March 21, 2012

Six Month Length Check!!!

I can't believe it! It has been 6 months since my BC. Time seems to have flown by. I did no do any length recording after doing my BC so this is the first one. I must say, the Jackson 'Fro has grown! So, this is a post in picture. Excuse the lack of smiles. This was the end of a VERY long Sunday. I'm getting a trim in a couple of weeks. For once, I'm actually excited about putting some scissors to this mane...My how things have changed!!!





That's all for now!!

March 13, 2012

2011 Book List

So, I have two blogs. One dedicated to books, musicals/plays and other artsy things I partake of and this one, dedicated primarily to my natural journey. Well, guess what, I have a hard enough time maintaining this blog on a regular basis so you can just imagine how neglected my other blog is. Therefore, I'm going to start putting everything here. Books, artsy, hair, food (although there hasn't been any food in a while), and anything else that tickles my fancy. The book blog existed first, but I'm doing more work here, so here is where it shall be.

Having said that, for the past 3 years I have had the goal of reading 36 books in 12 months. I haven't reached the goal yet, but I have been listing the books I read at the end of the year. Well, its March 2012, but here's the book list from 2011! I must say, I got stuck in a series and it truly shows. I spent a lot of time in the library and hardly any time on my own bookshelf. So, where I used to have 87 books on my shelf that I hadn't read, I think I may be down to 85..but I love the library. And due to a lot of holiday travel, a good number of these towards the end were books on CD.

1.) City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
2.) City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
3.) Flight of the Nighthawks by Raymond Feist
4.) City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
5.) Awakened by P.C. & Kristen Cast
6.) Sex in the Sanctuary by Lutishia Lovely
7.) Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
8.) Dark Prince by Christine Feehan
9.) Dark Desuire by Christine Feehan
10.) Dark Gold by Christine Feehan
11.) White Lines by Tracy Brown
12.) Dark Challenge by Christine Feehan
13.) Dark Guardian by Christine Feehan
14.) Dark Melody by Christine Feehan
15.) Dark Legend by Christine Feehan
16.) Dark Destiny by Christine Feehan
17.) Dark Possession by Christine Feehan
18.) Born of Shadows by Sherrilyn Kenyon
19.) Dark Curse by Christine Feehan
20.) Dark Magic by Christine Feehan
21.) Dark Fire by Christine Feehan
22.) Born of Shadows by Sherrilyn Kenyon
23.) Born of Ice by Sherrilyn Kenyon

I feel really bad posting this because none of my favorite authors on on this listing for 2011...but there's always 2012! After I finish the series I'm currently reading (which will hopefully be in a few days) I'm going to tackle my stacks of books.

That's all for now!

March 6, 2012

Read Those Labels

Ok folks, I went to the wonderful Sally’s to look for some new products to try and get some input from the clerks on duty.  Basically, to have a good time. As I’m perusing the aisles, I come across some products I hadn’t heard of before. So the first thing I did was read the labels. I mean, I spent like 30 minutes in the store reading labels. Even the clerk, who was natural, told me she doesn’t read labels when she tries new products, she just gets them & sees how they work.

Here’s my issue with that: 1. I don’t have the money to spend on products to “test & see” if they work. So that is not a fiscally sound spending plan. 2. My hair does not like alcohol. Where some people have found that their hair is sensitive to protein (I have no idea if mine is or not), I have found that if alcohol is listed in the first 3-4 ingredients, my hair is going to quickly get ugly with me.

So, as I’m reading labels I’m seeing that there are a LOT of products with a LOT of alcohol in them, number 1. And 2, there are quite a few products that have ingredients in them that make absolutely no sense to me. Case in point, I’m looking at the argon oil products because argon oil is this great new oil that does great things for your hair and I have none of it in my product shed. So, I pick up a can of mousse from an argon oil line (that shall remain nameless) and guess what!? Alcohol was not in the first 3 ingredients. The first 3 ingredients, I kid you not, were water (OK), propane (huh?) and butane (WTF?!)!! The basic make up of the mousse is water, “blow-you-up” and “set-you-on-fire.” Needless to say, I didn’t look at anything else from that line!

I say all this to say, there’s always a lot of hubbub about reading food labels and making sure that you steer clear of this, that & the other, but the same needs to be done with hair products. I mean, imagine having that mousse in your hair and sitting next to an open flame! Or what if you leave the container in the car and it gets hot in the summer! Bye-bye coche!  I also say this because I read through a lot of labels while standing in Sally’s, and I haven’t done that in a loooong time because I haven’t bought that many styling products since becoming natural, but a lot of the products I looked at with “natural” in the title, or “for women with natural hair” or some variation of the two phrases, were so far from being natural when you looked at the ingredients. I mean, I’m a pretty good reader, so one of my initial deciding factors in choosing products for the future was “as long as I can pronounce the ingredients at first glance, it’s a go.” Well, propane and butane are pretty common words, so maybe I need to be a little more discriminating in that and be more conscious of what the words I can read actually are. At present, I’m going to continue using what I have, because I bought them and there is no returning them, but for the future, I may be a lot more choosy in my hair product labels.

Just some food for thought.