Tracey Wallace

Like many of you, I have this whole natural hair thing down. I don’t use products with silicones (usually!), sulfates or parabens. I know more about hair care ingredients than I do the Table of Elements. I can honestly say that my hair does better on a CG method when I’m co-washing and using silicone-free products than it does temporarily when I give in to silicone-infested products. I KNOW hair care, especially my own hair care, but even that of other’s. I find myself at random bars on a Saturday night immersed in a conversation with a coily or curly gal, explaining to her what she should do for HER hair type, and why it wouldn’t work for mine.

All of that is great and cool, but over the past six months, I’ve seriously had to start diving into natural skin care which is a whole other ballgame. I’ve never had skin problems. Sure, a pimple here or there, but nothing drastic. Then, last December, after a lifetime of not being a makeup person, I decide that I want to invest in some nice makeup. So I buy SmashBox, and a week later, I’m more broken out than I have ever been — and to this day it hasn’t gone away!

I’ve tried everything. Changing cleansers, toners, correctors, going to facialists, changing makeup, cleaning brushes, buying NEW brushes, and TODAY I’m going to spend some serious cash that I don’t have on more products because someone somewhere online said that it works.

In my quest to do this, I’ve decided to come to you, natural hair community, and ask: what products do you use? Are they sulfate, paraben and oil-free? Will natural skin care products be as beneficial to me as natural hair care products were? Is the price worth it?

Mostly, I’m asking this: as a natural hair community, is everyone also gung-ho about natural skin care? And if so, help a sister out!

The 2012 Billboard Music Awards went off without a hitch last night and included hours of prime time TV entertainment including performances, insane clothing ensembles and a lot of big, textured hair.

And while there were winners last night, this curly took away a lot more than some fancy award. Instead, watching the Billboard Music Awards was more like a lesson in pop culture, stereotypes and personas than anything else. Let me take you down the list of the five key points that I took away from last night’s show, none of which involve mentioning who even won!

1. Brandy is back! Holy cow where as this woman been, and better yet, the hair! Not only did the mystery woman who once sold six million units worldwide step out onto the music scene again (even if it was only for an award show), but she did so with hair that would make any textured supporter proud.
2. And Taylor Swift isn’t back. When will this “Vogue gave me bangs and straight hair” persona go away? Not to mention, the “Oh my gosh, I won ANOTHER award” surprise act is getting old and fake. Come on, Taylor. I know you can do better!
3. Alicia Keys is still one of our best vocalists. Putting her and Stevie Wonder together to cap off the night was a genius move by the award ceremony. Keys even did a stripped down version of “Empire State of Mind” that seriously rocked the house. And besides her amazing vocals, Keys’ twisted high-knot updo was to kill for, and an easy style that any hair type can copy.
4. Miley Cyrus is HOT. Or so she wants us all to believe. Her short, tuxedo “dress,” smoky makeup and sexy hair won her the most attention last night at the show, which seems to be just the way she likes it. Ever since her Vanity Fair expose, the singer/actress duo has been stepping up her sex appeal game, which makes me wonder what her PR agency has planned for her in the future. This can’t just be a coincidence. Either way, you can’t bash the girl for looking hot. You just can’t.
5. Amber Rose and Wiz Khalifa make me melt. Gosh, I love these two humans and their over-the-top “I am so in LOVE with this person” attitudes. They might not be as hip-hop famous as Kanye and Kim or Jay-Z and Beyonce, but these two rock my socks off, and their adorable relationship makes me believe in true love. Plus, how FIERCE is Amber with that blonde buzz cut? Enough said.

Overall last night’s ceremony was pretty great. Burrell and Bowen proved to us all that their on-screen antics on “Modern Family” aren’t just about acting, but that these two are actually pretty freaking hilarious. LMFAO did their same-old same-old routine — you know, where they act crazy and everyone seems to really love it. Justin Beiber still isn’t very interesting and my ears want to hear more of Natasha Bedingfield’s voice. But it’s hard to beat Brandy’s big hair, Taylor Swift’s lack of it, Key’s soulful performance, Cryus’ outfit that left little to the imagination and Amber Rose’s short cropped ‘do and her baby by her side.

What were your favorite Billboard Music Award moments?

We all know that braids, protective styles and definitely relaxers can have a negative affect of your hair and overall health, leading to recessing hair lines, alopecia and many other truly harmful issues. These health concerns are what have so may of us going natural to begin with, but ladies, beware! If you are wearing your hair down and over one of your eyes, Emo-style, the vast majority of the time, your hairstyle could have you developing lazy eye!

This is not a joke (though I admit I giggled a little when I fist read it)! Andrew Hogan, a national executive member of Australia’s Optometrists’ Association, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, “If a young Emo chap has a fringe covering one eye all the time, that eye won’t see a lot of detail … And if it happens from a young age, that eye can become amblyotic. If you walk around with an eye patch on all day, then that eye will end up seeing more poorly than the other eye.”

