Friday, October 24, 2008

Ok...I just passed out cold when I saw this website.

MODISTA

OMG....this is shoe lovers paradise. Be careful...you'll get a head rush as you flip through the pages and pages and pages of shoes. Coolest part, you can sort by type, color, brand, price and hell even by discount percent...now that's what I'm talking about.

You need a hand bag to go with those shoes...hello pop on over to that section.

Oh yea, there are kids and mens shoes to.

Ok...some of the initial rush has worn off....diving back in for more shoe pleasure.

See ya!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Let's all please have a moment of silence for the death of "cool and sexy"

I must take a moment and deviate from my usual conditioner and now and then shoe ramblings to mourn the death of "cool and sexy".

During the mid-80s I fell madly in love...in a movie theater. With who you ask?

There I was rockin' to the beat with everyone else in the Southbrook Mall's theater at the new release Krush Groove (many many months after it was originally released) But this was an exciting time for us. It wasn't often that the South got such a vivid view of hip-hop. This was pre- Yo MTV Raps, so most of the visions we had of hip hop artists were limited to album and cassette covers....yup albums and cassettes. (And if you have only ever seen CDs in your life...get off my blog youngin' LOL!)

Anyway in the mist of all the rocking and dancing, the images on the screen took on a new life for me. The man of my dreams burst onto the screen in a blueish gray Kangol and shirt. Oh chile, I was done. Who was this man that done ran away with my tender heart...none other than LL Cool J himself. And for those of you that don't remember cause that Alzheimer's is actin' up or you are too young to remember ( you shouldn't be here anyway, I told you to get out earlier), this is when I first met and fell in love with LL.


Um, um, um...over the years I fell deeper and deeper in love with those dimples and luscious lip that he's always licking. Whoo...hello...somebody get me a fan. My walls...can't remember what color there were, were a shrine to the fabulous, luscious, gorgeous, fine LL Cool J. I died and went to heaven when he released "I Need Love". I even loved him in later years when he made it cool and sexy for the fellas to walk around with one leg of their jogging pants pulled up (now in hind site...I can't believe how stupid that looks.)

And good Lawd, as the boy has matured into a man, full of luscious rippling muscles...whew, my fantasies of him escalated. Hey where is that fan I asked for...and bring me some water too.

But alas...all that sex appeal and coolness has now come to it's death and I must morn. But LL is still alive you say. How could I be mourning him? Well the LL I know and love has passed on to a better place. Left behind...{sob}...is a old ass Sears 1970's polyester smelling, Old Spice wearing representative.

WHY LL! WHYYYYYY! You can't represent sexy and cool if you are the spokesman for Sears and Old Spice. I was just getting over the shock of the Sears thing. You can not exude any nuance of cool with a Sears logo behind you...just ain't gonna happen...no way, no how. Shoot he might as well put on a polyester leisure suit, cause when I see him now, I automatically smell Poly-es-ter...that 1970's version. Y'all know it had it's own distinct smell. But I guess he decided to cover up the smell...with what...OLD SPICE. Come the hell on LL, just cause they put the name Swagger on it don't hide the fact that it's Old Spice. When I saw the commercial...I thought it was an opening punch line to a Saturday Night Live skit. I jumped on the web and went to the Old Spice website and saw the same damned commercial. Umph, umph, umph...how far the mighty have fallen.

Whoo Lawd, y'all my heart is so broken. I know, I know, some say, baby boy had got to make his change...but I say he should get some stripper gear and go on the road. The ladies will pay well to see LL in nothing but a Kangol shaking his thang on the stage. But you can count me out of that group now...cause all I can smell is polyester and Old Spice every time I think of him. Not sexy at all.

Please excuse me now. I have to go lie down. This burden is very heavy on my heart. I'm not sure I'll be able to get over it. He was my first real love after all.

Me and my curl activator phobia....

Ok, you can stop laughing now....really I mean you can stop laughing. I know, you probably have the same vision I have when you think of curl activator. You see this too don't you:



A recent post over on NP made me think about activator and my fear of it again. When I first went nappy, I was on a quest to make my coils pop and stay super moist. Lots of Nappys use activator (my Mom included) to achieve curl/coil pop-age and/or moisture. Soooo....I bought this little container. But it has been sitting in my cabinet for months un-touched.

