Itty Bitty Afro IBA (Part 2 in the afro series)

Next in the Afro series is  IBA the Itty Bitty Afro..

This is probably 5-8 months of growth from a clean shaved head. At this stage you start to see something resembling an afro but not quite. You start to feel like your hair is actually growing, maybe it hangs a little bit off the side or something....

There were a lot of "good lawd!!!! what were you thinking child.......!!!! moments" such as...

This is a mini twist-out.. looks like I have little gummy worms hanging of my head.. fail

This is some kind of flat-twist

I went out looking like this y'all...

Occasionally I did look decent....

My Itty Bitty Afro

Mini twists 

A wash-n-go attempt

First decent 2-day old twist-out..I'm guessing this was me being fierce.. lol

At this stage I was just excited that my hair had grown so much, and I convinced myself that I could finally try all the styles I had seen others try. Some of them turned out good, others not so much. It took me a while but I eventually realized  that maybe.. just maybe I needed to give my hair some more time to grow. 

Is you hair at this Itty Bitty Afro Stage? Have you experienced anything similar?

Do you ever feel like you expect too much from your hair sometimes?

Please share your thoughts and feel free to ask more questions on my Itty Bitty Afro stage

Hope you enjoyed..

XOXO

Bella Joya

Squiggly Wiggly... (Part 1 of the afro series...

Hey guys,
I know that  for a lot of natural-haired folks the seemingly never ending vocabulary for natural hair is to say the least, erm... exhausting. It seems like everyday someone is coming up with some term or word to describe something relating to hair. I mean, I stay wondering if there is like this lady dressed in a tomb-raider-ish-like get-up sitting somewhere and just churning out these terms.

Well seeing as I am a super hero myself...( Thanks a lot for the applause..you are all far too kind..lol) I decided to come up with my very own word-a-majings (not a real word)....
I like to call this SWA

SWA: Squiggly Wiggly Afro.
(I know you are thinking, ahn ahn!!! this child must be ...ahem.. very happy)....

This to me, is what your hair looks like 2-4 months after being  completely shaved off. I'm talking whispers of hair to about 3-4 inches of  hair. At this stage you can't do much to your hair except wash it and just let it be. Now this is not to be mistaken for shaved..... (which to me is really gorgeous..maybe in the future I would

sport this look who knows..) 

Squiggly Wiggly Afro....looks something like these...

Hope you enjoyed the pictures...check back for the next afro series to follow soon.

XOXO

Bella Joya

Natural Hair Inspiration

Products I Currently Own

Hey Guys,

As much as I dread doing this post, because I risk unveiling to you all the extent of my product junkizm......(I am sure that is not a real word), I believe that maybe by sharing I will get feedback on methods other product junkies have used to solve their own junkizm, or  provide a measuring point that allows other fellow junkies refer to and say.. "yeah I'm a lot better than Bella Joya, I got my junkizm under control", or in the worst case this article will just, further encourage, and fuel my spending habits (maybe yours too..lol).

I have been completely natural for about 11 months now, (my nappyversary is coming up in less than a month and I am all sorts of excited) and in this time it is safe to say that I have spent close to.... $$$$$ lets just say a whole lot of cash that my broke self didn't have to spare. when I first started my hair journey I was soo excited..I mean I had watched tons of YouTube videos, read soo many product reviews and I knew all the products I wanted to try out... I started out with this much hair....

but in my mind, my hair was already..

This big.....( in my very wild dreams..)

                                                     not really me
and so I started shopping for hair products like someone who had a lot of hair, when basic, shampoo, conditioner, and a comb will have been enough. Friends would come over to visit, and my bathroom floor just looked like my own personal beauty supply store. The bad thing was that I was constantly getting hair products, using them a few times, and then just abandoning them while still constantly buying more hair products. Whatever free time I had I spent buying more product, watching more YouTube videos which only helped my delusions, and encouraged me to buy more.....sigh... I know that I couldn't really blame anyone besides myself for my junkizm but I had convinced myself that it wasn't a problem, I could stop buying whenever I wanted to...  Oh!!!! how wrong I was.

Eventually when I had to move, I realized that I had way too much hair product, I had a huge box full of just hair stuff, and it took two African elephants to push it..... (I exaggerate but you get my point). I finally acknowledged to myself that I was a hair product junkie, and I would like to think that was a turning point.
I started giving out some hair products to friends and family, and put myself on a budget. Most times that plan went straight out the window, but still progress is progress no matter how small. 

      

This is a full list of all the products I currently have, except for my combs, towels and stuff like that....

• V05 Conditioners in passion fruit smoothie, and kiwi lime squeeze
• Creamy Curl Cleanser
• Yes To Tomatoes conditioner
• Shea moisture organic black soap balancing conditioner
• Shea moisture coconut and hibiscus curl enhancing smoothie
• Shea moisture organic Shea butter infused with coconut and hibiscus
• yes to Cucumbers Leave in conditioner
• Jane carter natural hold spray gel
• Jane carter revitalising leave in conditioner
• Giovani direct leave in conditioner
• Pantene Pro-v relaxed & Natural Shampoo
• Burt's Bee Raspberry & Brazil Nut shampoo
• Herbal Essence hello hydration shampoo with orchid and coconut milk
• All natural clover honey
• Bee Mine "Bee Hold Curly Butter"
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• ECO Styler styling gel (Clear)
• Aloe Vera Juice
• Aloe Vera Gel
• My Honey Child "Honey Hair Mask"
• Oyin hand-made "Whipped Pudding"
• Giovanni "Protein Hair Infusion"
• Extra virgin Olive Oil
• Organic Shea Butter
• Organic Cocoa Butter
• Organic mango butter
• Coconut Oil
• Grape seed Oil
• Castor Oil
• Vegetable Glycerin
• Sweet Almond Oil
• Peppermint essential Oil
• Lavender Essential Oil
• Jojoba Oil
• Coconut Milk
• Coconut cream
• Hesh "Mehandi Powder" (not pictured below)

I probably only use about 5 of these products consistently... If only I had someone to trade products with... then maybe i could get ride of more of these products.

