Reacting to my favourite tweets of the week 2

Welcome back to my blog.It’s another end of the week and another set of tweets to react to.How’s your weekend going? Or how was your weekend? Depending on when you read this. I had menstrual cramps all throughout today and I hate it here.Anyway, let’s dive right into it.

Tweet 1

I’ve always said I’m not a hard girl. And don’t refer to me as a strong woman please. I crave softness and ease in every aspect of my life.

Tweet 2

Period. And the Holy Spirit too.

Tweet 3

I like gist and I don’t want the half chop. I want the complete version please. Since you want to call the public into your drama you may as well do it well.

Tweet 4

They’re literally shouting my name. I feel like my whole life is brand new. And it makes me love cleaning, rearranging and decluttering my space.

Tweet 5

Yup! This has to be said. Don’t go ahead giving unsolicited advice. They already know and don’t need you to point it out. Like she said, nobody owes you clear skin. And mind the business that pays you.

Tweet 6

Yup! Now the rest of you mortals should bow to your queen😂😂

Hope you enjoyed this post! Which tweet was your favourite?Don’t forget to like, comment and follow me😊

My Hair Goals For 2022

Welcome back to my blog.

Happy new month!

Who is still setting goals for the year at this time of the year? This girl is. Last year I ran on vibes and my hair went through a lot. From a bad salon experience to stress from my exams, it was just a whole lot and by the time the year ended my hair was a tangled dry mess with lots of rough ends so I said this year I’m going to grow out my hair intentionally.

This year I plan to be very minimalistic with my hair and avoid a lot of manipulation and the plan was to have my hair in faux locs and braids but after taking down the locs I did in January I still have my hair in the twists I did for the locs. It’s been about 3 weeks with the twists and I’ve been having a swell time. I’ve been enjoying the medium sized twists I have on now and I think I’ll stick with it for a while, especially now we’re on strike and school is not in session.

So my broad hair goal is healthy, long hair but I have 3 sub goals to get the main goal.

Goal 1- Grow my hair to mid back length

My hair doesn’t grow as fast as most people’s hair. Most people grow half an inch per month but my hair grows less than that. When I used to relax my hair, my 5 months of new growth was barely 2 inches of hair but that’s the amount of hair others grow in just 4 months.

So the plan is to retain as much length as I can while my hair grows by doing the following:

Protective styling 80% of the time. I don’t plan on wearing my hair out as much this year. I’ll only wear my hair out for special occasions.
Washing my hair in twists. Because I’ll be wearing twists most of the time, I’ll be having my whole washday in twists and only take them down to moisturize and retwist or air dry for the next style.
Detangling my hair very carefully.
Scalp massages 3-4 times a week. I only oil my scalp twice a week though.
Eating healthy and incorporating fruits and vegetables. Also exercising for overall good health.

Goal 2- Prevent single strand knots

My hair shrinks a lot, which leads to tangles, which leads to single strand knots. I’ll be preventing it by:

Keeping my hair in stretched styles.
Double moisturizing and sealing my ends.
Dusting off my ends regularly.
Detangling carefully.
Avoiding hair salons.

Goal 3- Keep my hair moisturized.

My hair always finds a way to stay dry every time and finding a moisturizer for my hair that actually works is quite hard. Having low porosity hair, most of the products just end up sitting on my hair strands. I plan to keep my hair moisturized by:

Deep conditioning with heat every washday.
Use heat for a few minutes after moisturizing my hair.
Only apply products on damp hair.
I switched from whipped Shea butter to whipped mango butter to seal in moisture in my hair and my hair stays moisturized without feeling oily.
Sleeping with a satin scarf every day.

I did a length check and I’m pleased to announce my hair is past bra strap.

I didn’t even believe it because my hair shrinks up so much, hiding all the growth. So growing my hair to mid back length should take an additional 3 inches which I hope I’m able to retain by the end of the year.

I’ll be back for the after because I want to be held accountable this time.

Do you have hair goals for the year or you’re on vibes like I was last year?

Thanks for reading!

Reacting to my favourite tweets of the week

Welcome back to my blog.

It’s Friday, my favourite day of the week and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on random tweets I loved this week.

Tweet 1

This has to be written in bold letters for every Nigerian University. