My Review of the NEW Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Range

Hi there, how have you been? Hope you had a great weekend and are getting ready for the new week? Yeah me too, sometimes I feel that we should add more days to the weekend, Saturday and Sunday aren't just enough, lol!! Anyway, so in this post, we will look at the New Dark and Lovely Au Natural Range. If you have been following my hair updates, you would have noticed that I promised to do a review of these range of products in future and this is the future people, ha ha. I also mentioned in my NITC 6 experience post, that I was part of a focus group selected to try out this new range by Dark and Lovely. 

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I really appreciate Dark and Lovely for recognizing the ever increasing natural hair community and coming up with this new range specifically made for naturals, I think it is awesome!

For this review, I was given samples of the following products:

1.       The Hydrating Soak Shampoo

2.       The Knot Out Conditioner

3.       The Coil Moisturizing Soufflé

4.       The Curl Defining Cream

5.       Sheen Sealing Nectar

I have separated these products into two, The Good Stuff and Not So Good Stuff

The Good Stuff

1.     The Coil Moisturizing Soufflé

Let me just say that this is the BEST, styling product I have ever used for twisting my hair. If you know me, you must have realized that I have tried a lot of products for someone who is just three months natural. I LOVE THIS PRODUCT. I don’t know what they put in it, I think it has to do with the glycerin, but for my hair, Dark and Lovely got it right with this one. It makes my hair so soft and moisturized all day. This product is going to be a staple in my hair product collection. I love it! I give this product an eleven on a scale of one to ten, people! lol!

2.    The Knot Out Conditioner

This has most of the good stuff to look out for in a conditioner. It has water as its first ingredient, it also has glycerin which is a good humectant that draws moisture to that hair, then it has fatty alcohols like Cetearyl Alcohol which moisturizes the hair. This product also has natural oils like palm oil and mango seed oil, so that's some good stuff. I particularly like the name of this product, THE KNOT OUT conditioner. The name prompted me to use it, for the first time, to detangle my really knotty hair. It worked really well with my hair.  It has good slip and it was easy to work through my hair. I would defiantly purchase it again for detangling my hair. I give it a seven on a scale of one to ten.

The Not So Good Stuff

To be honest, I did not try to use these products at all. The ingredients in them are not so good for my hair. For example, The Sodium Laureth Sulfate in the Hydrating Soak Shampoo and the Curl Defining Cream discouraged me from using them. My hair does not like that ingredient at all. It dries out my hair and turns it into what looks like a local sponge for washing pots in the village, honestly. So Dark and Lovely, I am really sorry, I did not use these products, I didn’t even try. I also could not try the sheen sealing nectar for the same reason, I just felt it was going to be like the Oil Sheen Spray I used when I was relaxed. 

The Journey of Peace Indescribable

Inner peace was the most striking thing I experienced when I decided to walk closely with God. It is one of the biggest gifts God gives to His people and it cannot be bought in any market, trust me. It is deep, almost indescribable but when I got it, I knew, that I knew, that I knew, that there was something very different residing in my heart, it was God’s peace. Once I started sensing this peace, some scriptures began to make sense to me. You know, like the one that says “…..His peace passes all understanding”. I experienced it for myself, my very own self. 

One thing I just wanted to do when I sensed God’s peace was to run on the roof tops and tell the whole world what I was feeling. Of course, I told everyone who cared to listen. I preached about it, I testified about it and although some people wondered what I meant, I knew that what I had was genuine, it was tangible, and it was real. Some people close to me even noticed, some comments I got were like “You look so calm and collected”, “When I hugged you, I could tell there was something different”, “There’s just something different about you” and so on.

I honestly believe that God’s Peace is “somewhere” He takes us when we start our walk with Him. It’s like a reference point and a starting point to which one can gauge whether or not he or she is drifting away or still on track with Him. For me, God’s peace is a guiding compass. Such that no matter where I am, what I am doing or saying, once that peace is not there, I know there’s something wrong and I have to do something about the situation to get back to the place where God’s peace is real.

What about you, have you ever experienced this peace? Was your experience like mine or different from mine? Please I would love you to share in the comment box below. Thank you so much for reading till the end, lol!! The next post will be about Wisdom, how God empowered me with wisdom that has set me apart in so many ways, so stay tuned.

