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!

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.

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.)

I will learn to love my gray hair...I will learn to like my gray hair

....I will learn to tolerate my gray hair.

That's about all I can commit to right now. I don't have an aversion to gray hair..I just want to gray gracefully. Not this random patchy graying that I'm doing.

I've had a patch of gray in the top of my head that I've had since I was around 15...I'm cool with it because it's the silvery gray. It's the random brassy gray that's popping up in strands here and there that are driving me nuts.

I've got that stubborn "you won't suppress me with with dye no matter how harsh the chemical is" gray. So it never covers well. A few years ago, I went with hi-lites to hide them since they won't color with the dye. (I'm lucky I even have any hair left. My hair is just way to fine to be stripped and punished that way). But I did it all in the name of hiding the gray.

When I decided to go natural, I also decided to no longer color my hair with a commercial product. Henna was the way to go. So I patiently waited out the process of growing out my relaxed, even though I wanted to henna badly. Other nappies advised me to wait so that I didn't run the risk of drying out the relaxed hair, having it start breaking and then cause damage to my new nappy newgrowth.

After the BC, I saw that gray and knew, I would go mad just looking at it...so henna, here I come. {Sigh} Beautiful reddish brown undertones to the rest of my hair...but the gray was screaming a bright brassy bronze, bordering on orange....UGH! I knew at this point, I would be hitting the commercial products again.

I waited 4 months to color, sneering at the gray hair the whole time. I decided to go with Dark-n-Lovely's Red Hot Rhythm. Loved it! With lots of moisturizing and deep conditioning, I didn't have any breakage and still don't. However I ran into a new dilemma....do I continue to color...and how do I do it with out eventually drying out the hair that had been previously colored? Which leads to another question...am I truly natural if I have chemically altered my hair color? Still pondering that one.

After reading many stories of fellow nappies having to cut off years of growth due to dryness caused by coloring with commercial dyes....I have decided not to color with harsh dyes again. Now I don't know if I can truly live with this gray hair. I'm doing more research on Henna. I may have not purchased the best quality product the first time around (got it from and Indian grocery store in my area...and I admit, I didn't check out the brand and whatnot, I just assumed it was a pure henna).

I don't know if I can successfully apply the henna over the currently dyed hair. Not sure what kind of differences I am going to see in terms of hair color between the new growth and the previously dyed hair. I am slowly trimming the previously dyed hair while i try to make my decision about the henna.

Again, I have not had any damage, no dryness what-so-ever...I just don't want to end up frustrated a year from now trying to decide if I need to just cut out the hair that has been dried like straw from repeated colorings.

My current mantra: I will learn to tolerate my gray hair.

Hi my name is Dez...and I am a conditoner junkie...for real.

That dang-blasted KMart has done it again. Keeping me caught up in the conditioner addition. I didn't get a Sunday paper, so I thought I'd breeze through to see if my favorite Herbal Essence conditioners were on sale.

HOLY SMOKES....the Suave Pro products were 3 for $5! Now,this is the only store I've seen the Healthy Curls conditioner. Every other store only has the spritz and mousse...no place markers for the conditioner as though the don't even carry it. But KMart...at least the one near me does.

So what's a junkie to do? You know the routine, I snatch up bottles. I got all 11 bottles there. (Now this is not my usually glazed over "conditioner-on-sale" induced high I usually get...I snatched up all those bottle because I mean I cannot find them at any other store here. Plus I'm not sure if Suave is phasing the product out or not. There's also the shop-lifting my Mom does on my products when she visits...ok I usually give them to her, but she's Mom...like I have any other choice.)

Ok back to where I was. You should have seen the cashier. She was a sista too, but she just couldn't believe I was buying all this conditioner. She thought I was a hair dresser buying it for a shop. She was thrown for a loop when I told her it was all for me. If she had been a police office, she probably would have given me a sobriety test. :)

Hey...your hair is longer than I thought...why don't your straighten it to show how long it is.

