How To Maintain An Organized Closet!

Ok so I know this post has absolutely nothing to do with hair or beauty, but in the spirit of the Labor Day holiday I thought I'd share how I keep my closet organized especially when adding new pieces to it. I'm a huge holiday shopper! I love a great deal and normally during holidays retailers really up the discounts and coupons. After shopping until I dropped today I came home and looked at all of my bags and then looked at my closet and began to think of where I was going to put what, etc. Please note that I am OCD so love organization including organizing my clothing by color, but I digress. The golden rule that I try to follow when adding new clothing items to my closet is to try and find pieces that I am ready to donate to Goodwill to offset the items being added. This is a great way to not only give back, but to also keep from having a closet that is stuffed to capacity with items that you may not or haven't worn for months if not years! I guarantee that if you look hard enough you will find at least one clothing item that you can gift to someone else. The rule that I follow when deciding if it is time to donate something is if I haven't worn it in months/years (excluding if it's out of season of course) then it's time to let it go! The beauty of this process is that in addition to maintaining an organized closet it also provides me with a way to give back and hopefully be a blessing to someone else. Oh and by the way JC Penney and Express are having fabulous Labor Day sales so if you're a fan of either please make your way there by September 2nd! I promise you won't be disappointed.

Why the Fundamentals of Your Hair Regimen Should Never Change

So in the midst of my youtube junkie ways I started thinking about some of the youtubers that I've followed for years as well as myself and realized that the core of our hair regimens has rarely changed. Now being the product junkie that I am I know it's a bit unrealistic to say that you should always use the exact same products from now until your hair is hip length. Most of us get bored or just plain ol curious about the latest and greatest products that are floating around out there. What I am saying is that the techniques and methods that you have picked up along the way that work for your hair...STICK WITH THEM! For example, I wash my hair twice a week. I've been doing that for years and my hair thanks me! I refuse to change that part of my regimen even if the conditioners or shampoos change.

When I first started my hair journey every time I would find someone with hair at my goal length I would go out and buy every product the person swore by and follow their regimen to the letter. Each time I would end up disappointed because I didn't achieve great results. One day a light bulb went off and I realized that my results were disappointing because I was doing what was meant for someone else's hair! I eventually started listening to my hair and paying attention to the methods and products that work for me. I will never claim that I will always use the exact same products (although my staples will never be too far away!), but there are also some things that I never plan to change as long as they work for my hair (i.e. moisturizing and sealing daily, DCing twice a week, etc). Those fundamentals are the foundation for my hair regimen and are the reason that I have consistently seen length retention and thickness in my hair. So no matter how awesome someone else's regimen is I've got to stick with what works for me.

My Experience With The LOC Method

In the past few months I've read quite a few blog posts about the L.O.C method, which honestly before that I had never heard of before. The basis of this method is to apply a liquid (many use water) and follow up with an oil to lock in the moisture and then apply a cream to seal everything in. This method is used by many in the natural hair community, which may be why I wasn't quite as familiar with this method for a while. However as of lately I've seen more and more relaxed/texlaxed ladies giving this mehtod a try.

When washing my hair on yesterday the L.O.C method popped into my head as something that I should try. I've recently added the CHI Keratin Mist to my leave in regimen and thought that this may be the perfect time to try this method. In the past I normally would apply my CHI Keratin Mist followed by my Kimmaytube leave mix and then my Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Serum. I decided to switch things up and use the CHI Keratin Mist as my liquid, the Paul Mitchell super skinny serum as my oil, and my kimmaytube leave in as my cream.

My hair air dried so soft and fluffy and felt very moisturized. Sometimes when I air dry my hair it takes an extra boost of my Giovanni Direct leave in before my  hair feels 'normal'. However by using the LOC method I found that I didn't need any added moisture (even though I did moisturize out of habbit not necessity). Overall I was very pleased with my results and plan to use this method a bit more to see if I consistently get the same results. I plan to do an updated post once I test this method out for a bit longer.

Quick Cowash!

 Ok so first of all I'm sorry I've been kind of MIA the past two weeks, but I have a really good explanation. I went back home to spend some time with my family and when I came back apparently I brought a lovely summer cold right along with me :/

Anyway after a week of intense rest I'm finally starting to kind of feel like my old selft again. This past weekend I went to the salon and got my hair washed and conditioned so I didn't have to worry about dealing with it, but as usualy by Wednesday I couldn't take it any more. In my true exercise fashion as of lately I applied my One N' Only Argan Oil Hydrating Mask to my hair and deep conditioned while I power walked for an hour. When I got back I hopped in the shower and rinsed my hair and then followed up with hair one for about 30 seconds just to give my scalp a light cleansing. Lastly I applied my Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Daily Treatment for about 3 minutes. After doing a final rinse I used a  t-shirt to soak up the excess water from my hair and then applied my leave ins using the LOC method (more details to come in a later post!). After this I air dried my hair. This morning I moisturized using my Giovanni direct leave in and sealed using a few drops of the proclaim oil (it was the only thing near by and I used to love this stuff so I figured it would hurt). Now my hair is happily in a neat little bun until Friday when I attempt my first flexi rod set in about 2 years! I'm excited and nervous about it, but I figure since I mastered rollersetting why not set my sights on mastering flexi rod sets?! Stay tuned...

Why You Should Take Pictures During Your Hair Journey

I can not stress how important it is to take pictures throughout your hair journey! For myself personally I've benefited so much from my progress pictures. Sometimes I get a little discouraged and feel like my hair isn't growing and looks like it's been the same length since the day I started, but when I start looking at older pictures I realize how wrong I really am. You guys may remember a few weeks ago that I was feeling exactly like that (See post here). Well during my last wash day I decided to blow dry my hair and since I'm a picture happy girl who's always snapping a picture of something I decided to snap a few pictures of my hair mainly for blogging purposes, but I swear I was blown away when I actually looked at the pictures and compared them to pictures from just a few months ago. I feel like this was the little push that I needed to renew my hair journey motivation. So when you're feeling a bit down and see other bloggers and youtubers and think 'my hair will never be that long' pull out those comparison pictures so you can prove those negative thoughts wrong!