My Walk With Jesus

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Dear reader, in the next few weeks, I would like to share something that means a lot to me. This is something that has given my life true meaning ever since I started to pay close attention to it and nurture it. It is something that dramatically transformed my life and continues to refine me. This special thing is my personal walk with Jesus. As much as I enjoy sharing my hair journey here on my blog, I am also inspired to share this with you. I would also like you to know that the posts that I am going to write concerning this will not be filled with clichés but they will be my own story, my own journey with Jesus. My goal is for my story to be a blessing and a source of inspiration to you, my readers. So for this series, I will be starting with my next post titled The Journey of Peace Indescribable. Thanks for stopping by.

Love always,

Acharacha

ME, MYSELF AND MY FRO: PUTTING MY FRO OUT OF THE WAY

Hi there! So for the past two weeks, I have been wearing my fro in styles that keep it out of my way for at least five days. Chaiii!! It has been rewarding ohhh!! If you live in Lagos, you'll wonder how a natural girl survives in this busy city. In the evening, you get home exhausted because of traffic. In the morning, you're dashing out to work so you don't get caught up in the same traffic. So please people, tell me where I can squeeze in about one and half hour to twist my hair every night (perils of the TWA stage) and unravel in the morning, eeeh?!! My dear, e no easy, it is not easy. So since I have some length now, I decided to start protective styling my hair, so I can just wake up and go!!

MINI TWISTS by YOUR'S TRULY

So for the first week, I did mini twists. Ofcourse, a lot of people could not believe they were just twists, most people were convinced that I was dreading my hair, so I just stopped explaining (*shoulders high with my palms facing upwards, head tilted sideways*). This took me about three and half hours to do.

FLAT TWIST UP DO by YOUR'S TRULY

Second week, I pushed myself a little further and tried the FLAT TWIST UP DO with mini twists in the front. Boooooyyyyy was I proud of my self or what?! Compliments kept pilling to the roof, wow!! On the weekend, I just unraveled the twists in the middle, to get a twist out in front and  flat twist updo. Meeeeen, I was proud of myself,oh! It took me about three hours to complete. Please place a comment if you want me to do a tutorial on how to achieve this on my YouTube Channel

SIDE SWEPT UP DO by APPLES AND ORANGES SPAR

This week I am rocking A SIDE SWEPT FLAT TWIST UP DO that I did at the Apples and Oranges Event on Saturday. The salon gave free hair do for all the natural girls in the city of Lagos. I got the info late so I could not announce it here on this blog. I loved loved loved that salon, the hair dressers are trained and they were so gentle with my hair. I will do a full review in future about the salon. But my experience with them was awesome and I am a converted customer.

ME, MYSELF AND MY FRO: HOT OIL TREATMENT AND DEEP CONDITIONING

In this post I will let you in on how I do hot oil and deep conditioning treatments on my hair. I did this last weekend and I felt I should share the process here with you guys. Since I did my big chop, I decided to do these treatments once a month, considering my schedule and the length of my hair. However, lately I have been dealing with excessive dryness with my fro, so I plan to change things up a little bit. I plan to do these treatments more often, maybe once in two weeks or so, but we'll see.

To do the treatments, I used the following :

1. The Knot Out Conditioner from the new Dark and Lovely Au Natural Line (Full review in future)

2. Ouchless hair bands (hair band without the metallic joints)

3. Clamps

4. My Oil Blend (this has all sorts of oils that I can't even remember, but it has all the good stuff, trust me ;) )

5. A face towel

6. The Rapid Repair Deep Conditioner by Beautiful Textures

7. A plastic cap

8. And of course my fro, lol!!

Some clamps and ouchless bands for sectioning hair

1. Detangling

I started off with extremely dry tangled, knotted hair, phewww, it wasn't funny. For this reason, I decided to finger detangle before I even think of doing anything to it. Finger detangling simply means to use your fingers to remove the knots and tangles in your hair. To do this, I worked in sections using the Knot Out Conditioner, the clamps (for sectioning) and some ouchless bands (to get detangled hair out of the way). So after the detangling process, I had about ten little puffs in my hair.

Detangled hair sections are in small puffs. The clamps help to section off hair during the process

Puffs after the detangling process :)

Side view of puffs after detangling

2. Hot Oil Treatment

The next thing was to do the hot oil treatment. I basically poured a mixture of oils in the applicator bottle and dipped it in hot water for about twenty minutes. Then I applied the hot oil in my hair, working one section at a time. After working through all the puff sections, I covered my hair with a plastic cap and let the oil sit in my hair for about thirty minutes before washing it off with a shampoo ( I shampoo my hair once a month). The hot oil treatment help to infuse these natural oils into the hair strands thereby adding strength and shine to the strands.

