Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Beauty Tip Series: Curly Hair Perfection

When I was a kid I had stick straight hair. Gradually as I've gotten older my hair has become more wavy. Which is actually the best of both worlds. Having wavy hair makes it easy for me to go straight or curly depending on my mood.

For years my curly hair success days had been a bit hit-or-miss. The good days my hair looked evenly curled and not too frizzy. On bad days my hair would be flat on top and have loose, frizzy looking waves. No big deal... a messy bun always fixed that. But, I wanted a more reliable way to get beautiful, soft, defined curls every time. Lucky for me I stumbled across the Curly Girl method and I can't believe the difference a couple of tweaks in my hair routine have made in the outcome of my curls. Now, some of these processes are more crucial than others. Some are a bonus if you can work them in. I'll let you know the importance of each as I walk you through the process. And of course feel free to check out the Naturally Curly website for more info on your specific hair type. I'm just going to generalize the process and tell you what works well for me.

Before: Frizzy and flat
AFTER! Curly & defined!

Before you step in the shower to wash your hair, make sure you have the following at the ready (in addition to your shampoo & conditioner):

  1. Wide Tooth Comb (essential)
  2. Product for your curls (essential)
  3. Microfiber towel (bonus)

After cleansing your hair, apply conditioner and comb it through to evenly distribute and detangle hair. This will be the only time you comb your hair as anything after this will make your hair frizzy. Rinse out the conditioner and grab your hair product. I really like Suave Professionals Captivating Curls Whipped Cream Mousse because it creates nice curls without being crunchy. Plus it's cheap & easy to find.
Readily available and only about $2
With your hair soaking wet, flip your hair upside-down and squeeze out the excess water. Shake your hair at the roots with your fingers to separate the curls naturally. Using a generous amount of product (I use a palm-ful of mousse), emulsify it between your palms and lift your hair up to your scalp and then scrunch. Repeat over all the hair.

With your hair still flipped over, use a microfiber towel (microfiber doesn't cause hair to frizz as much as regular towels but I haven't seen a huge difference here) to lift hair up to the scalp and scrunch. Repeat to remove excess water from hair. Do not wrap your hair in the towel or rub the towel over your hair. Only use it to lift the hair up to your scalp and scrunch. This is a key technique.

At this point your can flip your hair back over but don't touch it. You're technically supposed to let your hair air dry at this point but my hair doesn't turn out very well this way. I typically let mine air dry a bit then finish it off with a diffuser. If you want to use a diffuser, carefully pile curls onto the diffuser head, put it up to your scalp, and allow it to sit there and dry on low-- moving the hair dryer to different sections until it's dry (or nearly dry). Try to move/touch hair as little as possible because the more you touch it, the more frizz it creates.

That's basically it. I've found that adding product to super wet hair and using the scrunching technique have had the most influence on how my curls turn out. I went from fuzzy-ish waves to more defined corkscrew type curls by following this method. What do you think? Try it out for yourself and let me know!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Beauty Tip Series: Cowashing

I’ve been meaning to do another “I Can Vouch for That” post of my favorite products, but lately I’ve found more processes I like than actual products. More specifically, beauty processes. After a lot of experimentation I’ve found a couple things that really work well for me so I thought I’d pass them along in a series of posts.

Twice now I’ve tried going “no poo” or shampooless. It typically involves washing your hair with baking soda and conditioning with a diluted apple cider vinegar rinse. I tried all the combinations of ratios and just never liked the results of this. Plus I just didn’t like the process. It was a pain and didn’t have a very satisfying feel to it like using shampoo. And truth be told, I don’t think my hair is that horrible to begin with so switching to something so drastic just didn’t seem to be that beneficial. It’s not like I’m spending hundreds of dollars on shampoo and conditioner every month.

What I have tried with success is “co-washing” or washing with conditioner. I know. I’ll be the first one to admit I was skeptical of this because I have oily hair and have to wash it every day. I can get away with using a dry shampoo on off days if I pull my hair up but it never looks too good. Basically the purpose of cowashing is to keep more of the natural oils in your hair. This is especially good if you’ve got dry hair or process it a lot.

The process basically involves using a silicone (and other “cones”) free conditioner as shampoo. There are small amounts of cleansing agents in conditioner and it turns out it’s plenty to get all the oils & dirt out of your hair. The good news with this method is one of the best conditioners to use is Suave Naturals… the conditioner that costs like $1 per bottle.