Hope you enjoyed..please comment, offer suggestions, and any other tips you may have

XOXO
Bella Joya

These Roots of Mine

Hi,
So after my first post I started thinking about what the next post was going to be on. I mean there is soo much I can talk about but I am quite sure that most of it is irrelevant, not that this post will be drastically relevant but yeah....whatever. Eventually I decided that I would talk about my hair, Yes my roots...( feeling quite pleased with myself ..lol).

See my hair has a mind of its own, I mean not to freak myself out or anything but the thing has like its own soul. Sometimes I am even convinced that it is another being.... but we will not talk about my psycho tendencies yet. If you guessed my hair is natural. It has not always been natural but right now it is and lets just say I am comfortable and happy with it.

I am going to be honest on this blog so I will start by talking about the things I like about my hair, and the things I do not like. Yes there are things about my hair that do not exactly make me get up and dance galala.


Things I Do Not Like About My Natural Hair

image source (erm.... this is not really me)

- My hair can be a very very hot mess to de-tangle. When I say hot mess, I mean HOT ASS MESS sometimes I can sit and spend 2 hours trying to de-tangle, this is usually after I take down braids, or twists but yeah...tangle maniac

image source

- My natural hair has turned me into a hair product junkie. I have spent sooo much money trying to figure out which products work with my hair and which ones don't. I guess I can't blame the hair its probably just my own Shopaholic tendencies but yeah..junkie. I mean it got to a point where I couldn't walk into any store without going to the hair product aisle, spending at least 30 minutes there looking at stuff, and then leaving with at least one item. My friends and family members started dreading going to the store with me because I just took my jolly time.  I am slowly getting of my product high but yeah.. I'm just gonna let my hair take the fall for this one
- My natural hair can go from the size of a football to the size of a peanut in minutes.. shrinkage is no joke

- My natural hair some times feels like dry straw..yeah....once again I'd like to blame the hair.
- Sometimes my hair gets very very hard... I mean it is just weird
- My hair has some psycho tendencies of its own. I can use the same hair products, in the same method, 5 times and get 4 different results.. I mean the thing just does whatever it pleases.
- I spend soooo much time on my hair. Whether I am washing it, styling, just doing research, even watching other peoples YouTube videos on hair..and yeah the hours just fly by.


Things I Do Like About My Hair
- There are soo many different types of curls on my head, it constantly surprises me. Some parts of my hair are very tightly curled and I mean like cork screws,  others are like very loose, I mean super loose like almost straight, and yet some parts are like all zig-zaged and confused.... have not quite figured out exactly where what is on my head but its all gravy...who cares where what is anyway
- My hair takes different forms. I mean I can wear it like just curly, or wavy, or straight, big, small... you name it, and yeah that really does it for me
- As much as I spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out my hair, I love learning about my hair. I  like discovering what my hair can or cannot do. I like trying out styles i have seen on other people and then marveling at how similar or dissimilar mine turns out
- I love that I do not have to suffer scalp burns from relaxers any more
- I love that my hair can just do its own thing, sometimes without my permission, but almost like its telling me, I dare you to be different... ( starting to sound crazy talking to my hair but yeah..)
- My hair is beautiful..kinda like this...

 image source (once again not me)
This is not by any chance an exhaustive list of all the things my hair has to offer but yeah Ill take a break. Maybe some of you can relate, and maybe you are just thinking what on earth is this girl talking about but...yup these are my roots, and despite all the dislikes, I really really really do like my hair....

Thanks for reading....


XOXO

Bella Joya


If you have any suggestions on topics you would like me to cover, feel free to send me an email or just leave a comment.

The Beginning.......

Roots Don't Lie.....

Hello to everyone who at some point in time will come across the blog. So many times I was convinced that writing a blog was a great idea but I was worried that I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. I mean until very recently (and by very recently I mean June 2010) Facebook was the only form of active online presence I had.   I joined twitter and VALAM!!!!! discovered a whole other cyber world that I didn't even know or could ever have imagined existed... Blogs, Tumblr, My !!! I was the least to say overwhelmed. It seemed like everybody had a blog, or something else. So I thought I mean I could have a blog, but.... I talk a lot although not about anything in particular, why would anyone be interested in anything I have to say, I don't just want to do this because everyone else is doing it and so on....

Anyway I have finally gathered up enough courage!!! And I have . . Ahem... Grown a pair, so I am going with it. This blog is going to be about the things that interest me: My hair, food, books, pictures, traveling, questions, and yeah the list goes on and on.
 I must warn you though, I am no poet, or professional writer. I can't come up with deep statements or any thing like that so I'll just keep it simple.

I don't know how long I will keep this going, but I do hope that eventually through this blog I can in some way  put a smile on someones face, encourage someone, help someone, give someone hope, reach out to someone, and then maybe, just maybe I can feel some sort of fulfillment in this life of mine.

Till next time

XoXo
Bella Joya