OK – so maybe not all of us curlies are sporting a hair-over-the-eye look, but Justin Bieber better beware! Selena might not be so in to his hair-do once she finds his eyes a wandering elsewhere.

Of course, other optometrists are speaking out against Hogan saying that the idea that a hairstyle could cause permanent vision damage is absurd.

“This is a crazy idea, the concept of this blocking vision and causing problems with sight,” Auckland-based ophthalmologist Justin Mora told TV New Zealand. “It’s just silly.”

Maybe it is, but so is the Emo hairstyle altogether! After all, hair flipping and a deep-side part (which is totally in this summer, so watch out!) aren’t mainstream hair culture. Then again, neither are our natural curls, coils and waves.

Either way, curlies, maybe wear a headband to keep your tresses out of your eyes just in case!

Six seasons in and two of BET’s “The Game” actors are said to be leaving the series, right in the middle of their storylines! According to HipHollywood.com, Tia Mowry and Pooch Hall are officially off the show despite Hall’s tweeting extravaganza claiming that he and BET were working it out.

I’ll admit it, I haven’t really been keeping up with the show, but I do know that fans are up in arms about this news, many claiming not to continue watching without Melanie and Darwin (Tia and Pooch’s respective characters). But before we get all sitcom-as-real-life here on NaturallyCurly.com, let’s take a moment to look back at Tia’s, as well as some of the other “The Game” actresses’, hairstyles. After all, if “The Game” is changing, we want to make sure you have these styles down, asap, even if only for a game changer (get it?) with your curls for a night out!

Celebrity hairstylist Nikki Wright, who works on the set of BET’s The Game, shares her insider tips for how to achieve the show’s star curly hairstyles. As with ALL heat-created styles, be sure to apply a good heat protectant on your curls, use the heat settings on the lowest possible degree and deep condition as soon as possible after the style.

Tia Mowry as Melanie Barnett

Section the hair in halves by using butterfly clips to secure. Then, spray each curl with White Sands Soft Hold Liquid Texture. Section hair once again, but this time horizontally, curling hair back and away from the face. Clip the curls so that it cools and sets with direction. Then, finger through the style for body and movement. Use an oil to tame unwanted flyaways and the Tancho Stick for smooth edges.

Get Brandy’s look on the next page…

Man, this world is harsh isn’t it? Textured hair is unruly and hides secrets (which must be why TSA always searches through it) and not wearing makeup makes you seem untrustworthy. Those two statements alone, which have been proven completely true as Hilary Clinton’s fresh face continues to be ridiculed and Rebekah Brooks’ big, red curls alone cause many to buy in to her guilt, say this one thing: a woman’s natural beauty isn’t beauty at all.

It’s a hurtful statement to take from the media coverage of both events, but it’s all I can seem to gather. Why would a woman without makeup get so much negative media attention, and why does wearing your hair how you always wear it somehow mean that you are guilty? It is no secret that women have long conformed to societal ideas of beauty, but why all the negativity if a woman chooses to ditch what we perceive as cultural norms and embrace her natural self?

Heck, I know you care about this issue because so many of you have been there yourselves. Coming out to friends and family as wanting to go natural is tough. Mothers and grandmothers shake their heads in disapproval, friends wonder why you have given up on yourself, men even tell you that they are only attracted to straight hair (or so Patti Stanger would have us all believe). Beauty, something we have long been told is in the eye of the beholder, seems to actually be in the eye of whoever is the popular celebrity of the time.

You’ve seen it first hand too, if you haven’t experienced it yourself. As each season comes to pass, women flock to stores and salons to be the first to get the new season’s trendy look — each one of them often stepping out, having dished hundreds of dollars, all looking nearly identical. Is beauty really just what the majority looks like?

Beauty, at least in my opinion, isn’t what you put on your face or how you manage your hair. It’s the ability to embrace and love yourself first, because if you can’t do that for you, then you can’t do it for others. This media coverage of women that doesn’t focus on the issues (I don’t think anyone has even said what Hilary was talking about when she appeared without makeup!), it focuses on what matters second — because we all know personal hygiene and health is definitely important along with dressing the part for particular moments in life.

So as I sit and ponder the future of media, how women are portrayed, how beauty is spelled out for me and how I can work to spell it out differently for the younger generation of girls so that we all learn to love ourselves as we naturally are, if only so that we can love others as they naturally are, I ask you, curlies: What is beauty to you?

Sienna Miller’s hair disaster may have had her taking some extreme steps to rectify a henna-gone-wrong dye treatment, but for us, her use of ketchup to correct the green tinge in her blonde locks means one thing: a cheap and easily accessible correction method!

