And here are the results!

Recipes are rated on a scale of 1 – 5 Afro Picks… 1 being the lowest rating, and something I would not use again or recommend, and 5 being the highest rating of something I’d most likely use again within the next five minutes. *lol*

And heeeeeeeeeeeeere we go…

Avocado Conditioner with a Twist –

Because the original is my conditioner of choice whenever I have the ingredients at hand, the rating should really be a no brainer.  Rich in the good types of fatty acids hair loves, avocados are one of the most nourishing and growth stimulating products for conditioning the tresses.  Combine that with the detangling and deep softening  properties of the coconut milk, and this concoction is a mixture of love for adding body and sheen, as well as defining the s-pattern of coiled hair.  So in and of itself, avocado and coconut milk work wonders, but when you add the antioxident benefits of honey and the moisturing characteristics of coconut oil there’s no way you can lose with this product.

Because I was on a tight schedule Friday, I used the mixture as a co-wash agent, wetting the hair and applying the conditioner like a masque.  I allowed it to sit on my hair capless for only fifteen minutes instead of the recommended hour, considering I would not be fully rinsing my hair and the mixture would still work to condition my hair as I traveled to my destination.  After the fifteen minutes were up I rinsed my hair relatively well to make sure all the pulpy bits were removed, then allowed my hair to air dry in my signature Afro puffs.

Once my hair was dry, I noticed that the outer layer was somewhat rough to the touch, which I attributed to napping with my hair uncovered (I know… shame on me), but when I took my puff out I was astonished by how well moisturized my scalp and the roots of my hair were, was well as with the well defined wave pattern of my hair!

Another benefit of this conditioner is the amount of body it promotes!

This is definitely the type of conditioner that works well with styles that need that “puff” of thickness like Afros, twists, twist outs or wash outs.

Now I will caution you on one thing.  Because I did not follow the exact recipe, using a full avocado instead of a half of one, I think I over did the coconut oil addition, giving my hair and initial “slick” feeling.  Considering both the avocado and coconut milk provide hair oil as well, you will only need a little of coconut oil to serve its purpose, without having your hair weighed down.  This slickness was of course was remedied by a full and thorough rising and ACV clarifying (or an actual shampooing if you’d like to go that route), but I just wanted to make you all aware that you can have too much of a good thing.

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So there you have it.  I’d like to thank LaTonya for sharing the remixed recipe with us, and urge you to check out her Naturally Flyy Blog, as well as the Innovative Thinking Youtube Channel, both of which are filled with all sorts of beauty goodies for the natural minded.

If you do try any of the recipes out presented in the In the Mix Friday Series, I’d love to hear your results. You can leave a comment here or send them to me via Email at amichelle@journeyback2me.com.

I wish you happy experimenting!

Healthy Hair Wishes,

Hey Hey Every People!  I’ve been wanting to return to the Journey Test Kitchen for a while now, but transitions and periodic loss of Internet have prevented me from doing so.  Well with those issues being largely swept under the rug, here we are again, treating our tresses with goodness straight from the kitchen!

This return will see us revisiting a favourite that has been kicked up a notch by the lovely LaTonya, aka Naturally Flyy of the Innovative Thinking Youtube Channel: Avocadao/Coconut Milk Conditioner.  Now you know from past entries, in my opinion the ACM conditioner is a G_d send recipe that brings out the natural beauty of curly/kinky hair.  But when LaTonya tweeted her additions I just had to try the remix out.

Ready to check it out?  Well here it go!

Avocado Conditioner with a Twist

1/2 avocado

2 tbl. coconut oil

1/2 cup of coconut milk

1 tsp. honey

Mash avocado thoroughly and mix with coconut oil.  Combine with the coconut milk and stir until it resembles a thick mixture, then add the honey. Wash your hair as normal, if desired, or you can use this as a co-wash agent.  After you’ve added it to you hair, cover and allow to set for an hour, then rinse completely.

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For a video play-by-play of the process click HERE.

And now, off I go into the kitchen and will return a bit later with the results.

Healthy Hair Wishes,

The other day while I was cleaning up my Blogrolls, when I happened on a link to a Youtube video on Lady Kinnks’ Blog titled “Nappy Ass Hair” and clicked on it out of sheer curiosity.  What I saw both enraged and saddened me.

