Drowndeep: Hula

Last week VH1Soul played Maxwell's Soul Story and his VH1 Storytellers from 2011. Of course I was elated because I loooove me some Maxwell. After hearing him perform this song, I just could not get it out of my head. Its just so soothing, beautiful, sensual, melodic...perfect. You ever hear a song and feel it resonate within your being? Yeah, that's what this song does to me. 

"Drowndeep: Hula" from Embrya (1998)

 

Omg the end of the second verse is just...ugh. When he sings "How could I let you go" my heart aches...but in a good way. Damn you Maxwell! :) 

Here's the whole set from Storytellers. The intro to "Drowndeep" starts at 10:55ish and its followed by my all time favorite Maxwell song, "Whenever, Wherever, Whatever" at around 18:00.

Enjoy :)

I really need some live music in my life. I'm missing it.

WnG turned Twistout

So five days after my As I Am WnG, I got a bit tired of my hair. It wasn't dirty so I decided to wet it, comb through it and and do a twistout. I figured I could pin them down to stretch them like I'd seen Naptural85 do before -

I ended up with 17 twists because I wanted them to be chunky. I took out the pins the next day but waited five days to take them down. I was glad to see a bit of hangtime and nice definition.

I gave up on twistouts a long time ago but as usual, I'm changing my mind lol. I still love a good braidout though.

Random but here's a couple of curlies I found while combing out my hair :). Yup, I have a bunch of weird S/U shaped curls lol

Ask Myself

Robin Thicke's "Ask Myself" from The Evolution of Robin Thicke (2006)

Advantages of Fine Hair

A couple of weeks ago, I came across an article that Jenell from Kinky Curly Coily Me reposted from Black Girl Long Hair which listed advantages of fine natural hair. I usually complain about how fine my hair is but while reading this article it made me feel better. I guess its good to look at the positive side of things that seem to be negative. 
 
7 Advantages of Fine Natural Hair

Fine hair almost always gets a bad rap. We’re all familiar with its downsides — scalpy twists, fros that flop and susceptibility to breakage — but we don’t always discuss the benefits of having fine natural hair. Here are 7 unique advantages of fine natural hair. For the purposes of this article, fine hair refers to thin strand and low density hair.

1. Less Products

With fine hair, a dime-sized amount of product goes a very, very long way! Thicker haired naturals require more product to coat and seal their strands, plus they often require heavier products — like shea-based butters and creams — that tend to be more expensive. Many fine haired naturals can skip heavy butters and seal with lighter, cheaper products like coconut oil or aloe gel.

2. Easier and Faster Hair Straightening

While coarse strands and thick hair take more coaxing to loosen their curl pattern, fine hair tends to take to heat more easily and requires less of it to straighten out. On the flip side, you have to be careful not to burn fine strands. Keep your blowdryer at medium to low temperatures, and don’t keep the flat iron on for long!

3. Easier Bunning

Thick hair can look a bit bulky when pulled into a bun or a single braid and can put a strain on hair ties and bobby pins. Fine hair is easier to pull into one, and can look a bit more effortless.

4. Hot Weather Friendly

There’s nothing hotter in the summer time than a mass of thick, heavy strands. The “scalpiness” of fine haired styles is actually a plus in the summer time, providing a way for heat to escape the body.

5. Shorter wash day

While thicker haired naturals have to divide their strands into several sections and cleanse and condition each one individually, fine haired naturals can get away with fewer section and, in some cases, not sectioning at all. Plus, fine haired section take less time to work through and air dry much faster.

6. Easier Detangling

When you have less strands to detangle, the process is much quicker. Plus, fine haired naturals can get away with finger detangling only, while many thicker haired naturals must also incorporate hair tools like Denman brushes and wide toothed combs.

7. Faster Styling

When there’s less hair to get through, styling tends to go faster. On fine hair a set of twists or box braids can take less than 2 hours, while thick hair styling often take 4 hours of more. Plus, thick hair can be a downside at the salon, with many stylists charging extra cash for clients with a lot of hair to get through.


Source

I agree with everything listed and I can also add that I love that my hair dries pretty fast.

Wash & Go - As I Am

Warm weather has finally arrived and with it comes my excitement for wash and goes. I haven't been too excited about wash and goes in a couple of years. Lately I've been having the itch lol. I never really had a great experience with a wash and go and I'd love to play around with different products to see what could work well for me.

It recently dawned on me that I never show off MY curls. I'm forever braiding, twisting, bantu knotting, roller setting, and whatever elsing my hair. I barely ever just let my hair be. So I'm going to start doing just that. Plus, a good wash and go can last me up to a week. For a long time I thought that WnGs gave me single strand knots and split ends. Come to find out that ANYTHING I do to my hair gives me SSKs and split ends lmao. So I said eff it, I'm gonna do what I want any damn way. 

Over the next few weeks I'm going to try out a few things. First on the list is what I have left from a free sample I received months ago - As I Am Leave In & Curling Jelly Curl and Coil Definer.

As soon as put the Leave In on my hair I felt my hair smile. It had nice slip and smelled like cake batter lol. I followed up with some olive oil. The Jelly looked like, um, mucus. I really felt like I was putting snot in my hair lmfao. I was kind of unsure about the Jelly because as soon as I added it to my hair, my hair felt a bit hard. It felt as if it wasn't agreeing with the other stuff on my hair. I was hopeful that it'd be fine though. Since my wash and goes tend to be a bit crunchy at first and soften up as time passes, I was ok with the crunch.

