening your hair after a relaxer or protein treatment.

Our ingredients are perfectly infused to bring the life back to your hair. Nourishing Orange oil penetrates deep down to treat lifeless and brittle hair.

Orange peel, used for centuries in Ayurveda hair and skin remedies is known for enhancing the hair's supple nature. SitriNillah contains no silicones.

What I did: Pre-pooed with olive oil overnight. I cleansed with diluted shampoo. Then I applied the SitriNillah Masque to my hair in sections and detangled. I put on a plastic cap and wrapped a towel on my head to let my body heat do the work. After an hour, I rinsed it out and continued with my styling routine.

My say: Nice but I didn’t love it. I must say that my expectations for this product were very high. I’ve heard so many good things about it and when you open the container the sweet aroma of orange sherbet hits your senses. However, it didn’t give me the slip that I like so detangling was a smidge more difficult. My hair did feel nice afterward but after I finish this jar, I don’t think I will be purchasing it again. Maybe I should mix some honey with this DC. For those of you who have had success with this condish, I would appreciate any tips.

Stay tuned for my next review – Komaza Care Olive Moisture Mask

Thanks for reading. Be blessed!

CallaLily

I'm still here

Sorry I've been a bit lax with posting this week. I've been pretty busy and I'm working on several things right now. I'll be back next week. Have a great weekend!

Thank for reading. Be blessed!

CallaLily

May the force be with you

There is only one “force” that will dry your hair – AIR. We determine what temperature the air is that will dry our hair – the natural air in our environment or heated air.

Warm or hot air has been heated with the assistance of a hair dryer. There are 2 types of hair dryers: the hand held and the hood dryer (hard and soft); pics below. It is advisable to use a product designed to protect your hair from heat before using a hair dryer (or other heated hair appliance). PROS & CONS: less time, less shrinkage but potentially damaging.

Because heated air poses the risk of damage to our hair, many choose to let their hair dry naturally. This can be done while the hair is loose or you can twist, braid or band your hair for more elongation/stretching. PROS & CONS: more time, more shrinkage but a healthier option.

Others like to combine both methods of drying: air drying until the hair is mostly dry and then finishing with a hair dryer.

What factors do you consider when you need to dry your hair? Time? Shrinkage? Health?

Thanks for reading. Be blessed!

CallaLily

Have you crossed the line???

I’m talking about product lines. Now let me start by saying this post isn’t to hate on hair care companies that provide quality hair care systems for our hair type. But lots of companies want you to believe that you will achieve “optimal” results if you if stick to using their entire hair care system. I’m not trying to debunk myths or bust bubbles but I do wonder if others have had a successful hair journey crossing product lines in their hair regimen.

Let me be clear here, I’m not talking about always changing; going back and forth with a myriad of products (can we say PJ?). I mean, once you find your staple shampoo from company X, do you feel a need to use that company’s conditioner also? What’s your opinion? How important is it to you to stay within a particular company’s hair care line? Do you feel that products in the same hair care line are formulated to work better for your hair if used together?

In my quest for the basic staple products, it is my goal is to have 2 products in each category (pre-poo oil, cleansing product, deep conditioner, leave-in conditioner and moisture sealant). I’m finding it less and less important to stick to one particular product line for my hair care needs. If I like the ingredients, price and results I get from a particular product that is all that matters to me. Again, there are great companies that offer wonderful product lines but my preferences seem to be all across the board so yes, I have crossed the line! :-)

Thanks for reading. Be blessed!

CallaLily

*UPDATED* Black Owned Hair Care Companies (Part 2)

Last October I started an ongoing project to get listings for black owned hair care companies. The original listing had 40 companies (which I later added 1 more to). Now I’ve put up part two which includes an additional 19. . . *UPDATE* 21 companies. Please see the disclaimers below.

Once again, this is put together from information I discover and is only for the purpose of sharing that knowledge. As always, feel free to post your comments with corrections or additions.

Disclaimers:

I am not promoting any company for personal gain

To the best of my knowledge, the company’s owner/creator is of black or mixed race

Company offers a full line of hair care products; if I did not see the company offer cleansers, conditioners, moisturizers and styling products, they weren’t put on the list

I do not attest to know if all companies on this list have excellent customer service

Some companies on this list are not makers of “all natural products”; you need to research that for yourself

Common company lines that can easily be obtained at beauty supply stores or large retail (such as Walmart) were excluded from this list

Thanks for reading. Be blessed!

CallaLily

All combs are not created equal

I don’t use combs daily. I own two Jilbere shower combs (pictured) for detangling hair on wash day (while there is conditioner in the hair). I use rat tail combs only for parting. Now, recently it was brought to my attention that not all combs are created equal; seamless combs are a lot gentler on the hair than combs with seams. This is pretty much common sense but I had never though of scrutinizing my combs before. Now I’m contemplating investing in some quality seamless combs.

This article was very informative.

Also, these are two sites that appear to carry a variety of seamless combs.
Tenderheaded Accessories
Creative Products

So what are your thoughts? Is it worth it to invest in quality combs? Do you own any yourself (or are you thinking of getting some)? If so, where have you purchased them? What is your preference (particular brand name, certain material, etc)? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading. Be blessed!

CallaLily