3. Deep Conditioning Treatment

For the deep conditioning treatment, I mixed some oils with the Rapid Repair Deep Conditioner by Beautiful Textures. Next time, I will do this without mixing it with the oils because I didn't quite get the result I was looking for. Anyway, again I applied the mixture in the puffs, one section of puff at a time. Once I was done applying, I put a wet face towel in the micro wave for about twenty seconds. I then placed the hot towel directly on my hair before covering with a plastic cap. I used this hot towel method because I don't have a dryer but I plan to by The Hair Therapy Wrap for more effective deep conditioning treatment. I left the mixture in my hair for about thirty minutes and rinsed it off with cold water. 

The mixture of oils and Rapid Repair Deep Conditioner

Hot towel as a source of heat for deep penetration of needed hair nutrients :)

So that's it folks. Still learning how to pamper my fro, I know there's still room for improvement. Please put your suggestions or questions in the comment box below. Till next time, God bless.

ME, MYSELF AND MY FRO: HOW I CO-WASH MY HAIR (My Version of the Curly Girl Method)

Happy Monday everyone! Hope we all had a great weekend like I did :)  This post forms the fourth postpisode of my series on ME, MYSELF AND MY FRO and I will just show you the steps I take when I co-wash my hair. So HAIR we go, lol!

I start off by rinsing my hair with warm water. The idea is for the warm water to loosen the dirt from my hair strands. This is a very important step if you use the curly girl method. The reason is that the cleansing agent in the Tresemme Nourishing Moisture Conditioner (Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine)  is a light one unlike the common stronger Sodium Laureth Sulfate in regular shampoos. Therefore it is important to rinse hair thoroughly with warm water to loosen the dirt thereby making it easier for the light cleansing agent remove the dirt from the hair strands.

I start off by rinsing my hair with warm water to loosen the dirt, making it easier to cleanse

After rinsing my hair thoroughly warm water, I take a generous amount of conditioner and apply to my hair. I make sure my hair is saturated with conditioner and then I massage it through with my hands. While washing, I don't just focus on massaging the scalp, I also (sort of) pick and wash the hair strands as I go along. I lather up two or more times depending on how dirty my hair feels.

I apply a generous amount of conditioner throughout my entire head of hair

I don't just focus on my scalp, I also wash the hair strands :)

The next thing I do is to detangle my hair. I do this when I lather up the second time. So I basically comb through my hair using a wide tooth comb making sure I get rid of as many tangles as I can with the comb. The reason I use the wide to comb is for ease of glide through the hair strands and also to avoid loss of hair. When I am done detangling my hair, I rinse out some of the conditioner, leaving some of it in my hair. This ensures that some moisture from the conditioner is left in my hair. We all know our natural kinks love moisture ;)

Using my wide tooth comb in hair which is fully saturated with water and conditioner :)

This is how much hair (little to nothing) that get's caught in the comb after gliding through a couple of times. 

This is how much hair I loose after detangling. I lost twice this much throughout the entire wash routine.

Finally I wrap my hair with my T-shirt for about five minutes and then my fro is ready to be moisturized.

Finally, I wrap my hair for about five minutes before I apply my moisturizing products

So these are the simple steps I follow to co-wash my hair. I know they're are a lot of different ways to co-wash your hair. Do you implement the CURLY GIRL method? What steps do you follow to co-wash your hair? Feel free to put your opinion/suggestions in the comment box below.

My Naturals In The City 6 (NITC 6) experience

Hello beautiful people, hope you've all been doing great? So sorry I've been a bit off the radar but I'm back now and I'm going to be making some posts this weekend. Thanks a lot to everyone who has been commenting and asking questions. Please keep them coming no question is stupid, ask anything, lol.

I just wanted to quickly let you know how it all went down at NITC 6 hosted by Natural Nigerian (NN). Let me just take a few lines to appreciate this lady NN. She has really done well with getting the Nigerian Natural Hair Community together. One thing I really like about her is that she is so down to earth and warm despite all she has accomplished. She is really great and I admire her a lot.

Back to my experience, I really had a lot of fun this time. I met a lot of naturals in the city, really. I even met a couple of other bloggers like Ifeyinwa of loveifeyinwa.com and Ekene of African Butterfly. One other significant thing was the interview I had with a local TV station, so you'd probably be seeing me on TV soon, lol. I was also selected to participate in a focus group trying out the new Au Natural line by Dark and Lovely (review in future post). It was really a nice time out on a Saturday for me. If you want to see pictures from this event click here, here and here.

That's all ladies, keep it real till next time.

Cheers,

Acharacha