Why Cowash?

I told my sister I wanted to incorporate cowashing into my regimen this year. To my surprise, she said she has stopped cowashing This is someone who diligently cowashed at least once a week or every two weeks. I asked her why, and she said she didn't see the point of cowashing anymore. Her exact words were, "What's the point of cowashing?"

Co-washing as we all know means Conditioner Washing, which is basically washing your hair with conditioner instead of shampoo. It is important to note though that cowashing doesn't clean your hair as much as washing with regular shampoo will. Shampoo contains cleansers that are meant to remove product from your hair. Most conditioners don't have those cleansers, although there are some touted cleansing conditioners in the market.

As someone who tries to moisturize a few times a week, using some of the products here, it's very easy for my natural hair to have product build up, so at the end of the day, I'm not sure if cowashing needs to be a staple in my regimen. It can be something I do in between regular DC and washing, but it will definitely not take the place of my shampoo washing.

What do you do in regards to cowashing?

Whether or not you cowash, check out our African Naturalistas Store for the best products for your hair.

What are your top Natural Hair Priorities? - Poll

One of our yearly polls on the side gadget of this blog recently ended. In the poll, we asked our blog visitors what was most important to them. Voters were only allowed one option.

I must say that I am really impressed with the quality of answers we got.

Only 4% went for curlier hair. This means people are more comfortable with their natural curl pattern, and no more coveting those of others, which was the trend about 2 years ago. This is good news. The more people embrace their own hair, the better they would love themselves hairwise.

Long Hair and Soft Hair both ranked 18%. I think this is not high or low. Many of our visitors have natural hair, and many are of the opinion that their hair is ‘stubborn’. If only they could make it softer. But the truth is although many people want softer hair, it is not on the top of their list for now. Same goes for long hair. I want to believe the people who chose long hair are the ones who already have full hair and full edges locked down.

Full edges had the highest ranking at 31%. I am not surprised by this. In my years in the hair scene, receding edges are the complaints I receive most. There’s so much hair abuse going on in salons, especially in Nigeria, and our edges are what take the fall. By the time ladies wake up, it is almost too late. In fact, I would have been surprised if ‘full edges’ didn’t have the highest ranking.

Last but not the least is Full hair, which came up second at 27%. Though many naturals have full hair, or the illusion of full hair, due to our hair texture, many people with hair or scalp issues will actually choose full hair as a priority. If your hair has been scanty from birth, there’s really nothing you can do but to create an illusion of fullness with your choice of hairstyles. If your hair wasn’t scanty from birth, but is becoming less full by the day, I advise that you visit our hair clinic. First, we need to determine the cause of the thinning before we can start talking about a treatment.

So that’s it. The poll was anonymous, so we didn’t have the privilege of knowing what each visitor chose. It therefore would be nice for you to let us know in the comment section. Among the below five factors, which is most important to you. Please and please cooperate by picking just one answer. Don’t rank your answers, just pick one, lol.

Long Hair
Full Edges
Soft Hair
Full Hair
Curlier Hair

We currently have another poll on the side of this blog about why we went natural (or not). So please, do us a favour, and complete it. It takes about half a second. We love polls, you can tell.

P.S: Please don't forget the In-Salon Tricholgy Clinic happening this week at O'Naturals and KL Naturals. Tell your friends about it. You can click here for more details if you missed the post last week.

Natural Hair Salons: The Big question.

Hello Naturalistas!

How was your valentine? I really do hope that you had a great time! Today, I would be talking about Natural Hair Salons and the big question. "Are Natural Hair Salons Pricey?"

When I had my relaxed hair, I never used to overthink going to the salon. I knew I could wash my hair under N500 and Steam my hair with an additional N500. You knew exactly how much it is to fix your hair and to braid your hair. While alot of things have changed since then, the new prices aint far fetched.

The emergence of the "Natural Hair" movement in the country and a very few people seeing the opportunity and the need for salons to cater for the nappy haired woman. Natural hair salons were born.
Natural Hair salons are a breath of fresh air after the era of DIYs and just generally experimenting with your hair. A place where you can keep your mind at rest while they work their magic on your hair without your instructing that they should not pull too hard on your edges.