Posted there on Youtube, for the world to see, was a recording of a relatively “young” mother performing an act of child abuse under the guise of combing the beautifully full head of hair of what I assume to be her multi-racial daughter.  For approximately five minutes and eight seconds, this mother, who’s facial expression was one of fury reserved for a legitimate beef with an adult, uses a plastic bristled paddle brush to savagely rake through the child’s “dry” hair, oblivious to any snags or snarls, in a fashion that makes my own scalp hurt in sympathy.  In addition to this atrocity, behind the camera is the child’s aunt OLDER SISTER engaging in a bevy of belly laughs, guffaws if you will, at the child’s expense as the mother pins the child to her leg, the floor and the couch while grabbing handfuls of the child’s hair, uttering such phrases as “Move your fucking hand!” and “I’ll fuck you up!” to the screaming girl who could not be more than six years old… if that.  If that isn’t enough, at about FIVE MINUTES and ten seconds of this five minutes forty-six second video, a little boy, who could be seen running back and forth in front of the  camera and was alternately taunted by the aunt older sister about his turn coming up, is enlisted to wrangle the child back to her mother after she successfully breaks away.  His attempts prove futile after ten seconds, so the mother has no other choice but to get up and pull the child by her arms back to the couch, where she continues her assault.  This time with a pick.

NOTE: If you can not tell from the still above, the video is pretty brutal so I will not post it or a link to it here, but if you really want to see it, Google the video title and Youtube and it will be the first result, if it’s still there by the time this is posted.

From what I gather the original video was flagged as inappropriate and yanked from the site, but apparently someone else* got a hold to it and uploaded it again.  As you could guess, aside from a few yokels the responses to this video, both in text and via video, were filled with anger and disbelief at the mother, as well as sympathy for this girl.  I personally was livid and had to fight to hold back tears for this child I don’t know from Adam’s house cat.  The first thing that went through my mind was how could this woman who gave birth to and raised this little girl 1. treat her so brutally, 2. allow other family members to stand by and encourage the abuse while ridiculing the child, and 3. agree to this being documented via video and uploaded to the Internet.  The second thing that went through my mind was, thanks to someone else feeling the need to rebroadcast this vicious attack yet not REPORT IT, will this be used as an example to others as to how black mothers handle their child’s “nappy ass hair”?  Honestly, what I really thought was, will this serve as an example as to how all black mother’s handle their children, period?

While it is painfully obvious this mother — whose hair looks relatively neat, well cared for and “freshly” permed — needs more than a few parenting lessons, or  better yet, to be taken outside and having her “hair treated in the same manner” (read that as a metaphor for having her ass kicked),  it is also evident that this woman could stand a lesson on how to properly detangle and brush her daughter’s hair.  As far as the detangling lessons, what’s sad is there are tons of tutorials on the very same site the video was posted on, and at least three video pleas for the woman to contact them personally show her how it’s done.  Chances are the woman will never see the comments (the video was uploaded in mid July… there’s not one response from her at all) and thereby never get help with taking care of the little girl’s hair or being a better mother.

Even though the immediate physical and verbal abuse is apparent within the video, one can’t help but imagine the perceptions this girl will take  of herself into her teen years and womanhood.  On top of the overall stigmas attached to ethnic hair that are already prevalent in society, with her mother treating her hair as if it is an abomination and an inconvenience, there is no doubt in my mind that unless there is an intervention to stop this sort of treatment, that beautiful little girl will grow up fostering a deep disdain for herself by virtue of how she views her hair.  More than the violent combing of the child’s hair, this is the point that bothers me the most.  I took me over 30 years to consciously to accept my hair just based on society’s belief that black hair is “bad” hair.  I couldn’t imagine how long it would have taken if I’d suffered any personal “attacks” on that pinpointed my hair specifically.  It’s like this baby doesn’t have a chance, and it’s because of her mother‘s actions that she’ll fight a personal battle, possibly for the rest of her life.  My heart bleeds for her, especially since the baby’s only means of defense is to kick and scream and yell “I hate you!” at assailant; her mother.

If you have a chance to view the video, tell a friend and spread the word.  Not just to get the video flagged, which I honestly think should not happen in the event that someone who knows this mother and child and may get them both the help they need.  But spread the word so that all of us who embrace ethnic hair, whether relaxed or natural, know that this type of stuff is still going on within our community, placing five more bricks on the wall of ignorance for every one we try to tear down.  Spread the word so that the jealousy involved in pitting “good” hair against “bad” hair loses just a bit more strength between us, and hopefully stops being passed from mother to daughter.  And, if you watch the video, please come back and tell me what you thought. It would be much appreciated.

NOTE: After reading this blog post on TheRoot.com I have been made aware that the “mother” and child are from my home city, which hurts my heart to no end and makes me really take this personal.  Fortunately, the authorities were alerted (this gives me hope that Detroit isn’t fully dead).  For more information, surf on over HERE.  KinkyKeeper with comment #30 says it better than I ever could.  And sadly, it seems there was more than one video taken of this horror show.

Healthy Hair Wishes,

* The someone else who posted the video after it was taken down by administrators had this to say:

“its just a trip how the girl is actin all that screamin and stuff and throwing stuff cuz she dont want her hair brushed the little girl is actin way over the top and the mother means no harm.”

I’m sure HE posted it thinking it would get him a laugh or two from the Black community.  And that is really a damn shame.

