How To Plan Your Wash Day If You Live In Africa*

*Yes, yes, I know Africa is not a country but damned if many of us don't recognise at least one of these problems. Plus, I'm a blogger, it's my right to base my writing on personal opinion, gross generalisations, poor research and plagiarism. #factsbedamned

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Wash day is a big day for naturals anywhere in the world. But it's an even bigger deal if you live in a developing country where every day is an adventure.

1. First, check the newspaper to see if there is any power electricity or water rationing planned outages in your area. These are usually meant to last from 9am - 5pm but African Time means this is simply a rough guideline and should by no means be used to plan your day around.

How Much Time Is Too Much To Spend On Your Hair?

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I saw a thread the other day discussing how long women spend doing their natural hair every week. Some people were like 20-30 minutes (how??) while most said 1 or 2 hours. One poor honest sod said it takes her a day and a half and she got straight clowned! I was actually surprised by how many women were like 'Oh, it takes me hardly any time to do my hair start to finish' because, while I consider my hair low maintenance majority of the time, when it comes to wash day, #forgetaboutit. I have to stop for meals and everything. So I decided to run through my most frequent hair processes to see how many hours of my life I spend on my hair.

Casual Racism In Kenya And How We Have Enabled It

I don't normally write social commentaries simply because a) I'm not very good at them b) they are very hard to articulate without polarising or offending and c) I like to believe in the good of the world and bad things make me sad so I tend to lurk on the sidelines of any social, economic or political issues.

But racism in Kenya is something I am becoming increasingly aware of and increasingly outspoken about, in conversations with friends, strangers and on social media. I've lived in a few countries in Africa, Europe and Asia and when you live abroad, you are hyper-aware of racial nuances. I have perhaps been super fortunate because I can't say I ever had any racist encounters in any of the countries I lived in. I had a lot of ignorant ones of the 'Do you have tigers in your garden?' and 'Oh you're African, you must be healthy and strong' variety but those are usually more funny than anything else.

Can White People Use The Word 'Nappy'?

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I recently joined a Facebook group about biracial hair and the majority of the group members are white women based in the US. I have seen the word 'nappy' used several times in discussions about hair care and hair typing; 'nappy hair with knots on the end', 'coarse and nappy' and 'unkempt, nappy hair' are just some of the examples. And these are women describing their own children's hair.

The trouble with words is that their intent is often open to translation and while I can not speak for these ladies and why they chose to use this word, I can say that it is the first time I have felt deeply offended by it. Could this be another dreaded N word, that black people are allowed to say but white people aren't? Because I have seen the word nappy being used by black people and never really paid it any mind. I ask myself, am I only so offended because it has been used by white women to describe their biracial children's hair and if so, is that fair? 

Are You Doing Too Much To Your Hair?

I do NOT know any black woman who's bathroom looks like this...
Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy/Cultura/Getty Images

When you first go natural, you're like a crazy person. Your hair becomes a living, breathing, entity. You give it a gender and a name and talk about the things 'she' likes and doesn't like. You read everything, watch everything, buy everything, try everything. All you think about is your hair. Or some other chick's hair that you want your hair to look like. You eat, sleep, drink hair. You'll be slicing up a nice fruit salad and think...should I try some of that on my hair? You'll be mixing up some guacamole for your lunch or blending baby food and you'll make extra so you can put some aside for your hair.

You move all the good stuff from your kitchen to your bathroom; your hair deserves nothing but the best, the extra-virgin-organic-cold-pressed best. Meanwhile, your family is living off bleached, deodorised, hydrogenated, vegetable fat, aka Kimbo. And you're taking the bus because you spent all your fuel money on hair products.

Is There Such A Thing As 'Mixed-Race Hair'?

*For the purpose of this post, I will be discussing people of mixed black and white heritage.

Before I get on my high horse, I just want to say that most of my life, I assumed that all mixed-race* people had a certain type of hair. I assumed they all had hair with a looser curl-pattern (read curly), that was easier to manage and that could grow long with seemingly no effort. Well, I say all but.. there were the 'backfired' ones. The odd ones here and there who'd end up with a head of kinks just like mine. Long kinks, yes, but kinks nonetheless. How we derided them! What was the point of being mixed if you didn't have 'good' hair?! And it wasn't just me who thought like that. These were all commonly upheld beliefs when I was growing up. Go on, admit it.

My daughter was born with dark, straight hair but as she got older, it started getting lighter-coloured and curlier. One day someone said to me, 'She's getting that .5 hair'.

Are 4C Hair Bloggers Boring?

I'll just say off the bat that I don't generally hair type. There are far more relevant factors to take into account than curl pattern. But for argument's sake, I'm going to say I'm 4C. 

When I first went natural, I really didn't understand hair typing so I just followed the popular bloggers, specifically, Naptural85 and Kimmaytube (Newbies be like 'who?'). And I believed that my hair could do the same things theirs could. Well. I was wrong. Not only couldn't it, it didn't even want to try. (I still cringe at my attempts at shingling). It finally twigged that my hair was totally different and that I had to find someone with the same texture as mine before I committed haircide and went back to the crack. 