Here's a couple of pictures of it when it was freshly done and still soaking wet:

After it dried, I put olive oil on my hair and scrunched out the crunchiness.


Here's a few shots of it dry the next day: 

 

I'd love to try this leave in again. It just felt so nice on my hair. I'd try the Jelly again also because it gave me wonderful definition. The crunch eventually subsided and my little Jherri curls were still popping all over lol.

I'm excited for my next WnG :)

Big Ass Puff

I'm so in love with big, fluffy hair. This is the aftermath of my last braidout finger-combed out.

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My puff is growing :)

4 Years Natural :)

I know I've been MIA for a while. I haven't been in much of a blogging mood. I've been feeling kinda blah this past month. But as usual, I've kept myself kinda busy with my hair.

I had mini twists for 2.5 weeks then I did another roller-set/blowout and dusted my ends. After doing a bantu-knot out, I decided to do a bunch of chunky twists. Twistouts on stretched hair don't usually come out good so this time around I used Curls Unleashed Curl Boosting Jelly for some hold and I loved the outcome. My hair was still light and fluffy with a nice wavy curl pattern.

After the twistout, I braided my hair in small sections using the Jelly and I ended up with 35 braids. I kept them in for a week and here's the outcome:

Fluffy goodness :)

When I first started my 6 Month Protective Style Challenge I thought it wouldn't be hard to stick to it. My problem was that I love playing in my hair. I like trying different styles and products so making a commitment to leave it alone was kinda hard. These past 6 months I've been breaking all my rules. I've used heat a few times and I haven't kept my hair in protective styles. When the colder months come back around I'll try to do another challenge and actually stick to the rules.

On a different note, today marks the fourth year since my BC. My hair isn't where I thought it would be by now but I'm not going to linger on the length issue. Here's my latest length check:

According to my Length Goal, I'm exactly where I wanted to be! I thought I might've been hopeful to think I'd get to Bra Strap Length by June but I'm basically there. Ok, I'm like 1/4 inch away but who cares? lol

Hopefully in a year from now I'll have Mid Back Length hair :)

90s Groove

I miss when songs had an extra minute of music to groove to.

Here's a few of my absolute favorites:

D'Angelo's "Lady" from Brown Sugar (1995)



Maxwell's "Ascension" from Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (1996)



Raphael Saadiq's "Ask of You" from the Higher Learning Soundtrack (1995)



I could go on and on but I'll stop here.

Damn I miss the 90s.

I'm Not Ok

Temika Moore's "I'm Not Ok" from The End of Me (2012)



You ever hear a song and automatically wish you had written it yourself? I love when that happens. The first time I heard this song I had one of those moments.We've all had a moment when things weren't ok and nothing seemed to be going our way. There's no shame in admitting that you're not ok. When I heard this song, it was so easy to relate to and I knew exactly where Temika was coming from. Right now that is exactly how I'm feeling. I just need to not get stuck here.


I need to get it together...

I need to get back on track

I was looking through my unpublished posts and I came across this one from 12.4.12. I wonder why I never posted it...maybe I felt it was redundant? Oh well, here it is...



I've wanted to get a handle on what I eat for a long time. I know that I need to improve how and what I eat in addition to becoming more active. When I talk about wanting to lose weight, it is not just for aesthetic reasons. While I do want to look better, the real reason is because I need to feel better. I am 22 years old. I should not be getting winded easily or getting sore after barely being active. That's just not cool. I know that I've mentioned this mannyyyy times. But it's an issue that I haven't brought up in a while. And it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

Here's a picture of me after my cousin's wedding in 2008:

Four years and forty pounds ago. I couldn't squeeze into that dress if my life depended on it. SMH. I was looking at this picture the other day wondering how I got to my current size and trying to figure out a way to get and stay motivated to lose the weight that I want to.

• I need to get up off my ass and get moving! I can talk about losing weight all damn day, but if I don't add any action into it, it is completely pointless! I need to suck it up and get busy. Soon!
• My diet is not anywhere near what I would like it to be. I don't eat enough fruits and vegetables and most days I feel heavy and unsatisfied after I've eaten. Right now I can't buy the food I'd like to so I feel a bit limited. I also struggle with my portions. 
• I need a support system. Maybe I should join an online weight loss community or try to find people that want to achieve similar goals as me. Sometimes it's hard to stay on track when other people in my house aren't on board with changes. It's also hard for me to discuss weight/weight loss with my friends because they don't see what I see plus they have no idea about how it feels to be my size. If I have to hear the, "Oh Shatera you aren't fat" BS one more time, I just might go off. Next time, I'm just gonna say, "Yeah you're right. Technically I'm not fat, I'm obese." Which is the truth. Sugarcoating shit and telling me I'm not fat might make you feel better but it damn sure isn't helping me. Anyway, back to my point - I need a support system...and one that works. 

I know for a fact that I am not taking care of myself. I need to be better at feeding more than just my body. All aspects of my life are lacking. My energy, my spirit and my mind are all being neglected. ....