Crucianize

Tag: crepus

  • Natural Hair update

    Natural Hair update

    It’s been a month since I began using the Nicky Cosmetics shampoo and masque. I did mention that I would update if there have been any changes to my hair and so far there has been none. My hair is actually growing really well and I have reduced my wash routine a bit. Instead of using a conditioner after shampooing I now only use the masque and after rinsing out the masque I skip the leave-in and go straight for a curl-enhancing mousse followed by gel.

    I am currently using:

    Nick Cosmetics Argan oil Shampoo and mask

    Design Essentials Curl Enhancing Mousse

    This is actually a new product for me, I’ve been hearing a lot about how good a mousse is for a wash and go I decided to try one out. I originally wanted to try The Doux Mousse Def Texture Foam but I could not find it to buy so I asked some other naturals and they suggested Design Essentials.

    I wasn’t very impressed at first because I didn’t use the proper technique. I applied the foam all over my hair and raked through it without separating it into sections which lead to a lot of my hair clumping together in big pieces. It was not a good look and I was sure the product was to blame. I watched a few videos and learned that I should have applied the mousse to smaller sections one at a time. Since then I’ve had much better success at using the mousse for wash and go.

    Activilong Acticurl Curl Activator Gel

    This isn’t the first time I’ve used the Curl Activator Gel from Activilong but it is the first time I’ve used it with a mousse.

    Depending on my mood I will omit the gel and use just the mousse but I prefer the extra definition using the gel gives me.

    Here is my hair after using the mousse and the gel:

    This was also my first time doing finger coils. It’s far from being perfect but I really liked how it came out. It took a long time to do though!

    I’m unsure if I will do this every wash day, if anything I might save it for when I’m feeling especially attractive or some fancy event.

    Here’s my hair using just the mousse:

    Here’s my hair using just the gel:

    I also bought the Activilong Acticurl Leave in when I bought the gel, occasionally I will use it before applying my mousse and gel, leave-in isn’t really necessary in my routine and it is a hard habit to break. I’m unsure if I will buy anymore when this bottle is empty.

    Here’s my hair using the leave-in, mousse, and gel:

    Summer months are approaching and I’m going to have to find some hairstyles that take my hair off my neck because the hot sun and lose curls are not a combination I’m looking forward to experiencing.

    You can buy the Design Essentials Almond and Avocado Curl Enhancing Mousse on Amazon.

    I bought the Acticurl Curl Activator Gel on Activilong.

    I also got the Leave-in on Activilong.

  • Aches and pains

    Hey everyone!

    I’m 21+1 today and feeling all the kicks and punches, stretches, and rolls. My son recently got to feel the baby move and he was awe-struck lol he asked me if I could feel it. Baby hasn’t cooperated for Papa yet but I’m sure he’ll feel the movements soon enough.

    Aches and pains have blossomed in the form of round ligament pain in my pelvis. I’m in pain turning over in bed, walking, going up the stairs, basically anything. I’m hoping to buy a pillow to use between my legs to help with this pain.

    We did find out that we’re having a girl which I’m excited and nervous about, thinking about all the hair fights I’m going to have to deal with!

    Speaking of hair, I shaved my head again, not as bald as I was before but enough that I didn’t have to struggle to take care of it. I was really down about its state after my sickness and just decided a fresh start is what I needed.

    I’ve been walking to the park with my son more since he’s on vacation and I think it’s doing me some good. I’m no longer super tired and run down when I get home but I am out of breath sometimes. I try to rest when we reach the house and let my body relax.

    Things are going well in the meantime so I’ll end this on a good note.

    Until next time!

  • Identifying my curl patterns

    Welcome back!

    Today I’m going to talk about one of the most common topics of discussion in the Natural hair community, curl patterns.

    To be honest I’ve never given it much thought at all because I have more than one type of pattern of you go by the chart that seems to be everywhere.

    This chart right here:

    According to this chart, the front of my head is a mix of 2c and 3a, the middle is a mix of 3b and 3c, the very back of my head is 4a. Like I said before I have a lot of curl patterns.

    The curl patterns aren’t that important though, it’s the porosity of the hair or so I’ve been told.

    My hair is low porosity and coconut oil is supposed to be really good for this type of hair but I can’t use coconut anything or my hair will become very brittle and break horrendously.

    Having hair that dislikes Coconut with a passion is kind of difficult, to be honest because so many hair products geared towards Afro hair have it in it. There are so many highly favored cult favorites that I just can not use.

    I’ve begun to disregard all the suggestions that have been thrown my way because what works for one person’s hair doesn’t work for everyone, sometimes you just have to find what your hair loves.

    My hair loves Argan, Avocado, Rice water, and Jojoba. I know this because I’ve had favorable results with them.

    When I shaved my head back in 2017 I honestly didn’t know what kind of curl pattern to expect, when I was youngest my mother used the wrong products, and my true pattern was hidden.

    You probably can’t see it well but my hair was like a 2b and almost like a straw broom, to be honest, it’s like when I flat iron my hair and take braids out.

    I’m pretty sure that texture was because my mother used this grease on my hair.

    My hair doesn’t do well with grease at all, it is very heavy and what that does is that it drags my curls down until all you see is limp greasy strands and washing did nothing because as soon as we were done washing my hair with shampoos and conditioners that stripped my hair she would comb it with a fine-tooth comb and it was painful so painful that I’d run away and hide until my hair was pretty similar to a bird’s nest and then the real pain would come when she tried to de-tangle it while it was dry!

    All my life my mother said my hair wasn’t as good as my middle sister’s because I didn’t have curls like her but when she sees my hair now she can’t believe how similar my hair actually is.

