My Bantu Knot Out

If there is one style I hear that naturals can't get right it's the bantu knot out. Admittedly I've never had a problem with it. It was my go-to style when I was transitioning, because I could never get a twist out or braid out to look right.

I stopped doing bantu knot outs when I became natural for one reason: My hair was too thick. The secret to have a great bantu knot out (IMO) is that your hair has to be 90%-100% dry when you take it out. I find myself getting away with letting twist outs and braid outs being wet when I take them down. But not the bantu knot, for some reason it won't curl properly when it's not dry.

Now you can say a solution to this dilemma is, "Do your hair when it's dry." Eh...another thick hair girl problem, I personally cannot style my hair when it's dry, it's just not a pretty sight. All my styling is done on wet hair. It's easier to detangle and manipulate my hair into a style when it's wet plus it cuts down on breakage drastically. I will continue to always style my hair after a wash.

So recently (9 months ago. Lol) I decided to do my first bantu knot out in years. But I wanted to try something different. Instead of twirling my hair and making the knot, I decided to twist my hair and make it into a knot. This video is what I followed when doing my bantu knot out, keep in mind I did mine on wet hair.

Here's how it went--

Here are the knots, these took me about an hour to do.

A few shots of me "vouging" it up. Note: I kept the knots in for a day, because I do not own a hair dryer and I wanted to make sure they were completely dry when I took them down. 

Annnddd here are the results. 

I really loved this hair style, it gave me a 1930's Claudette Colbert look. 

I was flicking it up while sitting in a Chinese restaurant. Lol. But I didn't care, my hair looked great. 

Products: The products I remember using for this hairstyle was Coconut Oil, Cantu Leave-in Conditioner and  Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie.

How Long did It Last: This hairstyle lasted me a good two weeks, my hair tends to hold styles very well. 

Will I do the again: Eh...Maybe, maybe not. This style was done last October and I haven't done it since then. I love the results but it's a bit too time consuming for me. 

Well that does it for this blog post. Thanks for reading! -Krystal 

Yes, It's Her Real Hair: Sasha Tania

I've always said I wanted to do features with my blog and look, now I have my first feature! I would like everyone to meet Sasha, a native of New York and now a resident of Florida. Ever since I met Sasha I've loved her hair and I'm so glad she agreed to be featured on my blog. Thank you! 

And now everyone I would like you to meet our Friday Feature: Sasha Tania 

1. Introduce yourself!I am Sasha Tania, a 22-year-old aspiring model and natural hair blogger. I am a recent graduate of Florida A&M University. My parents are from Jamaica and England but I was born in New York, and raised in Florida. I am the youngest of four children.

2. How long have you been natural?

I have been natural for three years, it will be four in August!

3. What are your favorite products?

Right now, I cannot live without Carol's Daughter Black Vanilla Shampoo and Conditioner. My Favorite styling products are Camille Rose Naturals Curl Love Moisture Milk, and their Aloe Whipped Butter Gel.

4. What are your go-to styles?

I try and do protective styles as much as I can. My favorite protective style are two strand twist, its so convenient and when I get tired of wearing twist I take them out and wear my curls.

5. What are styles that you can't seem to get right?

Anything involving hairpins! My hair pushing them right back out no matter how big the pins are. I swear I have use at least ten pins per section.

6. What's the funniest encounter you've ever had with someone, involving your hair?

When someone randomly touches, or sniffs my hair. I think its so strange, it happens a lot. Its like they're checking to see if its real or not.

You can find more of Sasha and her gorgeous curls at

 

Youtube- www.youtube.com/ssblissfulbeauty

Facebook-www.facebook.com/sashasnaturalhair

Blog- www.sashasnaturalhair.blogspot.com

Instagram- @Sashatania

Straightening My Natural Hair: Q&A

Since I've been natural I've gotten my hair straightened a total of 3 times. It's not that I don't like the results or a natural hair Nazi against straightening (I actually like my hair straight. Yes, I said it. Lol)But I dislike how long a typical straightening of mine last (which is about a week, depending on the humidity), how long it takes to straighten it (which is over an hour) and the fact I can't style straight hair to save my life (which is reason why I went natural.) Well despite these three major issues I loved the few times I've had my hair straightened and enjoy those couple of weeks to the fullest. Now the above picture went viral on Facebook a couple of months ago and quite a few women asked questions so I'll take this time out to answer the Top 7 questions that are usually asked when I have straight hair.

 

1. What do you do? Well I do not straighten it myself, that's a no-no. I prefer to let a professional handle my hair so I can get the best results. There's no way I can get my hair to look like that. I suggest that naturals go to a salon to get their hair straighten, if they're not sure how to get the results they want to achieve.

 

2. What salon do you go too? I am a student at FAMU so I go to the salon on campus. It's called the Rattler's Edge. If you are in the Tallahassee, FL area you can pay them a visit. I've never had a bad experience with them.

 

3. What type of flat iron was used? A Chi. Sorry I don't know the brand.

 

4. How long have you been natural? My last relaxer was February 2011, I big chopped September 2011. So transitioned about seven months and I've been natural for two years.

 

5. How often do you trim? Not like I should. Lol. Since I've been natural I've trimmed my hair a total of three times and that was whenever I got it straightened. I DO NOT recommend that, because I usually have an inch of hair taken off.

