The Vicious Yankee

I love all that is cold.

Recently, the beginning of nearly all “relaxed hair journey” conversations that I’ve had have started somewhat like the following:

All that heat styling though?!?! How do you prevent your hair from breaking off?

If I’m talking to someone with natural hair, my answer usually gets an immediate “well duh” type of co-sign. But ironically, if I’m talking to someone else with relaxed hair my answer is typically met with suspicion. And not just because it involves doing something that most relaxed chicas don’t want to do. It’s also because it sounds like something you might read from a magazine that…well….let’s just say, doesn’t exactly understand black hair.

But I’m going to say it anyway.

My relaxed hair tip for today is: LET YOUR HAIR AIR DRY.

Or almost air dry.

Although it is a perfectly harmless procedure, many relaxed ladies that I know have the absolute worst time staying away from heat tools. But if you intend to grow your relaxed hair, you have to come to terms with the idea that the heat needs to be cut out somewhere. And one of the easiest places to cut out the heat is in the drying phase.

I’ve actually found that if I let my hair get about 85-90% dry before it sees the blow dryer that two things are accomplished:

1. I’ve cut out a significant amount of heat. And

2. I’ve reduced the drying time by about 60%.

Attempting to dry sopping wet hair via heat is fighting an uphill battle no matter what type of hair you have. And it can literally take hours. One of my friends always says that it seems like it takes all day for a person with relaxed hair to “get her hair did”. Well, here is my method for getting my hair dry and tamed while preventing a marathon blow drying session.

Here is my air drying process:

1. Wash and condition hair as normal. Towel dry.

2. Spritz hair with detangling leave in conditioner (do not ignore this step, I’ll be covering leave in conditioners in a different post). Use paddle brush to detangle.

3. Leave hair alone for 30-45 minutes.

Please note that I did not say “plait” or “separate” or “clip” or “section” the hair after step 2. This is because doing so usually holds water to your head, thereby increasing the dry time. Just brush out the tangles and let it all hang out (so to speak) for about an hour. Once the time is up, feel free to blow dry as usual.

Happy Hairstyling!

Its been a while.

So I’ve been MIA on Tumblr and I apologize. The combination of the “crud” (as Terri calls it) and insane amounts of work/stress have forced me to prioritize in less than desirable ways. After this week I plan to take a few days off to rest and recuperate from all of the insanity before my last semester of school gets underway.

A brief list of thoughts and things I’ve been working on:

1. Berry flavored Thera-flu is disgusting no matter how much aspirin is in it. And the combination with menthol makes my chest queasy.

2. The Urban Literary Review. Editor! Me:) Click here, here and here for explication. And stay tuned for the “big reveal” on Monday.

3. Can your friends influence your handwriting? Hell yes they can. Especially if you’re in junior high.

4. Friday is my last day at CNN. I’m already armed with Kleenex :(

5. I’ve officially spent the entire summer during a record heat wave without air conditioning in my car. It’s been worse than it sounds.

6. The popped pimple cream by Clean & Clear is still working miracles.

7. Although things with Best Damn didn’t end the way I would have liked, I’ve made peace with it.

8. The new Chris Brown mixtape makes my soul feel better. 

Just keep talking to me…..

There is nothing more annoying than calling a doctors office only to have the menu options be something totally ridiculous so you can’t even use it. Damn technology. Bring back the strings and cans