Cue massive stumbling block. I couldn't find anyone. These days, there are a few kicking about but back then, it was tumbleweed as far as 4C bloggers went. I did find those who sorta-kinda-looked-like-mine but they still had curls. Or rather coils.

And my hair doesn't. It doesn't curl or coil or clump.It's edges won't be laid and it can't wash and go. In fact, it's pretty much like having a stroppy teenager growing out of your head. It just wants to be left alone. *slams door* If I do try to force it, it punishes me by matting and tangling and knotting and drying up. My 4C hair may look tough as nails but is very fragile. To make it even more challenging, my strands are fine, therefore lots of handling = lots of breakage. So I learned that, in order to keep it happy and make my life easier, I needed to severely minimise how much I handled it.

Homemade Moisture DCs Do NOT Work!

So lately I've been looking into making my own products for home use. I'm pretty lazy so this is purely because, until local brands have more of a presence, it is hard to come by natural-friendly products locally that are affordable.

My foray into DIYing led me to sites that broke down the chemical composition of conditioners etc. Although I have had to shelve the idea of homemade water-based products as the chemicals simply aren't available here, my research has given me a better understanding of how different conditioners are formulated to do different things.

In order for something to be considered a conditioner, it has to have a conditioning agent/emulsifer (among other things of course) like any -ium chloride coupled with a fatty acid, for example. Leave in conditioners have the smallest percentage of these, at only about 1%, followed by rinse-out conditioners (like Tresemme), which have an average of 3-4%. For Deep Treatments, that percentage rises to 7-9%. Based on this, it stands to reason that mixing a rinse-out conditioner with oils and humectants to give it extra oompf only serves to dilute the percentage of what little conditioning agent it has in the first place, meaning not only are you NOT deep conditioning, you're not even regular conditioning. Technically, the same reasoning should also apply to mixing a purpose-made deep treatment.

Which Natural Are You? *Warning: Will cause offence*

1. The Product Junkie

The most common of the species, the Product Junkie, or 'PJ', is often found trawling beauty aisles looking for their next fix. PJs always acknowledge that they are PJs but rarely admit how much they actually spend on their habit. Any amount the PJ confesses to spending on products should be multiplied by 10 to get a more realistic idea. PJs will ALWAYS know what the latest, most desirable, most exclusive product or gadget on the scene is. And they will usually own it, or go bankrupt trying.

2. The OG

Easily identified by the bored look on their faces and the barely controlled irritation in their voices, OGs are those rare creatures that have been natural FO' EVER! Before natural was cool. Yeah, they're those people. Should you be brave enough to try and impart some of your new-found wisdom to an OG, you will be shot down faster than you can say 'Black Hawk Down'. The OG anthem features lines like 'I've been using Dax Pomade forever and my hair is fine'. If your paths should cross, duck your silicone-free head and cross the road, quickly!

3. The Oil Slick

Also known as 'The Heavy Hand', the oil slick can easily be tracked by the stains they leave on every chair, wall and pillowcase that crosses their path. Usually sporting a greasy forehead with a generous sprinkling of resulting acne, the oil slick eats 'dime-sized' for lunch and causes an environmental crisis every time they go swimming.

Dear White People: Afro Wigs Are Not A Costume

Yeah. I totally stole the movie title.

this one came under 'costumes for halloween wigs'

I went to a themed party about a month ago where the dress-code was 'Wear A Hat'. Easy enough. I borrowed a hard-hat from my brother even though it matched nothing I wore because I thought it was funny. Plus I don't own any hats. I got to the party and there was a lot of head gear on display, extravagant day-at-the-races hats, some arab-style scarves but by far, the most popular headpieces were .. afro wigs. At least half the people at the party were wearing them! I shouldn't be surprised really; I've been to a lot of fancy dress parties (blame my husband) and afro wigs never fail to make an appearance, no matter how tenuous the link to the actual theme may be. It never really bothered me before; I felt mild irritation but guess I just never took my hair that seriously. A turning point, however, was when I first went natural and went to a 60s night with my real hair and everyone was super amused that I had an actual afro. Me, not so much.

5 Things The Brits Left Behind After Colonialism That We Really Don't Need

1. Stiff Upper Lips

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We are more British than the Brits when it comes to stiff upper lips. You don't air your dirty laundry in public. You don't yell or lose your temper. And you never, ever cry. Tears are for children. And sometimes, women. And even then those must be shed surreptitiously in a locked bathroom. If anyone dares ask you how you're doing, you say 'splendid, never been better', in all your red-eyed, puffy-faced glory. You do not cry in public. Except at funerals. And then The African in you emerges. You wail and roll on the ground. You ululate and self-flagellate. You hire professional mourners. And when you're done, you get up, dust yourself off and head to the buffet table. 

Why Do Our Schools Hate Dreadlocks So Much?

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In the last year or so a couple of stories have hit the US media about children being discriminated against for their natural hair at school by the school administration. Naturally (to pun or not to pun), the international hair community was up in arms about the developments, often forcing the schools to retract their statements and issue more PC school policies.

