My Hands Down Current Favorite Product

I have fallen in love all over again with kinky curly. I love their knot today in conjunction with the curling custard. It's awesome for my wash and gos and it's been very very good to me. I rediscovered it on my trip to Africa as that's all I used because I wanted to be really low key with hair care. 

I need to remember to take pictures of the results and my write a post on my updated regimen with something other than my iPhone to show y'all what I'm talking about over here. 

Stay tuned...

ChiChi. 

Hair Color Fail - Part 2 (The Redemption)

In the Sun

This is the second and final part of my hair color fail chronicles and I'm going to talk about how I tried to salvage it. See first part here.

So after the 5 or 6 hours I spent at the salon, I came home and started googling like a mad woman. My searches went something like: "how to cancel out orange hair color", "hair color gone bad and turned orange how do you fix it", "my hair is orange how do I fix it" etc. I'm a horrible googler but I was fortunate in that this is a common occurrence when the wrong based toner is used or when bleach is not left on long enough. The most common response I got was to use hair toner with a blue base or but "ash brown" box color to go over the orange and that should greatly reduce or cancel out the orange tone.

Armed with this info and a desperation (as I had bible studies the next day and didn't want to look retarded), I went to my local CVS to buy the ash brown hair color. I debated getting a semi-permanent color or a rinse to go over it but I nixed that idea because I didn't want the color fading over a few washes only to be back to square one. So I went with a permanent color which I was fully cognizant meant more damage to my already fragile strands. But you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. And so I did and while I can't say I'm 100% pleased with the results, it is a marked improvement to the alternative.

I actually went ahead and made an appointment with a trusted stylist (which I should have had the patience to wait for anyways) and we're going to see about getting some highlights in the crown and front area to brighten up the tone and hopefully leaving me very pleased.

I took some pictures and recorded a video of what it looks like today after I did my usual wash and go. Enjoy!

Indoors (that's supposed to be my husbands caricature. So not an accurate description)

In the sun

XOXO,
ChiChi.

CurlBox Review - Coming Soon

I've been subscribed to CurlBox for the past 6 months and I knew the day would come when I would like to do a review. This here is that day. But since there are a lot of products in each box, one post will not be enough to review everything so I think I'm either going to break it down by boxes or by individual products or a combination of both. I'm not sure yet.

As you can imagine if you've been reading my blog for a little bit, it'll be from the viewpoint of a naturalista who has thin and low-porosity hair.

So this post is to say stay tuned for CurlBox product reviews to come!

XOXO,

ChiChi. 

Hiring an Online Fitness Coach

 February 2013 and as you can tell, I'm sucking in in the second picture

As I said in my It's been Long post, I hired an online fitness coach to help me be in the best possible shape of my life. I'm so excited because today marks the first day of my 12 week program. I'm certainly not a novice when it comes to working out and what a good diet consists of. I've  lost 15lbs in the past and kept it off for more than 2 years, I'm extremely well read on the subject and have a critical thinking ability to distinguish truth from myth.

Having said all that, I knew I needed the accountability paying someone else gives you. I'm not one to waste money so when I pay for something, you bet your sweet behind that I'm going to stick to it and get the best bang for my buck. 

So I took the plunge and paid a bunch of money to someone who knows their stuff and does this for a living! And I'm glad I did because I can already tell a marked shift in my mentality. 

Jan vs. March 2013

So I have a solid workout program and an individualized nutrition plan that I'm ready and willing to commit to for at least 12 weeks. I'll keep y'all updated on my results. 

Be excited for me cuz I certainly am!!

XOXO,

ChiChi. 

Hair Color Fail - part 1

You know how you get an itch and you just have to go through with whatever it is? Well I had this "itch" to color my hair a couple of weeks ago. So what do I do? I walk in to a random salon that said "walk-ins welcome". Well they said I was welcome no?

Oh my gah!! I should have known better when she said she's never dealt with my "hair type". I really should have known better but I thought color has nothing to do with texture so as long as she can color as she says she can, I'll go ahead and have her blow my hair out to eliminate the texture factor. 

I think it would have worked out except for the itty bitty fact that she knew zero, zilch, nada, nothing about hair coloring concepts and techniques. 

I (kinda) blog about hair so it wasn't too hard to find a picture to show her that I wanted my hair exactly like it was before I dyed it black a few months prior. In fact, I found a thousand and one pictures and walked her through how I just want the top bits colored and how I want three different shades to create the highlights/lowlights combo I had prior.

Like So

and so

She said affirmative, I KNOW what you want and I say, let's get on with it. Can I just say...... Well I won't say, I'll show you (pardon the picture quality as this was gotten with my front facing camera at the salon)

Exhibit A: after color application, wash and conditioner. I dunno what happened but my hair looked so freaking dull. I think she didn't use the right developer? So the color didn't show up. But she said she can fix it so I say maybe all is not lost.  

Exhibit B: lady woman here decides that bleaching will solve things. 

Exhibit C: she bleaches it a second time to get it to the right "tone"

Exhibit D: she puts a toner over it which is supposed to give me a coppery red color because at this point I had given up on my highlighting dreams and a coppery red color was something I could live with. 

Exhibit E: she puts an orange based toner over the bleached hair. And from my google search, this was the worst thing you could do if you don't want to end up with orange hair. You need a toner with a blue base to cancel out the orange. But of course my illustrious colorist had no clue. 

Okay this is a really long post but I think it mimics exactly how long I was there at that salon. A whopping 5 hours!!!!

In conclusion, I left 5 hours later with orange hair. That.i.paid.for. Because I felt bad for her!!

Stay tuned for part two on how I used my googling powers to figure out a solution to this monstrosity. 

XOXO, 

ChiChi.