OOTD: Leather & Suede

I usually don't do this but...here's an impromptu outfit of the day. I think it's this hair, it makes me want to put a little more effort in. It wont last long though (the effects, not the hair).

Really simple look, it was a good opportunity for me to rock my new gold studded jacket.

Leather Jacket: F21 (recent)

Jean top: Walmart (a long time ago)

Disco Pants: American Apparel (I need a new pair of black ones, or a smaller rear)

Boots: Francesca's (recent, but last pair)

My hair was a combination of a curling wand (the bottom layer) and soft curlers (top layer).

Pictures at the bottom.

HAIR (sewn in by Sheri see more here)

Total of 12 curlers

Went back with a curling wand to tame the frizz from the curlers and elongate the bottom layer.

Have a BLESSED day!

~AF

Protective Styling

I'm was attempting a 1 year (or at least a 9 month, well maybe until December) hide your hair challenge. The path is paved with good intentions...and I have every intention of keeping to it. Really! I do. It's already been one month. Just 11 ( 8 or 4) more to go lol.

Woah, let me back track for those non naturals or people not used to the terms that I'm gonna be using in this and many other posts.

Wash and go (w&g): a natural hair style, when you literally wash your hair and go. You can also add gels to help define curls but there is usually very little manipulation or "styling" done to the hair and curls check out some cute w&g here and here.

Protective styling: Protective styling is just that! These are styles that protect the ends of the hair from rubbing, splitting, and being damaged by the elements. Essentially trying to prevent or reduce breakage in the hopes of retaining length.

Hide you hair challenge: A hide you hair challenge is basically protective styling for an extended period of time. From 1 month to a year or more. This can be accomplished either with braids, wigs, weaves etc whatever you like doing to protect your hair.

Curly Girl method: The long and short of it is that you don't wash your hair with shampoos and when you do they should be sulfate free (unless you want to clarify your hair). To wash your hair you use silicone free conditioners, doing frequent co-washes and simple styles like wash and gos. 


I miss my hair so much. I'm not used to not having access to it. Lately I've been following the Curly Girl (CG) Method, which I will discuss in a later post, and as a result have done a lot of wash and gos. But when I'm not doing a w&g I rock wigs.

Despite loving my wigs and being a great protective style I decided that I wanted long twists (a result of the long braid craze of this summer). I've had super long braids 3 times and though they were cute they were also very heavy and kind of damaging to my edges :(. I opted for twist because 1) it was a style I could install myself 2) they were lighter 3) it was unique and 4) it was easy.

I love them, I do and they are everything listed above. But nothing compares to you natural hair. Being able to rock a cute bantu knot out or a curly fro. Sigh. I must stay strong!!

(I still had my twists in when I started this post, took them out on Tues so I'm back to my wigs. Turns out I could only stand not touching my hair for 4 weeks.)

I think protective styling is a great option because it really helps retain length and decreases the "hand in hair syndrome" and manipulation. I've personally seen tremendous length retention from wearing wigs and having such a low maintenance routine.

This is my second time doing a hide your hair challenge, my first one went from end of 2010 till right before my college graduation in 2011. This was also when I first started wearing wigs as an alternative to weaves (I stopped wearing weaves after a bad experience). 

Anyway here some more helpful info about protective styling...

The Science of Black Hair- Protective Styling For Healthier Hair

BGLH- 9 Time Saving Natural Hair Care Tips, Protective Styling Do's and Dont's & Real Style: 8 Gorgeous Protective Styles from the BGLH Forum

Naptural85- All About Protective Styles! "Natural Hair"

About.com- 5 Protective Styles to Try

Naturallycurly.com- What Are Protective Hairstyles?



But just in case.

BGLH- 5 Signs That Protective Styling Is Not for You



wash and go

Protective styles

The styles don't have to be complicated (below)

MsVaughnTV- FALL back into Protective Styling! - A Hair Styling Tutorial for Naturals

Hope this helps.

AF

Weddings, Weaves & Walking

I'm a big fan of the Style network, Oxygen and channels like that. I love watching all the wedding oriented shows. It gets me excited for MY big day, although I'm no where near getting married yet. That doesn't stop me from getting ideas, and watching others on their special days.

• Who's Wedding Is It Anyway
• Bridzillas
• Wedding Makeover
• Masters of Reception
• Say Yes to the Dress (TLC)
• Platinum Weddings
• any shows bout [wedding] cakes or other elaborate cake

For the most part everyone make a beautiful bride, but then you might run across some people that are truly unfortunate. Not really that they aren't attractive, but that doesn't help matters. I don't think I can properly describe what I mean without having you see a clip of the shows that I've seen. But either way, brides are beauties and the grooms aren't half bad themselves. There's just something about weddings that touches my heart. I guess despite being so "tough" and cold and unfeeling as I claim deep deep deep DEEP down I'm just a softie <3 [yeah right].

    BEFORE [hott]        AFTER [just as hott]

Weaves, I'm only going to touch lightly on this subject, only because you saw a little of my opinion on them in my previous post. I enjoy weaves. I just recently started getting them, I tend to favor braids and kinky twists, but one of my BEST friends does it for me so when I'm in between those styles she hooks me up. I've only really done straight and long weaves, but I want to try shorter ones and even curly.

