Thinking about transitioning?

The weather is getting nicer, more ladies are wearing their hair out, and now you are starting to feel the itch to go "au naturale."

Last year IntelligentBeauty graced HBH with her knowledge and experience about transitioning and did a Transitioning 101 series that offered great tips and suggestions for transitioners.

Check out the links below to see the tips that she so generously provided:
Transitioning 101: Products
Transitioning 101: Regimens/Routines
Transitioning 101: Hairstyling Techniques

Transitioning 101 by IntelligentBeauty (Part 4)

HAIRSTYLING TECHNIQUES

YAYYY, finally the fun part!!!
This part is all about starting to do naturally curly styles. Never mind the flat irons and blow-dryers to try to blend the curly hair to the straight hair. Think opposite of this and try to blend the straight hair with curly hair. Make the straight hair curly. There are plenty of creative, protective styles for you to try to blend the 2 textures. You want low manipulation and protective styles to minimize breakage. Surf you tube, hit all the natural hair blogs, books and magazines. Check out transitioning and natural curlies journals on fotki (www.fotki.com/intelligentbeauty is mine;-).

Some of my favs were:
DOUBLE STRAND FLAT TWISTS
TWIST OUTS
ROLLER SETS
BUNNING
BRAIDS (no extensions)
BRAID OUTS
FRENCH ROLLS
BANTU KNOTS
BANTU KNOT OUTS………and there is so much more!!!!!

When styling, remember that certain gels are drying and should be avoided, use butters instead (shea or mango butter). Do not brush you hair. This will cause the hair to break at the line of demarcation. Try to use only your fingers or a wide toothed comb if you must and then a smaller comb of smaller sections. If you must brush your edges, use an old tooth brush, some butter and water, and a light hand. The use a scarf to hold the edges down in place for about 10-20 mins. Then you can have nice smooth edges.

Well this concludes my transition tricks and tips.
My final words to you are congratulations on your choice to go natural. Stay encouraged through your journey. Remember why you are doing this in the first place. There have been plenty of women before you that have been successful and you will be too!!! There is a lot of info out there on the web compared to years ago. Don't be afraid to ask questions on the blogs. Big chop only when YOU are ready!! Join a community of curlies on the forums and get support from them. Be patient with yourself and your hair. Be consistent with your regimen and products that work. Concentrate on your new head of curls, and not your neighbor's. Let your uniqueness and beauty shine through, like only you can do.

HAVE A TERRIFIC JOURNEY, DOLLS!!!!

Transitioning 101 by IntelligentBeauty (Part 3)

REGIMEN/ROUTINES

Toward the end of my transition journey, I had develop a way for me to stay organized on what I was doing and with my hair every week, from products I will use to styles I wanted to try. On a regular laid out calendar, I wrote down exactly when I would do my hair and with what products. It was a simple, clear approach to finding and maintaining a good regimen. Regimens can be very simple or quite complex with treatments and different types of rinses. However, for the sake of simplicity, I will write about a regimen that will, over time and with consistency, improve and maintain the health of your hair.

STEP 1---PRE POO- I don't think people would ordinarily recommend this in a simple routine. But I think it is an easy and fabulous way to boost moisture and softness to the hair. Prepooing simply means adding a natural oil of your choice to your entire hair from root to tip and leaving it on overnight or for several hours before rinsing out. Once I started this during my transition phase, my detangling sessions were cut shorter and that was definitely a plus!!!! You can use a little shampoo to rinse out or cowash with conditioner. (I like to cowash out). It is best to do some detangling with your finger hair as you smooth the oil into your hair.

STEP 2---COWASH- Wet the hair thoroughly, pour a dime size amount of conditioner (CO) in your hand and use the pads of your fingertips, apply to one spot of your scalp and massage well, just as you would with shampoo. Repeat until you have scrubbed all over. Rinse ALL the CO out with plenty of water, still gently massaging with the fingertips so the friction will dissolve any residue. Next, pour more CO (use another richer CO) in your hand, rub palms together and apply over the full length of the hair. Leave on for a little while and continue your shower. Then, detangle with fingers or a VERY wide toothed comb in sections, using clips to help separate the sections you have done. Finally, set the water to a cool temp comfortable to you and rinse your hair out and gently squeeze out excess water.

STEP 3--DRYING--Dry hair with a t-shirt or curly cloth. Also micro fiber cloths are good too. DO NOT USE A TOWEL, as using one will use cause frizz to occur.