Closer to home, this seems to be a problem being increasingly faced by parents as more and more embrace the natural lifestyle and encourage their kids to wear chemical-free hair. While natural hair in a young person wouldn't raise an eyebrow as it is the mot du jour (that's order of the day for those who failed French like moi), it seems, however, that many schools are taking issue with the growing number of dreadlocked students. 

I heard an interesting story on the radio this morning about a well-known IGCSE school in Nairobi which is being sued by a parent of the school for sending their son home from school until he cuts off his dreadlocks. It appears the student at hand actually had been attending the school in all his dreadlocked glory for a number of years before the school administration took affront. 

This is not an isolated incident.

Is Length The New Curly

When I first went natural, I did what all naturals do. Trawled the blogs and vlogs of all the popular naturalistas, soaking up the ambiance. What I didn't appreciate then was that everyone's natural hair is different; I was looking at curly haired naturals doing curly hair things and I thought that's what all natural hair did,as long as you had the right products or tools. I armed myself with curl enhancing products (I should have shares in Shea Moisture), gels and denman brushes and off I went. As an eternal optimist, it took me ages to realise I was going nowhere, fast. I was burning up all this time, money and effort yet my hair just sat there looking...kinky. And kind of smooshed. Where was I going wrong gaddamitt?! 

nuff said..

During this time, I was suffering chronic dryness and breakage, because I was focusing more on stylers and manipulating my hair a lot. All that smoothing, shingling, praying, brushing curl-enhancing business meant I was handling my hair a hell of a lot. Then a friend gave me a tub of Carol's Daughter Healthy Hair Butter and that was really my turning point.

Is Dr. Bronner's Stealing Kenya's Coconut Oil?!

Gotta love a sensationalist headline. 

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There has been a recent shortage of coconut oil on our shelves. The good stuff, that you can cook with and all. That's because the main oil we used to buy suddenly vanished. The news trickled out from suppliers that they were fulfilling a major international order but that it would once again be available locally from December. 

Fat chance!

Dear Dark & Lovely...

Photocredit: missonal.ca

Or perhaps, more accurately, this open letter should be addressed to L'oreal, as the parent company of Dark & Lovely. 

A month or so ago, Dark & Lovely ran an advertising segment on a local radio station marketing, among other things, their new range of natural hair products soon to be released in East Africa: Dark & Lovely Au Naturale. The adverts blew my mind. And not in a good way.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly of Natural Hair

1. When you do a twist out and in your head it was going to turn out like this..

photo credit: frostoppa.com

...and instead it turns out like this..

photo credit: workingwithmckinsey.blogspot.com

Dating and Natural Hair

image courtesy of quentinmcall.com

Last night I bumped into someone I hadn't seen for years and the first words out of her mouth were 'OMG! What have you done to your hair?!'. And not in a 'Wow, you look awesome' kind of way, more like a 'Somebody call 911' kind of way. It was one of those situations where you think of a witty retort in the middle of the night but at the time I just mumbled something lame about the new natural me. Cringe.

I can understand her reaction though, because I was the last person I would have expected to go natural. Yes, I thought naturalistas was artsy and quirky and cool but ... not for me. I'm vanilla. Tasty, but safe. Vanilla rarely offends the sensibilities. Unlike like breast milk icecream. That's human breastmilk, incase you missed my incredulous, slightly nauseous tone. Anyway, I digress.

Why I Have Beef With T444Z...

....and any other miracle growth products out there.

image courtesy of t444z.com

So I am definitely going to get slammed by T444Z users and distributors out there for this post but before you get your knickers in a bunch, hear me out.

It's not that these products are rubbish that bothers me, on the contrary, T444Z actually has good ingredients. Its that they make all these lofty claims to do things that, if you know anything about natural hair, you would have to question the validity of.

Un-Styled Hair: The Ugly Side of Natural Hair

My daughter has wildly curly hair. She is a die-hard curly girl; we co-wash, leave lots of conditioner in her hair, rarely shampoo and never protective style.  I experimented with gel before and maybe we will use it when her hair is longer and thicker but for now, we just use conditioner to set her curls. And I love them. They look super defined and shiny when they dry without interference which worked well for us when she was little but now that she's a very active not-quite-two year old, that is a rare/non-existent occurrence. She's usually rolling around on the bed/sofa/floor/grass/dog bed/car seat straight after I've done her hair so  nowadays, more often than not, her curls are fuzzy and undefined. That's if she lets me do her hair at all. But no matter, I still love them.

Sadly, not everyone shares this opinion. 

Smooth down those hairlines or else!

I have found myself getting all hot under the collar over a thread on Facebook about hairlines, of all things. 

Yeah, I know. It's a natural thing. 

Wait, no. Actually, slicked down hairlines are an everybody thing. Black, White or Asian. nothing says 'coiffed' more than edges that are lying flat. If you have fine, straight hair, a soft brush may be all you need to lay put those flyaways to rest. The further up the hair typing chart you get, the harder it gets, the more desirable it seems to become. And if you have baby hair to boot, you're made. #itsablackthing

fake it till you make it girl!