If you’ve spent any time in any of the Black hair care forums you’ve probably been privy to post upon post of napturals rattling off a confusing list of lettered numbers when it comes to their hair type.

“Oh girl, I’m a 4A, no doubt about it.”

“My 3C tresses poof like Poodle hair when there’s even the slightest bit of humidity.”

“My bangs are 8z, while my crown is 36-24-36xmp!  Yeah… Crazy, right?”

I remember the first time someone asked me what my hair type was and all I could tell them was coarse, which was responded to with a sigh of exasperation and an exaggerated eye roll.  Honestly, up until the end of last year I truly thought hair types were graded simply by the texture’s description: straight, wavy, curly or kinky.  That’s what all the books say.  Well much to my unenlightened surprise, it seems that Andre Walker, Oprah‘s own Emmy winning stylist and author of Andre Talks Hair!, broken down the simplistic and created a hair type classification system to help “us” determine what type of hair we’re working with.  And that system reads as such:

Type 4: Kinky or very tightly coiled hair, which appears coarse but is very fine, wiry and very fragile.   Typically healthy type 4 hair does not shine but does possess sheen. It is soft to the touch and will  feel silkier than it will look shiny.

Type 3: Hair with well defined curls that appear straight when wet but revert back to its curly state when it dries, the hair goes back to its curly state.  Humidity tends to make type 3 hair curlier or even frizzier.

Type 2: Wavy hair that tends to be coarse and possesses a definite S pattern to it.

Type 1: Straight hair.  That’s about it.

In addition to these classifications, each hair type has a particular “sub type” which are:

Type 4 Sub Types:

• Type 4A: Tightly coiled hair that, when stretched, has an S pattern, much like curly hair.

• Type 4B: Similar to 4A but possesses a Z pattern with less of a defined curl pattern.

NOTE: Type 4A tends to have more moisture than Type 4B, which will have a wiry texture.

Type 3 Sub Types:

• Type 3A: Loosely curled hair, usually characterized with very shiny with big curls if long, but appear straighter when short.

• Type 3B: Hair that possesses a range from medium curl to tight corkscrews.

NOTE: It’s not unusual to see a mixture of these types existing on the same head. Curly hair usually consists of a combination of textures, with the crown being the curliest part.

Type 2 Sub Types:

• Type 2A: Fine /thin.

• Type 2B: Medium-textured.

• Type 2C: Thick and coarse.

NOTE: Type 2A is very easy to handle, blowing out into a straighter style or taking on curlier looks with relative ease. Types 2B and 2C are a little more resistant to styling and have a tendency to frizz.

source: http://diasporahaircare.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=10283

Seems much ado about nothing, or an overblown mapping of the way we’ve been classifying our hair for years, right?  I mean, if you look at it all closely, all it’s really saying is hair can be one of four textures: straight, wavy, curly or kinky.  So why even bother ascribing to Andre’s system?  Well, as you can see from the sub types listed, with the exception of straight hair, not all wavy, curly, or kinky hair is created equal.  Furthermore, in any one head of African-American/ethnic/multi-racial hair it is highly probable that a combination of those listed types and sub types are present (Suni spoke of this in her feature last year).  For example, The Lion has a mixture of type 2A/3B spanning from the nape of his neck up to the he middle of the back of his head, and 4A /2B along his crown and sides:

NOTE: Yeah, my camera sucks, and yeah… I “strong armed” him into doing this. *lol*

Although all of his hair is soft, as you can see in first picture, the hair at at the lower back of his head  is really “thin” and curly, while the rest is dense and coiled.  Of course, since the only styling he indulges in is weekly or bi-weekly line ups, him having diverse textures really isn’t a big deal, but the information is still good for him to know when deciding on products that work for his combined hair types (for the record, he uses Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition Shampoo, Coconut Oil and Carol’s Daughter’s Healthy Hair Butter, but the pics were taken early morning and he hadn’t had a chance to dress it yet).  For those of us who indulge in a bit more styling processes, knowing which types make up the whole of our hair will help determine which styles will work for your hair type, as well as which products will benefit you.  The way to best find your type(s) is to do strand tests on various places in your hair by plucking or cutting small portions of your natural hair (or possibly acquiring shed hair from your comb or brush) and comparing them on a white piece of paper or napkin.

Now there are those who ascribe to this typing system as the gospel truth of hair classification while others see it as a sophisticated and sly way of further labeling hair as “good” or “bad” for the new millennium (or, for some, a way of weeding out who is naptually intelligent and who is nappily ignorant since this system only seems to be “known” in certain natural circles).  It’s not for me to judge one way or the other, but what I will say is whether you classify your hair at 4a, 3b, or just flat out coarse and kinky, it is beneficial to know your hair’s type, for the aforementioned reasons.

Healthy Hair Wishes!