Let’s get real honest real quick here: henna hair dye isn’t the easiest thing on earth! It takes a precious amount of research, YouTube watching and sitting and waiting as the color sets to get the perfect CurlyNikki color — and not everyone has that patience. Plus, for women with lighter hues, henna can be even more tricky. In general, the darker your natural hair is, the more you can stand to mess up a bit with the henna application. Sure, it may come out a little red when you stand in the sunlight, but other than that, if you have dark hair, it will just look darker. Cool. But for women with blonder tresses, a henna misapplication can interact with previous dye jobs and give hair a tinge of green instead. Not so cool.

In an interview with Marie Claire magazine, Miller admits, “I once used henna to dye my hair brown for an audition, thinking I was being clever as it’s all natural. Little did I know it was the worst thing I could have done as it coats the follicles so that nothing else can penetrate.”

Henna is a natural hair strengthener besides it’s coloring qualities. Strengthening products restore health to your hair most often by filling in the holes in your hair follicles that have developed from damaging hair care practices over time. Much like a protein treatment, henna hair dye fills in these holes and creates a shinier, stronger look for your locks. Of course, if the henna dye job goes wrong, removing the color from your hair is more difficult, given that is isn’t just sitting on your hair. It has actually penetrated it.

Now, for all your blonde hair mavens out there who have been schooled in the greening hair properties of chlorine, too much sun and so on, the old ketchup wive’s tale has proven to be true for Sienna. To combat the green tint, “I ended up having to put ketchup in it for about a year to get rid of the green tinge.”

Don’t believe it? Well, ketchup has long been known for its ability to neutralize green hair accidents, especially when it comes to blonder shades. The process is pretty simple and the outcome, at least according to Sienna, is totally worth the smell and mess.

1. Use REAL tomato ketchup. Remember, you are putting this in your hair. Be sure to read the ingredients and find the most organic or all-natural tomato ketchup that you can. Heinz will work fine too, but you don’t want to be adding any additional damage from ingredients to your already green curls.
2. Coat the hair with the ketchup from roots to ends and let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes. To help alleviate the mess and any drips, grab yourself a plastic cap and put it on over the treatment.
3. Rinse and repeat if necessary. Hop in the shower and shampoo and condition your hair as usual. Be sure to use a clarifying shampoo to get all of the product out of your hair. Not all shades of green in blonde hair will be corrected with only one treatment, so repeat daily if necessary until the color fades.

Would you use ketchup to correct a dye-job-gone-wrong that resulted in green curls?

If you have ever thought that your natural hair was stopping you from getting fit and in shape, girl, you are about to be shown up by Serena Williams herself.

Winning her 13 straight match on the clay courts in Madrid, Williams takes a moment to celebrate her victory, her curls only adding to the beauty of the shot.

Using a large headband to keep the sweat out of her eyes and away from her roots, Serena pulls out a huge Mother’s Day victory that gives all of us textured hair supporters even more reason to rejoice, which is why THIS is the picture of the day!

Having and maintaining natural hair should never hold you back from proper amounts of exercise that help to maintain the rest of your health. Going natural is about embracing yourself for who you are and learning to love yourself the way that you were naturally created. Proper exercise and diet is a HUGE part of that, and can actually improve the health of your hair as well.

Given that your hair is simply a collection of cells that your body is expelling, your curls are literally what you eat. Do you have habitually dry curls? Drink up some H20. Are your coils lacking shine? Go juice yourself some greens. When it comes to natural hair, it is all relative.

Plus, if you don’t get out there and work it out, how will you ever be able to capture a glorious picture like this?

Work it, curlies!

You know those times you’re perusing through that bin at H&M or taking a random stroll down a street you’ve never ventured upon, not really looking for anything in particular and really just finding something to do to pass the time? Your mind isn’t really on the good sales in that H&M or on any of the cute shops on that street. It is more thinking about what you’ll do next: food, drinks, meet up with the girls? And then it happens. Out of nowhere, your sense of touch comes across cashmere, your sense of sight notices the delicate, perfect shade of blue, your sense of sound can almost hear the cash register as you take your new favorite sweater to checkout.

That, my dear friends, is what THIS is. Perusing through a boyfriend’s old collection of Esquire, reading only headlines as I skim the pages — not really caring much about this new hot celebrity or how to shave so that you don’t get razor burn (Side note: what works on their faces works on other areas too! It’s worth a read!). But then my eye hit the headline:

What Happened to Goldilocks? She Bought Herself a Chi.

Suddenly I’m back on that random street falling in love with the cutest French bakery this side of Paris and making a mental note of the location that will soon call me a “regular.” I’m hooked.

