Mane Attraction: Healthy Hair Challenge Meets Kinky Twist — 1 Month Update

Well its been one solid month since I started my Healthy Hair Chal­lenge which incor­po­rates the pro­tec­tive styling of kinky twists. By way of an update I am still here as Jill Scott would sing. I hon­estly can only lay claim to two bumps on the jour­ney and both were overcome.

This is what my hair looked like as of Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 24th 2011:

You see that fuzzi­ness in the above (with flash) and below (with­out flash) photo–I love it! I think it adds char­ac­ter to the do and indi­cates the growth that I am nur­tur­ing. So why fight the fuzz!

Remem­ber those lit­tle bumps,well one of them had every­thing to do with bore­dom. I admit it, I have hair style com­mit­ment issues, and that is even with the ver­sa­til­ity of kinky twists.

So my con­ces­sion: At week 3, I went red or bur­gundy, depend­ing on the light­ing just in the front and at the sides. It was quick work to remove small sec­tions of kinky twists and rebraid with my new color. I did lay claim to the color spec­trum of this par­tic­u­lar style. What this color change has done is given me a new feel­ing of alive­ness via my kinky twists.

What of the health of my hair?

Let’s get the sec­ond bump out of the way quickly. OMG I could not find my Dr. Miracle’s Braid Relief any­where. I usu­ally can count on Sally’s Beauty Sup­ply. How­ever, I stopped at 2 sep­a­rate loca­tions on the West and East side of Orlando and no luck. The one Beauty Sup­ply that I knew might have it just never became a con­ve­nient run in the 1st week and so I ended up buy­ing “the new and improved” African Pride Braid spray. From my expe­ri­ence over a good two-week period, this prod­uct does not love my hair (or kinky twists) and I do not love it. Suf­fice it to say, there was absolutely no shine, mois­ture or braid relief imparted. Nuff said!

Two-Week Hair:

What worked well, as I knew it would would, was my oil (jojoba/grape seed/coconut) and water mix which I applied to my scalp nightly. My method in lieu of my favorite rose­wa­ter and glyc­erin prod­uct which I ended up not buy­ing was: damp­en­ing my fin­gers, straight from the tap and moist­en­ing my scalp (this can also be achieved by spritz­ing the hair directly with water also) and then using a bot­tle with a tip (much like the ones used in col­or­ing hair) to lightly apply to the scalp and then I would mas­sage (not rub) it into my scalp for about 5 min­utes. I also would dampen the strands of kinky twists down to where my actual hair ended, and sort of squeezed in a light appli­ca­tion of oil to keep my own ends happy.

A Good Reminder

: There is always a ten­dency to for­get how impor­tant the ends of our hair fol­li­cles are. They might be the old­est part of the hair, but they are impor­tant if healthy hair for you means being able to mea­sure and retain length. *my learn­ing curve here

The ever impor­tant silk scarf ensured that I retained my mois­ture and my style (and sides) stayed neat.

Oh and I finally got my hands on the elu­sive Dr. Mir­a­cle Braid Relief Spray on a ran­dom run to buy my red kinks. Dr. Mir­a­cle, who­ever you are, with this par­tic­u­lar prod­uct, I salute you. I say ahh every time. (review to some soon)

Two more weeks to go before full take­down! Yay! If I do any­thing dras­tic before then, I will be sure to share.

Are you on a healthy (hair) jour­ney this year? How are you far­ing? Wher­ever you’re at, please don’t give up!

ABOUT THE WRITER

Hi there, I’m Tynisha C. Leon, writer, West Indian, mango-lover, founder and editor-in-chief of DASHEEN mag­a­zine — the online des­ti­na­tion where cul­ture feeds imag­i­na­tion. Join the cul­ture con­ver­sa­tions on Face­book, Twit­ter and Tum­blr!

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