Curls: Rod set vs twist & curl on long term transitioning hair

23:01 Sandra N.U. 12 Comments

Mwah!

(And also to show AB that I reinstalled the ombre kinky twists. Lol. I made them chunkier and without curls this time).


    When I was ready to take down the twists, I didn't want to have to deal with washing my hair and then stretching so I kept them in, washed with Bobeam shealoe shampoo bar and followed with Shea Moisture Restorative Conditioner and didn't rinse out. When it was only slightly damp, I sealed with whipped shea butter and let it dry.
 Finally took down the twists and had clean, stretched, soft, moisturised hair. Winning.

Rod set
  I had a wedding to attend the next day and I wanted curls, baby.
 To get a tapered look, I used perm rods for the periphery and flexirods for the centre. I used white perm rods for the front sides, grey for the back for tighter curls.

Results

I fluffed a bit and pinned up the sides, then tucked my ends in and secured too. See that errant bobby pin at the back.

Smh at my edges

The wedding, with my friend. I like what my hair was doing here

Twist & Curl
  Unfortunately I didn't have battery power to take pictures of the twists but they were medium-sized flat twits, then I rolled the ends on grey perm rods.

After takedown

Ran my fingers through the roots to obscure the parts

Pinned up the sides and tucked in the ends as usual

How I wore my hair to the June Salon day out

Verdict
The twist & curl definitely won this all-around.

• Definition 
• Installation time
• Take-down time
• Slightly better at blending the two textures

Unless you don't know how to flat twist, it's a no-brainer.
What's your favourite method to curl your hair? Which would you like me to try?
 Xx,
NGND

NITC 11 Tomorrow

11:10 Sandra N.U. 0 Comments

Hi you guys, can't believe I haven't mentioned this here before but NITC 11 is tomorrow. I'm sure it's because I know I'm not going to be there, I'll be out of town from very early tomorrow morning to attend to something family-related and important.
    I hope you guys go so I can hear all about it. Someone's going to win N10,000 and you can still enter today if you hurry. Details here.
Have fun!
Xx,
NGND

Restaurant review: Sunday lunch at Coral Blue Seafood Restaurant

06:52 Sandra N.U. 7 Comments

Hellosss,
      How's your weekend going? Did you get Friday off? I did and it was wonderful. I cooked and baked fireworks in the kitchen. Did you see my instagram post? I hadn't had the chance to fix myself something nice in forever so that was a treat. The chocolate cake is still making me and a bunch of people at work happy, slices are going faster than I can take pictures.
What a long preamble.


   Today's post is a review of lunch at Coral Blue Seafood Restaurant. Not today's lunch, several Sundays ago. I'm on call today so lunch was much less spectacular (infamous hospital food).
     
    My dad was in town that Sunday and we; Daddy, sis and I were quite hungry, and Dad let us pick the place. But of course, you know we had to get a lil fancy, Daddy payin' hehe. We decided on seafood and picked this place on Adeyemo Alakija, off Sanusi Fafunwa.

 It's supposed to feel like you're on deck, seaside.
We climbed aboard. Ahoy (or something)!

  We met a very pleasant waiter who even helped when he saw me struggling to take a selfie at the entrance, and took photos of us after our meal.
My sis and I went to the ladies' but there was no running water to wash our hands. We told a waiter who ran off and quickly came back with water, soap and towels.

The menu

  We placed our orders and the bread basket came meanwhile, served with packets of butter.
Honestly that bread was a lifesaver because our food took about an hour to arrive but we weren't starving while we waited.
   Our food came and the presentation was lovely.

 I had the Fisherman sampler platter: Butterfly prawns, crab cakes, calamari; I picked a side of mashed potatoes. Everyone got steamed veggies with their food.


Dad: Calamari and line fish with rice.


Sis: Fish skewer meal with rice. 

    We all had a bite of one another's food.
I loved my calamari. It was my first time and it was my favourite. My sister was mad about my crab cakes and wished she had gotten them. The prawns were nice; not the best I've ever had, just nice.
The mashed potato had a divinely balanced flavour, rich, creamy... but wasn't perfectly smooth. The taste was so good that I didn't even mind though, and I would have it again.
My sister thought her food was nice but seemed to enjoy mine more (what can I say, I know how to order :p :p). Her fish was nicely flavoured and was tender and moist inside; but the rice was just average in taste.
Dad's line fish was lovely. Rice was same as Sis's.

    We all agreed that their handling of vegetables was stellar, both the steamed sides and the vegs in the rice. They were cooked just right- colour still vibrant with some crunch in them.

The condiments were the perfect accompaniment. My food might have been a little dry without them. I couldn't get enough. I smothered the prawns in the peppery one and it took them several notches higher.

 We had water so no drinks to review.
The bill came up to N3k to N3500 (about $15) per person, give or take a few naira. Not bad huh?
      All in all, the customer service was excellent- this is a big deal; and the food was very good and very very filling. We had leftovers that were packed and given to us.
We didn't even consider dessert. I'm not a midday nap person but I took an irresistible one after this meal.

Would I go again? Definitely. I recommend it too.
Have you eaten at Coral Blue? What was your experience? Would you go if you haven't? Is there a better seafood place? Hit me up in the comments :* :*
Xx,
NGND

The NHCG salon Day out- How it went down

00:23 Sandra N.U. 23 Comments

 Hey everybaaady!

