Nappy Kitchen

Napp Appreciation

I've officially reached the point of healthy growth and happy nappiness that everyone wants to feel my hair and inquire how I got it to "do that." I'm more than happy to tell them that's what natural does - it's own thing, baby. Unlike relaxed hair, I'm not trying to force my hair to do something that isn't inherent. That being the case, the hair on my head rewards me by looking as good as possible, with a little help from me of course.

The positive attention is gratifying, though. Sometimes being nappy in a sea of straight can make one uncomfortable as hell.

I straightened my hair out a bit with my ceramic iron for a growth comparison. Here's a visual:

It's already starting to revert here, which is probably why I'll never try to get it bone straight. My hair is starting to flop down more when I straighten it, which I suppose is a sign of growth. At this point, I'm not obsessive about length, because the styles I'm rocking now are somewhat flattering to the ole mug.

Some misc. pics:

The hair when left to it's own devices over a couple of days. The first pic I took sans flash so you could you see how my hair coils at the end. Trust me when I say this makes for some rampant tangling. As you can probably tell, it was in sore need of a deep conditioning, so I gave it what it wanted.

These were twists done on "dirty" hair. It needed sprucing up and I wasn't in the mood to wash, so I dampened and set to twisting.

The resulting twistout was a bit looser than usual, since the hair was already stretched. Good stuff.

Well that's all for now folks. I shall return.

Overnight Twists

I was sposed to be doing my washing/deep conditioning routine on Sunday, but I got distracted. However, after a few days of cardio, my fro was becoming a dry, sweated out mess. Since I had some outside of the house things to do, I decided to give the hair a quick wash with Suave Tropical Coconut conditioner and put it in bigger than normal twists. I think it took me about 30 minutes to do them.

I usually make my twists a bit smaller because the smaller they are the less likely they are to unravel (in my case). I decided to use this opportunity to trim my ends, which were feeling a bit crunchy. I grabbed the bottom of each twist and snipped off the bits that felt objectionable.

Here's what they looked like today after unraveling:

Really plump and a lot more shrunken than a flat twistout. I sometimes rock my twistouts like this (after arranging the hair to cover up pesky scalp), but if I want a fuller, and less defined wild look I will go through and separate the strands.

I usually pull at my hair a bit and fluff here and there to get everything looking relatively even.

The hair's been looking a bit more sheeny and feeling softer lately. I guess exercise and water really does do the body and hair good.

Somebody Stop Me!

A sista done came up on a digital camera! Wooweeee...chile! *holy ghost dance* Now y'all know I been hankering to show some clear pics of the naps for the longest. So without further ado I shall show visual documentation of a twistout, created with some real messy, real chunky flat twists. When I flat twist I'm not going for a crinkly twistout look insomuch as I want to stretch out the fro for a chunky look.

Front view...newly unraveled

Back view of the unravelage

After a lil arranging

I created the flat twists on damp hair after conditioner washing with Suave Tropical. The only "product" used was olive oil. The next day my hair was still soft and pretty sheeny, so I added nothing else to it after I unraveled the twists. All in all, I'd say it was a good hair day.

I shall not bore y'all with the 2394820384 other pics that I took. But y'all know I'm gone be updating a heck of a lot more! :D