STEP 4--LEAVE IN CONDITIONER--This is an important step as well. Leave in conditioners are lighter weight conditioners and adds moisture to the hair making it easier to manipulate into the style of your choosing.

STEP 5--OILS--This should be used on top of your leave in conditioner to add shine and reduce any frizz, once styling is complete. Again, these should be natural oils.

Here is another important tip; heavy-handedness with product is usually a problem when first starting out. It is important to curb that tendency to use a lot of a product to see results. The only step where heavy handedness is welcomed is in the prepoo step, to apply the oil to the entire head. Other than that, using more product than normal will cause more harm than good to your end result hairstyle. Also being rough with your hair in the wash and detangle phase can cause unwanted breakage and holes in the hair strand. So be gentle, take your time, and remember the line of demarcation is very delicate.

Transitioning 101 by IntelligentBeauty (Part 2)

PRODUCTS

When talking about products to use during the transition it is important to note that what you used for your relaxed hair, very often, will not work as you transition into naturally curly hair. The reason is there are many ingredients in relaxed hair products that do not agree with our natural curly hair. Many of those products are loaded with synthetic ingredients that give smoothness, shine and make the hair

look moisturized. But they also tend to block out moisture, build up on hair strands, and disguise the healthy of the hair. Naturally curly hair thrives on moisture, but water is not enough. There needs to be quality natural ingredients in the products you purchase. Avoid products with mineral oil or petrolatum oil (petroleum) in them because these are synthetic oils that coat and suffocate the hair shaft, blocking moisture and drying out the hair. If applied directly to the scalp, these ingredients can actually retard growth.

Silicones are also another synthetic ingredient to avoid, especially in transition. Silicone ingredients are usually used to give smoothness to the hair. However silicones also tend to disguise the health of the hair, making the hair appear healthy, shiny, and moisturized therefore creating a dependency on them. Ingredients like these tend to cause build up on the hair as well, therefore causing you to use sulfate shampoos. Sulfate containing shampoos are not a good option to clean hair because it is a harsh chemical that tends to strip the hair of all moisture as it cleans. Also with prolonged use can ultimately make the hair dry, frizzy and cause breakage. The concept here is if you use harmful synthetic ingredients in your conditioning products weekly, or even daily, on you hair, then you must use the harmful sulfate containing shampoos to remove the build up. However, if you use natural conditioners (oils, butters, creams, milks) on your hair, then you can use other harmless methods to clean your hair, such as baking soda, acv rinses, and cowashing.

Cowashing is using conditioners as another method of cleaning the hair; I will talk about this further later. Conditioners do have mild surfactants (soap) that, along with the rubbing action of your hands on the scalp, can clean the scalp and hair very well. It can be done as often as you like and it boosts your hair's moisture level. Moisture is so important because when you hair is moisturized, it will not frizzy, dry, and becomes extremely soft, great sheen, and is manageable. Also you would not have to be dependent on bad ingredient products to give you these results. Side note: healthy natural hair has sheen, not so much a shine. However the shine can be accomplished by adding natural oils like jojoba oil, extra virgin coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, sweet almond oil, etc.

So how should we be using these natural quality products? What should our regimen be?



IntelligentBeauty will address those questions in Part 3 of Transitioning 101

Transitioning 101 by IntelligentBeauty

As a newly natural (last relaxer March 17th, 2009), having transitioned for 1 yr prior to my BC. I have experienced the trials and triumphs of transitioning. I was asked to share with you some of my tips and tricks on surviving through the transitioning phase to help ease your journey to embracing and unlocking the beautiful curls hidden under the "creamy crack (aka perms/relaxers/texturizers)." Through a dear friend, that was also natural, as my only support in the beginning and my determination to become a naturalista, I began to explore this new subject matter of natural curly hair. It is really important to think about the reasons you want to go natural. These same reasons will help you in the difficult times when you may want to reach for that box of relaxer.

There are 2 ways to become completely natural. Big Chop (BC) right away at the length of your naturally curly hair or transition and gradually cut the relaxed ends off.>My decision, to transition instead of BC right away, came from taking a simple 4 question transitional quiz that helped me take a realistic approach of how to start my journey as a nautralista.

Here is the link:

http://www.nappturality.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=67

There is short term and long term transitioning. The success of long term transitioning (greater than 3 months) depends on how resilient your hair strands are. It is possible to minimize damage with the use of correct products and techniques.