To wash your hair with conditioner, just get your hair wet and using several palm-fuls of conditioner (you can’t use too much), work it into your scalp and the length of your hair. Massage your scalp really well to get all the dirt loosened up (like you normally do with shampoo). At this point use a wide toothed comb to detangle your hair and evenly distribute the conditioner (this is a critical step if you have curly hair… I’ll cover this in my next post). Then rinse really well with warm water. Sometimes I’ll add a higher quality conditioner to the ends of my hair and rinse again (with cooler water), but it’s not really necessary.


So that’s it! I still use a regular shampoo about once a week for my problem scalp, but for most people that wouldn’t really be necessary. I’m really liking my new cowashing process and think I’ll keep it around for a while. If any of you have tried this I’d like to hear your experience and/or tips as well!

Monday, April 14, 2014

Letters to Sylvie: 21 Months

Dear Sylvie,

I can't believe two more months have gone by. Soon enough you'll be TWO!

I always marvel at the things you pick up on your own. You'll start to do one thing or another and I'll wonder where you came up with it. You've become more amenable to sitting down to watch a movie and depending on your mood you'll usually watch for 30 minutes or so. We've been starting in on the Disney movies which you seem to really like. One evening we made some popcorn and gathered on the couch to watch Cinderella. You sat there on the couch with Daddy and me and watched the movie while blindly reaching for  popcorn in the bowl. It was like you'd done it a million times! So funny.

Having fun in the photo booth. The dynamics in the last pic kill me. 

At the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum... You loved it!

Your first ice cream cone (which was promptly devoured)
We recently put in a big sandbox for you and you love to sit out there and play with your buckets and shovels. The other day I was playing with you and made a sand castle out of one of your molds. When I lifted the mold off to reveal the sand castle underneath, your eyes went huge with amazement and awe at this "magic" I'd just performed.

Playing in your sandbox
A couple months ago on a rainy day I gave you some dry beans to play with. Since then you play with them almost every day and enjoy putting them in your pots and pans. You pretend to feed them to the kitty or your teddy bear or Mom and Daddy. We give you different reactions each time you feed them to us, one of which is telling you the beans need more salt. You've started to mime adding salt to the beans and it's the cutest thing ever. You also pretend to eat things as well. Which doesn't work out so well when I want you to actually taste your food, not pretend to taste it!


You're getting big enough now that you can play on playgrounds and walk a bit during our walks. Whenever we walk on a path you constantly stop to investigate rocks and sticks (both of which you'll hand to Mommy or Daddy to carry). You do your penguin walk or your little shuffley walk or run as fast as you can. You can actually walk pretty far now without getting tired. When we go to the playground you mainly like the slides. It usually takes you a little while to go up and down the stairs though because you have to brush off all the wood chips or rocks you find there before moving up to the next step. You're not quite big enough to go down the slides yourself so you sit on my lap or I hold your hands. You always get so excited when you see the playground and I think you get a little frustrated when you see bigger kids running around and climbing things that you can't. All in due time.

Playing with giant abacus at the park.

You are getting to be quite the good little helper. You help put away your clothes into their drawers when I do the laundry and you empty your forks and spoons out of the dishwasher and put them in their spot in the drawer when Daddy does the dishes. When he empties the garbage cans you'll go put the bathroom trash can back in its place. You're pretty consistent at putting things away when we ask you to, or fetching one object or another if we need it.

First trip to the zoo. You loved this little otter as well as the giraffes.

Showing off your little top-notches.
You're still not talking too much (at least that we can understand), but you are picking up a few words here and there. You say Mama and Dada (though Mama isn't necessarily directed at me), up and down, this, and right there. You have a lot more signs and actions you make. You will do a fish gulping noise when you see or hear mention of a fish, you'll flap your arms like a chicken, make the little chick "cheap" movement with your hands, point to your ear when you hear a loud noise like an airplane or truck (I've never realized how many planes fly over our house), and raise your hands above your head for something big. You did this when you saw the giraffe at the zoo. You definitely have a way of getting your point across.

You love to smell the flowers in the yard.

 Grandma Denise sharing her potato chips with you at the weenie roast. She knows how to win you over!

Sylvie I am just amazed everyday at what a good little girl you are. You're so smart and sweet and happy, and it's unbelievably fun to watch you grow and learn. You are a bright light in our lives and we're so happy to have you.

Love, Mommy