As much as I know that might need to go to a natural hair salon, the prices and accessibility constrain me. It's usually not sustainable. While I understand the uniqueness of these salons, I don't understand the margin with the prices with the regular salons.

I want us to have a healthy conversation around this. How often do you go to a natural hair salon? Do you even see the need for a salon? Do you think they are pricey? What do you think is responsible for the margin?

Let's Talk!

Natural Hair Priorities

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the late late late post today.

I'm still waiting on hearing what you'd like us to post more of, so please leave your comments, suggestions and questions below.

In the meantime, I was looking over the AN website, and noticed the new poll on the sidebar. If you've noticed, there's typically a poll asking questions related to Natural Hair, and I thought I should give my input here. The poll asks which is most important to you among:

• Long Hair
• Full Edges
• Soft Hair
• Full Hair
• Curlier Hair

If you follow naturalistas on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc, you may have noticed that a whole lot of people are seemingly more and more obsessed with the length of their natural hair. I've never been one for length checks, but the second my hair seemed to reach APL (armpit length), I joined the bandwagon and seized the opportunity to take a picture and post it on Instagram. But really and truly, my first priority or hair goal (which I use loosely) isn't really length. Yes, length is great and fun to show and tell, but I think I'd rather have a full head of hair. Or maybe soft hair.

I won't ask you to pick the most important one, but I'd like to hear from you - rank each of the options in order of preference! 5 would be the least important, and 1 would be the most important. For me, it would be

1. Full Hair
2. Soft Hair
3. Long Hair
4. Full Edges
5. Curlier Hair

Let's share in the comments below :)
Berry Dakara.

Natural Hair at the workplace - Poll Analysis

Source

So... Just like we did an analysis of the natural hair bridal poll, we are doing that for wearing natural hair at the work place.

If you live in a country like Nigeria, which has one of the strongest weaves and extensions culture in the world, you will understand how wearing natural hair to the workplace can be a struggle.

Berry has mentioned that a particular bank in Nigeria placed a ban on Natural hair, and I have done a post, presenting tips on how to wear your natural hair in the workplace without losing your mind.

We carried out a one-year poll on this topic, and the final results are in. See for yourself below. Again, I will mention that 76% of our traffic comes from search engines, so I therefore believe that most of the visitors are naturals, transitioning, curious about natural hair, or very interested in healthy hair care.

The majority mentioned that they would, and already wear their natural hair to work, while the next category would have worn it if the company policy would allow, amounting to a total of 87%.

It is so sad that 3% still think our hair is untidy, despite the fact that they visited this blog, but at least, that small percentage show that we have made a little progress. 9% think it doesn't look official, but I believe this category are prone to changing their mind sooner or later.

Out of the calls I receive from women about natural hair care, majority of the are concerned about how to make their natural hair look neat and suitable for the workplace. This gives me great joy, because a couple of years ago, the thought would hardly cross any woman's mind, apart from those who do it for religious reasons.

Again, like I said when I analysed the natural hair bride poll, even though we still have a long way to go, we have definitely come a long way.

… And this is what I call PROGRESS

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Real life natural hair talks: What changed?

Hi Ladies

This one is for the ladies, that's why I specifically channelled my greetings to the ladies.

I just want us to pause a bit and share a few thoughts. 

If you read my post here I talked about how you can create some feminity around an otherwise boring natural look. Especially for a TWA look, you definitely want to stack up on all the little tricks that will not give you off as a clueless girl or worse still, a boy. You want to create something that still looks flashy, or something in between, as opposed to boring. 

Some people had to change their wardrobes to look more girly to even things out on a good note. Some learnt to accessorize more to give off a more fun look. 

My questions are:

What did you have to change?

Why did you think it was necessary?

I was never a scarf person. I used to do baseball hats hahaha

But these days, I realized that scarves go with my new hair than the baseball hats, thus I'm more or less turning to the scarf kind of life.