I'll just get right to it. The Salon Day Out was bomb! Dabs took it to a whole 'nother level!!! I'm stoked I got to be a part of it. I got there early and stayed until the end- it was a long but packed event.
Some pictures not bearing my watermark were taken from the ffg blogs:
Berrydakara
Klsnaturals
Don't touch the hair
Larger than life 

Naturals love each other :p

My sis came to listen to me. She's a naturalweavesta (trademark!)

Selfie with my friend Ojay (a real one to have come to our oestrogen-fest) and my sister

    At hair events I reeeally enjoy meeting new people and seeing those I usually connect with online. I took a bunch of selfies with all these beautiful people and I'll be sharing them in the body of this post.

1st item on the agenda was the Hair Journey series. 
Dabs shared her journey from damage and breakage to long healthy texlaxed hair.

The flawless Dabs

Next was Lade of rehairducation.com- she has lush, hip length texlaxed hair and she wore it in this head turning bow and bangs. *salivates*

Lade

Then I was up, sharing my relaxed/texlaxed journey to waist length and my ongoing transition to natural.
My friend Ojay videoed the entire thing and I haven't even seen it yet. I need to track him down...

Next was Koyin, who's a registered trichologist and has long, silky relaxed/texlaxed hair.

Lastly, Atilola of AfricaNaturalistas who's also a trichologist and has long natural hair... she gave me hiccups with her very humorous presentation from laughing so hard.

Atilola, me, Koyin, Lade and Dabs

2. The Hair Pros series.
Kemi Lewis of klsnaturals did an updo on natural hair on stage.

Just look at KL's handwork. When I take a break from my salon-free life I'm starting with KL

    Patrick of Patrick's Hair zone did a cut and blow-dry on peruvian weave that brought it to very bouncy, beautiful life.
 Then, the stylists at the Savvy&Chic salon finished up Berry Dakara's faux locs on stage, using a technique created by Dabs that halves the time required. I did faux locs once and the time it took then is the reason I haven't revisited the style yet. I just might reconsider.
  **** At this point I was almost dizzy with hunger so I wasn't taking any pictures; my sister saved my soul by going to get me a shawarma and I went out to wolf it down. Sometime after, we were served cupcakes and juice****

With Uju of ethniques.blogspot.co.uk I'm digging her metallic headband and she smelled really nice (am I weird?)

Faith and Doofan. I loved these ladies. We had a moment to discuss how exotic Doofan's name is. Yes she's Nigerian

Mercy (I wanted to snatch her hat) and Tayo whom I sat with for a while and chatted with

Osas and Omowumi. Radiant. Had a nice conversation with them.

Bukky. Gorgeous without any makeup

More excitement came during the Battle of the Hairlistas.
 Two teams faced off and performed different tasks. My favourite part was the "recreate" task.
Team On Fleek did better at this one.

Moby!!:* of mylifeasmoby.com Go and read her blog! No bad day seems as bad after reading a moby post

The next task that caused quite a bit of a stir was the "Avant garde" task.
I think team Glamly Nappy did better here.

    All in all, team On Fleek won 100k worth of hair products by Design Essentials and $100 each! Quite a win eh? All the contestants looked happy at the end of the day. Everyone went home with a package and I think they had fun too.  

Tofunmi! She was a member of Team On Fleek and this big grin had a lot to do with her win :p

Transitioning update: How much relaxed hair do I have left?

19:08 Sandra N.U. 12 Comments

Hey everybaaady, what's good?

   It's time for an update. I'm 19 months into my transition and it's been *deep breath* wow.
With the monthly mini-trims, the frustrated grabs for scissors each time there's a knot or an impossible tangle, and of course ALL the breakage... how much is left of my once waist length relaxed hair? *do you smell the nostalgia?*

Front: 0-3.5 inches
    This area is where I have the least relaxed hair left. My temples are all-natural, my crown has about 3.5 inches. Other parts, 2-3 inches.
    My natural texture is kinkier and somewhat denser in this area which makes the contrast with relaxed hair very marked. That equals more breakage, more tangles= more trims and cuts in this area. Even with relaxed hair, this area required more tlc for length retention especially when stretching my relaxer.

See the potential for tangles?

Middle: 5-7.5 inches
My relaxed hair is the longest here. Of course some strands are longer than others.


Back: 5-6 inches
 I have to keep the middle and back tucked in like this:

   This transition was about keeping my hair at comfortable lengths while gradually getting rid of my relaxed hair. At this point, the relaxed hair is really just a source of tangles. I can't even enjoy the length because it's so thin and so uneven and I have to tuck it away.
My natural hair is at a length I'm just about comfortable with (I think) and I'm pretty sure I'm ending my transition very soon, definitely before the 24-month mark I initially and prematurely announced.
The thought is exciting and scary all at once. Until then, I'll continue with the back to back protective styles.

   Ah well, as they would say on BlackGirlLongHair, Peace, Love and Detangling.
Xx,
NGND
P.S- The June salon day out is here already! It's this Sunday, the 7th at Oriental Hotel from 12pm. It's a packed programme you don't want to miss. Holla if you see me, let's take selfies :D