And as I continue to read what has now become my FAVORITE quote of all time, my heart skips a beat. It imagines lunch dates with friends and conversations with the significant other about how amazing curly hair is and how this man put into words everything that I have ever wanted to hear, ever. When Jane Austen famously wrote that a woman’s mind immediately jumps to marriage, I think what she meant is that a woman’s mind, when sparked with excitement, instantly jumps to how perfect her future world will be with the amazing solution at hand.

So here it is curly ladies, the end all be all of curly hair mantras.

“Wow, women of America, you’ve straightened your hair. You’ve really straightened your hair. Couldn’t be any straighter. What do you call that? Limp? It’s pointy, actually. Like a headdress of chopsticks. No, we don’t hate it. It’s a little severe maybe, but it works on some level. Why aren’t you moving your head? Right, that’ll mess it up. Can we touch it? No? Okay. All the celebrities are wearing their hair like that? Reese Witherspoon. Nicole Kidman. Well, there you go: You look like a celebrity. But sort of intractable and cold, like an ancient statue — of a goddess who is pissed off. Or John Lennon. Not like you at all, really. Not like when your hair was textured, thick, soft, imperfect, and you could move it around, and you looked, you know, human. It’ll wash out in the morning, right? Whatever. Tonight, your scent is intoxicating, that dress is beautiful, and your hair, well, it’s just really damn straight. – Esquire magazine.”

We all have varying passions. We are each our own unique human being, and our interests, much like our hair, curl, coil and wave in so many different directions and shades, that all any of us can do it be thankful that someone somewhere likes to do all those things that we aren’t so keen on. And textured hair hair isn’t exempt from this equation.

This realization couldn’t have hit closer to home than when I read an article at Clutch Magazine about a woman who has been wearing her natural hair in locs for nine years, but despite the length of both her hair and her journey, she isn’t all that passionate about natural hair. She isn’t in to sitting on YouTube for hour in order to learn how to twist a new way to get a new look, or reading every ingredient in every product. In fact, she says, “if it was up to me, I would have gone to a salon and paid a natural hair passionista to wash, retwist, and curl my hair for me.”

However, Kaneisha Grayson’s admittance of her non-commital attitude to natural hair isn’t a slap in the face to all of us who do love natural hair, reading and understanding all ingredients and vlogging about our experiences along the way. She continues to explain how excited she is about the textured hair revolution, and though she doesn’t feel as though she is a huge part of it, she can’t wait for one of us to open a natural hair salon down the street from her so she doesn’t have to detangle her locs herself.

While our passion for natural hair might not appeal to everyone, it has touched the lives of even those who don’t necessarily jump on board. As we continue to spread the revolution, grow in number and encourage and empower one another to take to the streets with our passion to help others, we will be empowering even those who are not a fully functioning part of the revolution.

There are women in this world who love natural hair and would love to attain it, but who don’t have the same passion and dedication for it that many of us have. There’s nothing wrong with that — especially if they will come to our future natural hair salons and agree to let us work our passionate magic to help them attain the natural hair we know they can get.

The takeaway here curlies is this: follow your passion, build the platform for that passion, and those who admire your passion, will come.

Empower, embrace, connect: that is what this revolution is all about. 

AnnaLynne McCord has long been a favorite in the textured hair community. She forgoes the straight hair as beauty trend and rocks her natural waves and curls as much as possible. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a photo of the girl with straight tresses, at least on a night when she got to dictate the curvature of her hair.

And now, to up the ante, one of Hollywood’s most famous naturally curly gals is tossing the security blanket away and saying to hell with Hollywood’s standard of beauty. Before heading out on a trip to tour the Palmachim Air Force base in Israel, she Tweeted out a photo of her without makeup, blemishes and all, stating, “I woke up this morning and decided that I’m over Hollywood’s perfection requirement. To all my girls (and boys) who have ever been embarrassed by their skin! I salute you! I’m not perfect — and that’s OK with me!”

She continued her make-up free debut throughout her stay in Israel, sporting her au natural locks per usual to go along with her au natural skin. As if AnnaLynne wasn’t already an idol, at least for the natural hair community, her deconstructing of Hollywood beauty and her adamant stance to reach out to her fans and encourage them to be themselves, imperfections and all, is truly beautiful.

After all the talk we do here at NaturallyCurly and all the people we talk to, the most common response we get about celebrities and their natural hair is that celebrity stylists simply think that the celebrities are too afraid to break the mold, to be themselves, to deviate from what Hollywood says is standard beauty. If this is the case, then celebrities like AnnaLynne, Viola Davis and Solange are some of the most noble and notable women. They serve as beacons of inspiration, empowerment and encouragement, not just to those of us who relate to their struggles, but to our daughters and the younger generation of women who have idols like these women to look up to – idols that many of us never had.

Brava AnnaLynne. We stand with you in your salute to imperfect skin, natural hair and troop support.

What about it curlies: would you go make-up free to serve as a role model for young girls and boys?