Another thing was the makeup. I'm not sure I can entirely put this one here and I'll tell you why. I've always been into makeup, but I usually did light makeup. I know somewhere along the line, I found myself trying more bold lips frequently. I used to wear them once in a while, when I was really dressing up. I found out that I upped on that, but then again, I think it could also be that it had nothing to do with my hair. Perhaps, I just evolved into a lady who was now eager to break out of her comfort zone, and that fact was also channeled through my makeup. It could be mere coincidence. Anyways, it happened right about the same time and I thought I just might put it out there as well. 

So now you have mine, let's hear yours! 

Remember, the first person to leave a comment on this post automatically wins 500 naira airtime voucher on any Nigerian network of choice. Remember to leave your email address alongside, we'll need it to send the card across. 

Hurry ladies, share your stories!

Remember to keep your heads high and rock your kinks with pride 

JB

Twitter: @janylbenyl

The bride told me to relax my natural hair...

I drew this with Microsoft Paint. Don't laugh at me :p

Hey ladies!

Have any of you ever been a bridesmaid? If you have (or not), you probably know that some brides want a uniform look for their bridesmaids - same dress, same color, same type/color of shoes... these days, some brides put their bridesmaids on diets to be skinny (but that's a story for another blog). Some of these are understandable. But have you ever heard of some brides who insist on their bridesmaids not only having bone-straight hair, but relaxing their hair?!

I ran into a friend on Tuesday evening, and we got to talking about hair (she saw the shrinkage from my wash-and-go). Then she tells me that she got her hair relaxed. When I asked why, I was stunned to hear her say that it was due to bridesmaid duties. Now, I don't have an issue with her relaxing her hair, if SHE wanted to do it for HERSELF. But to go through with it, for someone else, for just a few hours?! There is absolutely no way I would have agreed to! For my sister's wedding, I got my hair flat-ironed, and that was it. There are different options - wigs, closed weaves, etc. So why should someone else dictate what you do to your hair? I would have opted out of the bridal party, no matter how close the bride is to me.

PS. The bride in question, got her hair relaxed too. That's fine by me, as it's her hair and her choice.

What would you have done in this situation?
	Relax your hair
	Flat iron your hair
	Wear a wig
	Wear a weave
	Pulled out of the bridal party
pollcode.com free polls

Berry Dakara

Natural hair bride - hair styles for your big day

Hi Naturalistas

Did you miss this poll?

You should totally join in the conversation.

After I saw the poll a few days ago, I started wondering if I could really rock my natural hair on my big day. I decided to look around for the possibilities. 

I think I'm very picky with things like these and I really would want to play it safe. I've always thought that nice, big, brilliant waves pinned up partially would be just perfect for such a day. Just to feed my curiosity, I decided to check for styles that could really work for me and wow, I was blown away. Let me just say that I still haven't decided on it yet, but if I decide to eventually, it is totally possible and I mean in a very glamorous way. Need I mention, I love glam :)

Berry already posted a few of them a while back, click here if you missed it

I found some very cool ones too so I thought I'd share

The one in the number one spot is more like my style and that is why it is number one :)
What do you think? 
Are you inspired enough to rock your kinks with pride on your big day?

Photo credits: Source

JB

NaturalistasPoll: Will You Style your Natural Hair on your wedding Day?

source

Hello Naturalistas,

With my hair texture i have been thinking (Not like i'm ready to get married *side eye*) Would i really want to style my natural hair for my wedding (if it eventually happens), after so much thought I decided i would. Why? After banging and banging my hair and Head last week from the protective style i did, it was such an easy decision to make. 

By the way, Is it not supposed to be "protective"? What is it protecting me from if i have to bang my head when it gets itchy errmm, less then 2 weeks after making it? But thats talk for another Wednesday.

Today, its all about you, Please use the comment box and let us know why you will style (or not Style) your Natural hair for your big day. We have also added a poll on the side gadget where you can vote.

Have a lovely Wednesday. For more ideas on how to style your hair on your wedding day, click here.