Spotted: Natural Haired Model in Complete Fashion Mag

For those in Lagos Nigeria, this month's edition of Complete Fashion features a natural haired model. She has a TWA and looks great in the shots and in the free fashion spread insert that comes with the mag. Thumbs up to them for using a natural haired model. We want to see more models with natural hair in magazines and on the runways please!

Keep it natural!

Omozo

Random - "Corporate" Socks

Friday is always a fun day at work. Is it like that at your office too? And some of the guy's wear "interesting" socks. I just had to share. Enjoy.

Can you remember this guy on Muppet Show?

For all the squares out there!

Keep it natural (and fun)!

Omozo

Zina Saro-Wiwa's Op-Doc on Transitioning

Many thanks to "Baby R" for sharing this video. I enjoyed this video and smiled through it. Hope you will too!

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/05/31/opinion/100000001579773/transition.html

Keep it natural!

Omozo

Stretching hair - Bantu Knot Technique

We spoke about the fact that natural hair shrinks (see post here) and mentioned some methods of stretching natural hair so that more of the true length can be seen (see stretching post here). We have talked about using thread to stretch your hair (see post here). Today we will talk about using Bantu knots as a stretching method.

Bantu knots are called various things. I have heard them called china bumps, periwinkle and robo-robo. What else have you heard them being called? Bantu knots can be used as a hairstyle too but today, it is about using them to stretch your natural hair. I think you get the best results when you put in the bantu knots when hair is damp or wet. Of course you can then style as you want after you take out the bantu knots.

The video below shows you how to do bantu knots on your hair. Start at 1:57 minutes to see her doing bantu knots.

Here are pictures of my hair with bantu knots and after I took them out.





Bantu knots in






Bantu knots out. I picked out the hair some more and rocked it for the day



So try this out and let us know how effective bantu knots worked for you for stretching your hair.

Keep it natural,

Omozo

Hair Nets and Satin Scarves

For as long as I can remember I have used a hair net to cover my hair at night to sleep. If you are not a Nigerian but watch Nigerian movies you may have noticed the women wearing a brown or black or brown and black "netty" type of thing in the night or early morning. That's the hair net! I have seen red, blue and green coloured hair nets. I have seen big, small and thin ones too. I saw a girl wearing a blue hair net and I thought it was a beenie. I wonder: is the hair net common to Nigerians only?

My now retired hair net. Only brought out for pictures

When I went natural I kept using the hair net to cover my hair while sleeping on a satin pillowcase. The satin pillowcase is to help minimize the drying out of the hair. For some reason, I never migrated to satin scarves. I figured that one satin thing is enough to reduce the drying out of my hair. Over and over again the hair net would loose elasticity and I would buy a new one.

A few weeks ago, my younger sister gave me a satin scarf and I started to use it instead of the hair net. My hair net was getting slack anyway so no loss there. And I noticed one thing almost immediately. I noticed the reduction of frizz in/on my hair. Usually, my twists would last 2 or 3 days before the frizz starts to come out of hiding. With the satin scarf, I noticed frizz showing up after almost 7 days! *dancing azonto*

My satin scarf: my new best thing

To test if it was not just my imagination (running away with me) I tried the satin scarf on my twist out. *more azonto dancing* My twist out stayed for 5 days with the satin scarf while with the hair net I could not keep a twist out past day two. Can you tell I am loving the satin scarf!

Day 3 of my twist-out. Better definition than before and look little or no frizz!

If you are reading this and thinking "Duh!" please indulge me. I am sometimes a slow adapter.

Keep it natural!

Omozo