In my opinion, I find the transitioning phase to be the most difficult phase in the natural journey, because it's the beginning. During this phase, you are experimenting with 2 different textures of your hair, with products, treatments, and hairstyle techniques to see what works for you. Trying to get to know your hair, it's likes and dislikes, as well as trying to make both textures blend well. However, you are also experiencing a myriad of emotions, fear to frustration, excitement to elation. You may struggle with long held beliefs about your hair and beauty. You may even have family, friends, and coworkers chiming in positively or negatively about YOUR decision. As your hair begins to grow and change, your way of thinking will (and must) change as well. The transitioning phase is more a transitioning of the way you think and view your own beauty than a manipulation of the hair, as we will soon explore. There will be a point during your transition that you feel a sense a freedom, things will make sense and follow easier for you, that came during my 4th or 5th month. Then during my 8th and 9th month, I would start staring at the scissors to cut those relaxed ends off...….lol. But it is very important to BC when you are ready. And I really wasn't mentally ready so I continued for a few more months.

Also let me point out that there are several ways to transition. I transitioned without heat (air dried), salon help or added hair. However, one can transition with braids, wigs, weaves, or with salon help. It is just important to keep in mind to treat your new growth well and keep it healthy whatever method you use.

Six Weeks Post Relaxer

Before we dive in this business of transitioning in more detail. I would like to share with you some very helpful tips.

--First, please erase everything from your mind that you have ever learned about treating chemically processed hair. Caring for naturally curly hair is a totally different approach, as you will soon see. Everything from the way you use a comb and brush, shampooing, styling, and products must be erased.

--Second, get hold of a good camera and a journey notebook (or join fotki). This is important in keeping clear and accurate accounts of the products, hairstyles, techniques and treatments that work and doesn't work for your hair. The camera is for you to see your progress and growth over time. Hopefully, you will only go through this once in your life. So keeping a pictorial journal is a treasure. (www.fotki.com/intelligentbeauty is where you will find my pictorial journey)

--Third, you must NOT judge your natural hair as it begins to grow. Resist the urge to classify it into a curl category, or type it as a specific curl pattern or texture. Naturally curly hair is unique and varies from person to person. You will not be able to get a true typing on your hair until you cut it off, because sometimes it can look totally different once the relaxed ends are off. So just leave it alone and let it grow!!! Concentrate on hair health and hair response to what you are doing to it. The hair that is growing out of your scalp is what God gave you. So concentrate on your hair, and not your neighbors!!

--Lastly, HAVE PATIENCE AND BE CONSISTENT. If you are able to endure this transition process, you will be so happy to have a full healthy head of curls. So you read in the link above, all hair grows so we must be patient with this transition process. The consistency in regimens (like deep conditioning (DC) weekly) and sticking with products that work are important as well. Product junkism(Pjism), hopping from product to product line looking for a miracle product, is wasteful and can potentially cause more harm than good.

Ok, so let's begin with natural hair 101. The basic knowledge of hair, then more specifically curly hair. This is where I began in my journey to get a clear understanding of the cycle that ALL types of hair goes through.

Here is the link: http://www.pgbeautygroomingscience.com/the-hair-growth-cycle.html/

Now, more specifically curly hair during transitioning. As your hair grows out you may see a clear difference (depending on how loose your natural curl pattern is) between your natural hair and your relaxed hair. This is called the LINE OF DEMARCATION. This is important because this is the weakest part of the hair strand and will break easily if not handled carefully. You must handle your hair like silk.

The use of heat in transitioning should be to cut to a minimum if a must. Heat could potentially damage new growth. And this damage, like a relaxer, is permanent. You would have to cut it off again. So be very careful with your blow dryers and fat irons. At this point you should be focusing more on curly styles: roller sets, 2 strand twist and twist outs, etc. We will get into those later.

Next time, we will discuss products/ingredients, regimens and styling techniques

Q&A: Transitioning

I get a lot of transitioning questions and I am not afraid to admit that I am clueless. So I have requested the assistance from the person I have learned the most from when it comes to transitioning. Stay tuned for what she has to say!

My Christmas Gift

For some of friends that have gone natural the one thing that has been constant is "I don't know what to do with my hair." Well, I never transitioned so I was almost clueless on suggestions and not always available when someone needed help. In an attempt to make this process a little easier for them, I created hair journals. I only provided very basic information, no product referrals, and no "you must do this" instructions. Instead, I created a space and provide background information that allows them to track their process and determine with products they want to try.

It's about 20 pages long and provides tables and charts to serve as guides throughout the journey. Compiling this information took a lot of research but it's the most meaningful gift that I have ever given...so it was worth it.