 

So remember in my first "anti"-aholic list how I included lists with less than three items. Well walking was how I completed this list because otherwise it would've seriously bugged me, plus I enjoyed the alliteration I'd created in the title. I struggled to come up with a third "W" word that I had been recently enjoying. Luckily I had my brother on had for that one. As a college student walking is an essential to getting by, literally. To get to class, or even the bus if you detest bipedal motion, etc. Being a lazy bum the only [well one of the only ;)] form of exercise I get is from walk/jogging/speed walking to class or the bus. And I've actually come to miss it this past summer, where I've been more lazy than usually (hard to believe I know).

 

I love how a seemingly random choice of words can turn into a ridiculously long post...but it is the "RAMBLINGS of a self-profess -AHOLIC" and not the "short, sweet and concise musing of a brainiac"

 

Adieu mes amies [good bye my friends-french]

-A

Top 5 AHOLICs [4]

It's that time again! You know, when I shamelessly tell you all the things that I'm currently addicted to. Yep, THAT time. LOL.
5) Weave
4) Curly hair
3) Purse dogs
2) Teen heartthrobs
1) 80's remakes

Man, so a lot of you are probably MAD that WEAVE is on my list. But, and I hate to swear on here, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN! I LOVE weave, but don't get it twisted I LOVE my natural hair MORE. I just appreciated it's versatility is all. I like having the ability to have my natural shoulder length hair one minute and 2-4 hours later mid back, blond hair. It's fun and exciting and a great way to protect my hair, and even if it wasn't I'd still do it.
SO IF YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE GUNG-HO PEOPLE WHO THINK WEAVE IS THE DEVIL AND BLACK WOMEN ARE GIVING INTO SOME CONVOLUTED IDEAL THAT THE FEMALE IMAGE IS BASED ON "EUROPEAN" IMAGE OF BEAUTY , OR THAT I'M DEMEANING MYSELF AND HAVE LOW SELF-ESTEEM THEN YOU CAN TAKE THAT BULLSHIT AND SHOVE IT UP YOU'RE HIGH HORSE-NOSE IN THE AIR-TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL-PEDESTAL SITTING ASS CUZ I DON'T GIVE A DAMN!
I am not a naturals are better than perms person, especially when most naturals started out WITH perms, don't EVER forget that. And maybe they [naturals who started out with perms] realized a natural path would be better for THEIR hair but some people don't feel that way. So long as YOUR hair is healthy, natural or otherwise then you are GOOD. Leave others be PERIOD! Sorry that got so long.
I don't even know if anyone REALLY reads this [if you do nob your head, lol, not that that really helps me, but...]

Curly hair, not much to say about this one other than I love it. Probably a biased opinion because my hair is curly, but hey it's MY BLOG and MY LIST so suck on that. Lol, VERY juvenile.


I LOVE puppies and kittens and pretty much all babies of any animal. They're SOOO cute. So the best part about purse dogs is that they basically stay the size of puppies they're WHOLE life. That and I think I have a little Paris Hilton in me, the dog loving side, not the sexing tape making, crotch showing, celeb-beefing side.

"Teen" Heartthrobs, I need not explain this just a mini list [keyword was teen, so if they seem young to you that's cuz your old, jk, I'm getting there too though!]

• Zac Efron
• Shia LaBouef
• Chace Crawford
• I guess the WHOLE cast of Twilight etc (even though I haven't actually seen the movies)
• Nick Jonas (I had to do it)
• Soulja Boy (NOT apologizing for that one)
• Elijah Kelley ( Hairspray, Take the Lead)
• Micheal Cera (Superbad, Juno etc if you didn't know)
• William Moseley (The oldest Brother from Narnia)
• ...and the list goes on

Ok, so we had the summer of the trilogy completion [ Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman, etc] we had the summer of Super Hero movies [Iron Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four] you get my drift. I'm just waiting for the wave of 80's remakes! I'm just BARELY an 80's baby [born in 1989] but I LOVE the clothes, some of the hair, and the movies. It's just part of who I am [which is totally awesome!!] So far they're redoing Footloose [which was amazing the first time around, Kevin Bacon YUM] with Chace Crawford (my heart breaks everytime i think about the fact that Zac Efron dropped the role, like REALLY breaks. Also FAME, so excited for that one! Front row, there's just something about teens singing and dancing that gets me excited. Karate Kid is also in the works, I hope the original Mr Miyagi is alive to make a cameo! Hairspray was AMAZING fyi.
Remakes I'd LOVE to see

• Pretty in Pink *
• Breakfast Club *
• Sixteen Candles *
• Don't Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead
• Honey I Shrunk the Kids
• Flashdance *
• Fast Times and Ridgemont High
• Dead Poets Society
• Beetlejuice *
• Farris Buellers Day Off *
• A Christmas Story *
• Ghostbusters
• Just One of the Guys
• The NeverEnding Story
• The Princess Bride *
• Risky Business *
• Say Anything *
• Teen Witch
• Weird Science *

Yeah the list is long, but I DID say I loved the 80's lol, and that's why it's number one. I missed ALOT but these are the main ones and the ones with asterisk (*) as the ones I REALLY want to see remade.

Caio for now.
-A