Relaxer Update #7 + A Giveaway!

Hi lovelies! On Saturday I went to the salon to get my hair professionally relaxed at 12 weeks post. I absolutely love the results and it feels great to have my hair back! Check out the video below....and I'm hosting a small giveaway on my youtube channel! Enjoy :)

Here are a few pictures of my relaxer results!

Liebster Award!

I am so excited to have been nominated by the lovely Abbi N of Below The Waist for the Liebster Award! I've been wanting to this award/slash tag for quite some time so to finally be nominated totally made my day!

I'll go ahead and start with the 11 interesting facts about myself...Warning: I'm not sure how interesting they are, but hey I tried!

1. I LOVE cheese...like the way Steve Urkel loves cheese...yea
2. I took dance classes (Jazz, tap, ballet, hip hop, etc) for over 8 years and yet I'm still lacking in the rhythem department :/
3. Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday ever! I even start listening to Christmas music on November 1st and watch all of the cheesy Lifetime Christmas movies.
4. Dogs are my favorite animal. I even have a Chilhuahua Daschound mix named Mango. She's such a sweetie :)
5. I've been an exchange student in Cuernavaca, Mexico and had the opportunity to do research on the Bearing Glacier in Alaska.
6. When I was in middle school I ran into the glass door at my best friends house. I completely shattered the door and still have the scars from stitches to prove it!
7. I'm an only child and so is my mom.
8. My dad is the baby of 14...probably why he only had 1 child!
9. I'm rather short...as in 5'1" short
10. Almost 2 years ago I lost 30 lbs and have kept it off *whoot whoot!*
11. I LOVE football both College and Professional. My favorite team ever is my beloved New Orleans Saints...WHO DAT!

Next Up is the Question and Answer Section:

1. What's your goal (length or otherwise) for your hair?
    MBL (Mid Back Length)! *Insert dreamy sigh*

2. What do you love most about your hair?

    I love my natural hair color. It looks darn brown until the sun hits it and then you can
    see the lighter brownish red color.

3. What's your favorite deep conditioner?
     I'm actually in between conditioners, but currently my favorite DC is the Silk
     Elements Kera Minerals DC.

4. What's your hairstyle at this very moment?
    Senegalese twists!

5. What's #1 on your bucket list?
    Hmmmm....to meet Jennifer Hudson!

6. How many blogs do you follow?
    50+. What can I say...I love reading about hair, beauty, and cooking!

7. What's on your Christmas wishlist?
     The 1 thing that I really want is a Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor!

8. How will you spend this Christmas?

    With my family and close friends eating Gumbo and tons of seafood!

9. Name an interest besides blogging.
    I'm kind of obsessed with youtube. I watch youtube videos more than I watch actual tv!

10. One place (country or city) you'd like to visit.
      Fiji

11. Have you ever been to Jamaica? Would you like to go? (I know that's 2, sue me lol)     No and heck yes! Hopefully I'll be going within the next couple of years.

I'd like to nominate:

Sharday of The Awkward Stage
Sdestra
Ebony C Princess of Longing4Length
Kim of FancyFlairLady

The Rules: 

• Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you 
• Paste the award on your blog
• Choose 5 blogs to pass this award to (they must have fewer than 200 followers)
• Let the recipients know about their nomination by leaving a comment on their blogs.
• Write 11 interesting facts about you.
• Answer my 11 questions.

My Questions!

1. What's your favorite food?
2. What product can you absolutely NOT live without?
3. What is your #1 favorite deep conditioner?
4. What's your favorite holiday and why?
5. What's your favorite protective style?
6. What's your biggest hair fear?
7. Since all of the lovely ladies that I've nominated are relaxed why have you chosen to remain relaxed?
8. How long did it take you to find your staple moisturizer?
9. What is your favorite thing about Christmas?
10. How do you keep yourself encouraged while on your hair journey?
11. If you could buy one thing at this very moment what would it be?

Cowash Wednesdays!

On Saturday I had a fabulous wash day, but of course due to my workout schedule and this temperamental fall weather we've been having on the east coast it was time to cowash my hair! Not to mention I will be heading to the salon for my relaxer on Saturday (Yay!) so I always try to get in one last wash in order to soften and detangle my new growth. After taking down my lovely 4 day old Goddess Braids protective style here's what I did:

• Finger detangled to remove any shed hairs
• Deep conditioned with Trader Joe's Nourishing Spa conditioner on the length of my hair and Tropical Isle Red Pimento Oil on my scalp for about 35 minutes.
• Rinsed and applied hair one to my scalp and the length of my hair. I let it sit for about 2 minutes. 
• Rinsed and applied a bit of my Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Daily Treatment. 
• Applied my leave ins (Kimmaytube leave in, Chi Keratin Mist for a shot of protein, and about a dime sized amount of the GVP Smoothing Serum) 
• Sat under my dryer for about 25 minutes
• Detangled again to remove any remaining shed hairs 
• Moisturized with my beloved Giovanni Direct Leave In and Sealed with coconut oil on the length of my hair and JBCO on my ends. 

My face showing that I am so over these 12 weeks of new growth! 

Style: I styled my hair in a Faux bun using the Kanekalon braid hair from my goddess braids.  I'm really loving these temporary protective styles as of lately! 

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Totally Twisted (Part 4) | How To Safely Remove A Braid Install

Here's part 4 of my Braid series! In this video I give tips (hopefully helpful) as well as demonstrate how I safely remove my braid install. I will also have a pictorial of sorts coming soon showing how I removed my Senegalese twists as well!

Wash Day!

 After reading tons and tons of wash day posts while rocking my Senegalese twists I finally am back to doing my own wash day posts! Don't worry though I do have a video and pictorial of sorts showing how I removed my Senegalese twists. 

So after the long process of removing my braid install (the next day) I began my wash day process which went rather well if I do say so myself.

• Detangled (FOREVER) using my Up and Up Spray Detangler from Target and a bit of coconut oil making sure to remove as much shed air as possible. Of course the amount hair was much more because of my 8 week braid install. 
• Prepooed with a mix of my GVP Moisturizing Conditioner, coconut oil, and JBCO under my heating cap for about 20 minutes.
• Shampooed with my beloved Shea Moisture Moisture Retention Shampoo. 
• Deep Conditioned with my Kenra Moisturizing Conditioner (Newbie Alert!), which I sealed in with a mixture of grapeseed oil and EVOO. I sat under my heating cap for about 30 minutes.
• Applied my leave ins which were a bit of my Kimmaytube Leave in Mix and GVP smoothing serum.
• Dried my hair using my salon dryer for about 1 hour on a medium cool setting.
• Finger detangled to remove any remaining shed hairs.
• Moisturized and sealed using my Giovanni Direct Leave in, coconut oil, and JBCO for my ends. 

Left: Hair lost post wash. Right: Hair lost prewash. 

After finally finishing I looked at my 11 weeks post hair and tried to figure out what I was going to do with it for the week until I visit my stylist next Saturday! My hair felt so soft, but honey my roots were on another level! After a bit of thinking I remembered the pack of braid hair I'd purchased a few weeks ago and decided to try my hand at Goddess/milk maid braids. My plan is to rock this style all week until it's time to go to the salon. Of course if my hair starts to feel thirsty I will cowash and restyle. Here are the final results. What do you guys think?