Earlier in the summer I was going to try to venture into actually using the activator. I was in the bathroom one day trying to psyche myself up to put some in my hair. I stuck my hand in the jar and as soon as my fingers touched the cold, wet almost slimy surface....WHOOSH! I was swept back to the 80's begging my Mom not to make me get a "Scary curl". I had to be the only person in Memphis and the surrounding 200 miles that hated them with a passion. I know, I know...you don't believe me for the sheer fact that I grew up in Memphis and even the dogs had drip drip Jheri Curls. I never had one, never wanted one. Thankfully, she didn't force me down that path. But to this day, I still hate them and the activator associated with that scary time period....plus the fact the Memphis still has not quite let go of the Curl, so every time I go home, I run into someone that makes me re-live the nightmare. (Now, I must say, you Nashvillians can't snicker at all....I've run into quite a few Curls here too...from the drip drip ones to the dry crusty brittle ones...so I wouldn't point any fingers if I were you.)

Anyway, I don't know what it is, but whenever I think about using some activator, I have visions of going to someone's home to visit and when I go to sit down they says "Hold up, let me get a towel. I don't want your greasy ass curl messing up my couch." {shivers}

I'd say my fear of activators is up there with my fear of spiders....and if you know me, you know what it's like for me and a spider to be within 10 feet of each other.

I don't think I'll ever be brave enough to venture in to the curl activator world. I probably should just get rid of the jar I have so I can stop having Jheri Curl flashbacks.

But just in case you need another reason to be scared of activator...remember this:


You would have thought we were on fire with all the wailing and screaming we did after we saw this. This was back in the day when I was still a huge MJ fan. Oh come on you know you were feeling the gloved one then too. I loved him up until the point he became some weird looking creature that even Mama Katherine could no longer recognize.

Can't believe there is a conditioner out there I am not in love with.

This time, the enabler was Krogers. They were having a sale on the Garnier Fructis products. I've read mixed things on different boards about them. So I decided to give them a try.

I was good this time. I only grabbed 3 bottles: the Moisture Works, the Hydra Curls and the Fortifying Deep Conditioner.

First of all the smell of apples is pleasant...for the 1st 20 minutes anyway. Not something I want to be sniffing all day long.

I loved the Fortifying Deep Conditioner. My hair felt luscious afterwards. It's a keeper.

The Moisture Works...eh...if a find it on sale, maybe I'll pick up a couple of bottles. But not likely. It just does not hold a candle to HE's Hello Hydration or Suave Pro's Humectant...I just luv these two.

Now I was surprised at the Hydra Curls. My hair was a totally frizz ball after it dried. Even the cheapest conditioner not aimed at curly hair has never produced frizz of this magnitude. My hair is super soft...but it's super duper frizzy. My routine is quite simple, co-wash, shake, wrap hair in microfiber towel to soak up excess water, spay with a spritz made of distilled water, jojoba oil, Suave Tropical coconut and glycerin. So it's not like there was much room for error. But just to be sure I tried again the next day. Same results. So the Hydra Curls gets a big thumb down from me.

The Garnier Fructis is a line that I can actually do without. Wow...funny hearing me say that about conditioner. Who is this woman and what did she do with that feining conditioner junkie. I think I'm now clean....SIKE!

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Ohhh....I finally got the Chunky Fro thing conquered.

I had given up on twistouts. It seemed like no matter what products I used, all I got was frizz.

I've started twisting my hair at night to battle the tangle in the morning. Last night was bentonite clay cleaning night and I'm doing Zhara's hair detox so I don't want to put any commercial products on....y'all know how I love my conditioner. (Ignore that twitch...I'm jonesing for my conditioner.)

Anyway, I have tried everything in the world to do a twist that does not look like a fuzzy ball of yarn. My hair hates most gels. I even tried making a flax seed gel, but I think I'm allergic to the flax seed. I tried it a couple of times to make puffs and each time got little itchy bumps on my neck. Funny I eat flax seed all the time on my salads...oh well.

Rambling again huh....well like I said I'm trying to detox my hair, even though I can't see buildup on my strands, I can feel it. Yeah, I know the cones in the conditioners...but I AIN'T GIVING UP MY AUSSIE MOIST, HELLO HYDRATION, TOTALLY TWISTED, SUAVE HUMECTANT OR SUAVE HEALTHY CURLS...NOT EVEN GONNA HAPPEN. Er...ok...remember I'm jonesing right now.

I have started twisting my hair at night to battle the tangles when I co-wash in the mornings. Last night after I cleansed with the clay, DCed with my "head to toe shea butter mix", olive oil, caster oils and bananas, I used a little sheamoe, glycerine and castor oil to twist my hair. This morning as I took the twist down, preparing to a quick herbal rinse, I started playing with shaping my fro....and "BAM" before I knew it, I was rocking a sweet chunky fro.

I'm feeling a little Cleopatra Jones-ish right now with my bad self.

Friday, October 10, 2008

These are HAWT


Lotus Long Vintage Panelled Boots

If the freaking economy wasn't so screwed right now...they'd be on my to-do-list for the winter.

Now we return you to your regular scheduled hair blog. (Hey you were warned that shoes and/or boots could make an appearance here at any time.)