 

6. What's your hair type? I honestly don't know. If I had to guess I'll say majority 4B. My hair is the front is of a looser curl pattern but yet it's still pretty coarse.

 

7. How do you make your hair grow? I really have no answer to this. I can tell you I do not take any supplements, vitamins included. My diet is OK, I eat sweets way too much. Lol. For the first couple of years I was natural I didn't wear my hair out. It was usually in twists, nowadays I wear my hair out more.

This is a photo from my third straightening. Which was April 2014.

Side view of my results.

Front View of my results.

 

Sunday Funday!

Let me get this out, I am horrible at taking "staged" pictures. I feel like my poses look too "posed" and I look downright goofy. Hopefully as I progress with this blog my poses look better. But as of right now let me revisit my weekend through these few pictures. 

I had such a great day Sunday, it was a day filled with church, food, fun and friends. What better way to start your week?

So about my hair in this post, ehh this is how my hair looks when I do nothing to it. I recently took out a sew-in a couple of days ago. I decided when I took out my corn rows I liked the curl pattern so I let my hair stay in the "after sew-in" phase. Honestly, while it may look nice that's probably not the best thing to do with my hair. Especially when you consider I may have a lot of shedding hair piling up. We shall see how much shedding I have when I wash my hair. I believe that'll make for an interesting post. Lol

                                                                          Close up

I love my stance

Hello!

Wanted to get a little hair twirl action. Lol

Thanks for reading! -Krystal 

Hair Inspiration Sunday!

Haven't done this in a minute but I look forward to expanding this feature with my blog in the next couple of months. But in the meantime let's admire someone who've I've looked up too for a VERY long time. Ms. Erykah Badu!

While I won't speak for ALL naturals, I can say I speak for most naturals when Erykah Badu is a hair inspiration. One of the things that I love most about Ms. Badu's hair is her ability to transform her look, she doesn't stick with a Big Fro all the time, sometimes she's rocking a short fro, maybe some braids and heck for the next couple of months it's a turban. EB shows us that it's okay to change up your look and okay to be natural, even if your hair isn't super long. This is why I choose Erykah as my inspiration on this lovely Sunday. Shine on Ms. Badu, shine on.

I searched high and low for this magazine cover. I was so glad when I finally laid my hands on it. Lol 

Blond fro with the hat. Love it. 

 Buns are a staple in the natural hair world. Badu gets it right. 

The fact that she's not afraid to experiment and chop her hair off is admiral. 

Making the Best out of a Fail: Flat Twist Edition

Don't you just hate when a hairstyle you had so much hope for turns out to be complete utter crap? Well that happens to me ALL the time. Since most blogs and vlogs only document the triumphs of hairstyles I feel that it's only right that I expose fails. Lol. Because we know it's not realistic to have a winning hairstyle all the time. SO let's hop to it.

Pinterest is my go to when I need hair inspiration, it's a really great tool to get ideas. View my board while you're at it http://www.pinterest.com/krystalnometh/natural-hair-inspirations/ (Not-so-shameless plug) Lol. So one hairstyle I see ALL the time on Pinterest is this one

A flat twist out done by the beautiful Ms.Rokia, follow her on IG @MsRokia.But yes I see this hair style ALL the time so I was like, "Gee Krystal, I bet you can get your hair to turn out like that. Now keep in mind I haven't done flat twist since I was transitioning so I knew I was up for the challenge.

Now unfortunately I don't have any picture of my hair while or after I washed it, only the results. I'll be sure to document it better next time.

Here are all the products I used on my hair. To set my hair I used the Blue Magic Organic Castor Oil. Yes, technically it is grease, however it leaves my hair feeling amazing and it defines pretty well. I see a review on that in the future. 

It took me darn near an hour to set my hair. I was too excited when it was over. Oh, hey Audrey! Lol

Side View.

Back View. 

 Annddd these were the results. Smh 

I tried to smile about it. 

 The side view is what killed it for me. It was as "together" as I would have liked it to be. 

Yeah...I'm pretty much over it right now. NEXT!

 Headband+Puff Combo to the rescue. Lol

 I was still pretty upset. I put in all that hard work just to wear a dang puff. Smh 

But by the second day I embraced it. :) 

Yeah so that's my hairstyle fail for you. It's pretty upsetting when a hairstyle doesn't turn out the way you want it to but sometimes you just got to learn how to finesse it and move on. 

This was tried on my hair last year around February. I know by now my hair has gotten longer and I probably can nail the hairstyle next time. So fingers crossed that I will get closer to it becoming a duplicate next time. 

Until next time! 

-Krystal  

I'm baacccckkkk!

Ugh the process of keeping up a blog is hard. Especially if you lack motivation. Well over the past few months, and well even the past year I've gotten so many compliments on my blog. Also the views don't lie either. Lol. I'd like to thank everyone who has viewed and found advice on this blog to be more than helpful to you and your hair journey.
In the next few months I'd like to see myself expand from just hair talk to: beauty talk , food talk, fashion and fitness talk. But we shall see how that goes. As of right now I'm just happy to be back and better than ever! Thanks for the support guys. And now...time for a fro shot. Lol

-Krystal