    My hair is curly and coily but to maintain this it needs the proper care.

    I’ve developed my own routine and I baby my hair so that I can look at it and feel a sense of pride. My hair is just as good, my hair is my crown.

  • Carrefour Haul!

    Carrefour Haul!

    Coucou !

    Today we went shopping at Carrefour, I really wanted to get some of those press-on nails that they had and see what hair supplies were available but I only accomplished one of those goals.

    There were no press on nails to be found anywhere! But I did manage to get the entire line of Garnier Ultra Doux Richesse D’Argan as well as some other things.

    Since my move here this line has been my holy staple and it is very hard to get my hands on all the products when I need them. They fly off the shelves so fast!

    I also picked up Garnier Ultra Doux L’huile Merveilleuse aux huiles d’argan et de camélia which is also another one of my favorites, if I’m not using abierto one of Garnier’s oils. You can probably tell I adore Garnier’s products. What can I say? They work really well for my hair and they are inexpensive.

    My last purchase was a Gel Micellaire Nettoyant from Le Petit Marseillais.

    Gel Micellaire Nettoyant Fraîcheur de Rose

    I’ve used Eau Micellaire from Cien which I’ve spoken about here and Eau Micellaire from U which I’ve also briefly spoken about here. This is my first time using a Gel Micellaire and I’m really interested in seeing what the difference is. The scent is the same as the 1 Minute Masque of theirs that I recently used and spoke about here.

    All in all, it was a pretty good haul and didn’t cost that much money.

    If you’re lucky you can find all these products at your local Carrefour and you don’t have a Carrefour in your location then you might be able to find one of two items at a Super U, Lidl, Netto, or other supermarché. You can also try looking on Amazon, I can’t guarantee that the price will be pocket-friendly though.

    And now I leave you to do some reading.

    Talk to you later!

  • My thoughts on the dry shampoo from Super U

    Hey everyone!

    So today I finally gave my Dry Shampoo a chance to do its stuff.  I had my hair in twists all week and didn’t wash anything and over the weekend I was ill so no wash day still.  I decided to try out my Bamboo and White Grape Dry Shampoo from U that I recently picked up in Super U which I spoke about here. I’ll do a little review for you to see if it’s something you might think about adding to your wash day routine.

    This Dry Shampoo is for Tous types de cheveux which is French for All hair types. I didn’t want to pick up the others because I wasn’t sure how it would interact with my hair.  This one just settled the safest bet.

    So I’m just going to translate the most important parts of the instructions:

    Use on dry hair.  Shake well before use.  Keep the can at a vertical position of 15 cm from the hair and spray at the roots.  Leave it alone for 2 minutes before rubbing in the powder residue.

    When I first sprayed this it was a pretty strong scent but it quickly faded to a much more pleasing scent.  I could definitely feel the alcohol interacting with my scalp, not in a burning way but just to let me know that it was present. There was no white residue left behind after running it in.

    So far my scalp is tingly and smells wonderful but will it do anything for my hair?

    I guess tomorrow we’ll see. I’ll be sure to update this post with how my hair turned out after a night with the dry shampoo.

    As promised I’m updating this post to include what my hair looked like after using the dry shampoo.

    To be honest, I really shouldn’t have used the dry shampoo at this point in time because of the build-up of gel in my hair but it wasn’t too bad just not really effective at doing much of anything. My hair ended up pulled back in a puff after all.

    The most I can say is that you can’t see the build-up which somehow the dry shampoo masked a little?

    I promised myself that I was going to do a wash day on Wednesday when I don’t have anywhere to go and finally use this new product that I bought a few weeks ago. I’ll probably give you a little review of it later this week.

    Until next time!

  • Dry Shampoo for Natural Hair

    Hey everyone!

    As you guys may or may not know I shaved off all my relaxed hair two years ago and let my natural hair grow in. Let me tell you it was quite an adventure.

    While I enjoy my hair in its natural state I wash my hair quite often and it’s getting expensive continuously buying Shampoo, Conditioner, Deep Conditioner, and Leave-in Conditioner. Hair oil can last me a few months so there’s no problem on that front.

    I keep seeing reviews of Dry Shampoo and some of them have not gotten very good reviews from other women of color. The one that did have good reviews was the DevaCurl No-Poo Original Zero Lather Conditioning Cream it’s not exactly a Dry Shampoo but it seems the Quick Cleanser is no longer available. This poses a problem for me because of 1. DevaCurl not shipping to France and 2. Buying it on the French Amazon is expensive as hell DevaCurl No-Poo-Cleanser. On the DevaCurl website, the cleanser is just $10, and Amazon.fr it is 38,00€ which is a $32.97 increase. I understand importing can be expensive but $32.97?!

    With DevaCurl out of the running I turned to Dry Shampoos that would be readily available in the stores around me, they include the likes of Batiste, Garnier Ultra Doux, and U by Super U.

    Yes, I live in a very small town and our offerings are very limited!

    I was not going to pick up any Batiste because of all the reviews I’ve seen where it does nothing but makes natural hair greasy and leaves a white residue. That left me with Garnier Ultra Doux and U by Super U, I’m well acquainted with the brands having used Shampoo, Conditioner, Leave-in Conditioner, and Deep conditioner from both the Ultra Doux line and U by Super U, I’ve also used hair oil, Micellaire water, and facial moisturizers by U.

    With this in mind, I think I will buy both the Garnier Ultra Doux Dry Shampoo and the U by Super U to test out which one I like better.

    What about you? Do you have a brand of Dry Shampoo that you like?

    Leave a comment to let me know!

    Until next time!