Aw...Hell naw! I had to contain myself when a friend was pulling at my coils and commenting on how much my hair has grown. I had to kindly remove her hand from my hair and I managed to do it without slapping it away.

NO, I AM NOT GOING TO STRAIGHTEN MY HAIR JUST TO SHOW YOU HOW LONG IT IS! I know how long my hair is, don't really care if you know how long it is...feel me. And yeah, I pretty much yelled at her. She just really doesn't get it. She is the "what's your hair type gal" from an earlier post. {SIGH} My patience with her is completely gone. I try not to participate in hair conversations with her, but sometimes she happens to be around when someone else is asking my about my hair, routine, why I went natural...or some other question. And of course she feels the need to put her 1.5 cents in. Despite the number of times, I've told her I am not straightening my hair because I don't want to cause any heat damage and most importantly...because I just don't want to. But she comes back around to suggesting I straighten my hair for a change.

So this is how this latest mess happened. I was hanging out with a few friends and one of the guys brought his cousin whom, I'd never met. He looked at my hair and said I love your hair and asked if he could touch it. Now this guy is cute...young around 21 or 22, but cute and since he's legal...I let him go for it. Um....I probably should have charged him, the way he was moaning about how soft and good it feels...coulda got a new pair of shoes out of that one ;) Anywhoo, a discussion starts about why I decided to go natural, what I use on my hair, why I've decided not to color again...yada, yada, yada...all the while, my cute new little friend keeps his hands in my hair.

Well, the "work-my-nerves" friend reaches over and stretches one of my coils as fair as it would go. And as usual, something stupid flys out of her mouth: Hey...your hair is longer than I thought...why don't your straighten it to show people how long it is. One of my other friends looks at her and rolls her eyes...we've been down this road many a time before. (I'm the only natural one in this group and they respect my right to be natural without altering my texture as I respect their rights to be relaxed. I only discuss my hair if asked about it.) At this point I remove her hand and remind her again my stance on straightening my hair. Geeze, not sure what this chic's problem is, but I'm taking off the kids gloves and she's about to get her feelings hurt.

Little cutie, bless his heart stops and asks, "why would she need to straighten this beautiful hair...I wish more sisters would get more in touch with their natural hair." And he goes back to playing in my hair. Ohhhh....if he wasn't so young....well, let's just leave it at that.

And the junkie-ism continues

My descent into conditioner junkie-ism (I need to stop making up words) continues. So ya know that box of conditioner I tripped over a few weeks ago...well along with my new love of Herbal Essence Hello Hydration, I had a bottle of the Totally Twisted stashed in there. Hello! I have a new love....this stuff makes my coils just POP!

Yeah, yeah I know, I'm supposed to be on that "only homemade products" for the summer, but with the exception of conditioner for co-washes, I did stick with it. It's just that there is nothing like a co-wash with a creamy conditioner. Plus the summer is over, so I can jump back into my commercial conditioner frenzy.

So back to this joy in the purple bottle. Totally Twisted, like all the other Herbal Essence line has a yummy scent to it, making me all the more addicted. I feel madly in love with this stuff.

But wait a minute a new player showed up on the scene, that made want to cheat on my Totally Twisted. I've been seeing Suave's Professional Humectant for some time now. And when Hello Hydration showed up on the scene with it intoxicating orchid and coconut scent, I couldn't help but share my shower time between the two. Well, I happened to be picking up some more Suave Pro Humectant when I noticed Suave's Pro Healthy Curls. The labels says "Defines Curls as well as Redkins". I don't use Redkins, but what the heck...it says it defines curls, I'll give at try. Lawd....chile, this stuff is da truth! My coils are popin' and sangin' all over the place. Now the only drawback is that it does not have that luscious smell that the Totally Twisted does. It doesn't smell bad though, just doesn't make me dream of a tropical island the way Totally Twisted does.

