Life in the Desert

So I'm at my parents house now, which is in the Mojave Desert area. This means there is extreme heat and high, let me repeat, HIGH winds. It also means my hair is not happy. Luckily, I tried to limit my contact with the outside today, but even then my hair had some frizz. We leave tomorrow morning for Las Vegas, but I'm not sure that fire roasted city will be any kinder to my locks. I did try something new today with my hair. As I was getting out of the shower last night, after having shampooed and conditioned my hair with the Carols Daughter (still LOVE this stuff), I read on the box it came in that to get the maximum wear out of my curls, I should try applying the curl definer to my wet hair, combing it through, then drying it with a T-shirt instead of a towel to avoid frizz, then style it after wards. I did exactly that, which worked pretty well, at least the right side of my hair. The left side is being a little more resistant to the curls, which makes sense because when my hair is straight, the left side gets more straight than the right. The left side has more straight pieces of hair mixed in with curly.

I'm going to continue to work on it, though, because the other side of my hair has made great progress in such a small amount of time. The curls are still really different, though, I would like them to all look the way the right side of my hair looks on top.

I love, love, love the curls on this side, I really do. If I could make my whole head like this, I would be so happy. I am very excited to show my front bangs, they finally curled!

Above everything else, my hair feels soft and healthy, which I am thankful for. So, as I said, I like the way these curls look, I would like the curls underneath to look this way, too. My mom was saying today that when I was little my curls all looked the same, kinky and bouncy, which is the way the hair underneath these curls looks. I know I've just done so much damage to them by straightening them day after day without any breaks.

There are a lot of different curls existing on my head at the moment, but again, I am happy they are all shiny and healthy looking. The back looks a little frizzy, but the wind was blowing at its maximum speed when my mom snapped the photo today.

Even so, I can see the improvements and the life my curls are starting to have.I feel great with my hair, sometimes I miss my straight hair, but I remind myself that I am doing this to discover the other parts of my heritage.

I finally bought a leave in conditioner!!! First, I went to Wal Mart because I read online that they had the Shea Moisture Organics Curl Enhancing Smoothie, but they did not, so I found Cantu's Leave in Conditioner which contained Shea Butter. It was also $6 whereas the Organics is $9.99. I read some of the ingredients, which are:

Water
Soybean
Shea Butter
Soy protein
Wheat Protein

There were a bunch of other ingredients I couldn't pronounce, but I bought it anyway. Mistake! From what I've learned about eating healthy, if you cannot pronounce it, don't ingest it, so I'm not sure why I threw out that rule for my hair. I took the Cantu home and started comparing it to the Organics Leave in, which contains:

Coconut Oil
Silk Protein
Mango Seed Butter
Avocado Oil
Neem Seed Oil
Vitamin E
Aloe Leaf Extract


I decided to take back the Cantu to Wal Mart and pay the extra $3.99 for all of these ingredients, plus I've just heard such wonderful things about the product from different reviews. I am thinking I'll put it in my hair tomorrow night and put a shower cap on to lock in the moisture for my plan ride to New Mexico on Friday. I haven't completely decided yet, but I hope it gives my hair whatever it is it's looking for.Follow @AlexiaaBrooks