Now that I have this luv thang going on with 6 conditioners...don't forget, I'm still totally in love with Suave Natural's Tropical Coconut and Aussie Moist, who do I luv the most? Can't choose, they all give me something special. And since we are all living together in harmony, why mess with that. See that hang out together, even when I'm away.


Coil definition with Totally Twisted:


Coil definition with Healthy Curls:

Warning, if you are afraid of shrinkage....this product is not for you. But I love my shrinkage so the more I have the happier I am. We'll get into that later :D

Another note on the Suave Pro Healthy Curls...it is hard to find here. I'm not sure if this is a product being phased out. I've only found it in one store in my area so far out of about 10 stores I looked in :(
Nope, not telling cause I don't want y'all going in and grabbing up my stash.

Confessions of a conditioner junkie

Damn...that's a huge scrape on my arm.

I guess you're wondering what in blue blazes that has to do with conditioner. Er...I tripped over box of it last night. And nope...no margaritas were involved.

So I guess your next question is why and how did I trip over a box of conditioner? Well, it was sitting in front of the linen closet and I tripped over it when going to the bathroom in the dark in the middle of the night.

Ok, you've got more questions huh? I never turn the lights on when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I know the path well and I go back to sleep a lot easier if I don't turn lights on.

Now, why was there a box of conditioner sitting in the floor? Wait...did you say a box of conditioner? Well, there's really not any room in the linen closet, that doesn't have many linens because it is stuffed with health and beauty products.

I'm blaming part of it on Bath and Body Works and Victoria Secrets. Every time they have those durn semi-annual sales...well you know. No need to go into all the ugly details and talk about the bags of stuff I have on the floor in the closet.

Before going natural...I did have quite a few hair care products on one shelf. Most of the old "bad for your hair stuff" has been tossed, but now that I've gone natural...the daggone ingredients for my homemade concoctions have spread to two shelves. Them old, butters, herbs and powders take up a lot of room. Not to mention the additives like honey, glycerin...yada, yada, yada.

So, back to the box of conditioner on the floor. I've got quite a few bottles of different brands of conditioners. I co-wash daily, sometimes even twice. I've got a number of conditioners that I've tried. Some I like some I didn't care that much for. The ones I didn't care too much about, I used them in my deep conditioning mixes to use them up. I keep several bottles of my favorites like Sauve Naturals Coconut and Warm Vanilla. Then there's the Aussie Moist.....ummmm this is heaven in a bottle...or so I thought, but I'll get to that.

Disclaimer: It's KMart's fault. I really wasn't in there to buy conditioner. I was headed to look for a patio table when that big ass sale sign caught my attention...they were having their 3 for $8 on Aussie Moist. And before you know it, I was picking up bottles. They only had 2 left....grrr...I know them other nappturals here are the culprits. Can't prove it, but I know it. Anyway, they also had the Herbal Essences line on sale too. I pick up a bottle of the Hello Hydration and check out the ingredient list and it's not too bad, only one cone...I mean my beloved Aussie Moist has got 1 cone in it too. So I grab it to make my 3.

Well, I'm in this "homemade products for the summer" challenge, so I really shouldn't be buying conditioner. But I'm always afraid that they'll either stop making my favorites completely or screw up the ingredients trying to make it "new and improved".

I really wasn't going to use...I really wasn't...but you know a junkie cannot have their product of choice and not resist the temptation. I decided to use the Hello Hydration, because I figured it wouldn't be any good anyway. OMG....this stuff is better than the Aussie Moist...uh-oh! One use and I'm totally hooked. So what's a junkie to do....head back to KMart and buy more conditioner. 12 bottles later and nowhere to store them, I stuck them in a cardboard box until I had time later to "re-arrange"...ok...ok...clean out the linen closet.

So, that is how the box of conditioner came to be sitting in front of the closet and how I tripped over it and how I ended up with this 3 inch scrap on my arm.

{SIGH} I really am not using as much...I am trying to abide by the challenge. I use once or twice a week...ok maybe 3 times. I am trying to cut down to no commercial products for the challenge...but I got that conditioner monkey on my back. :D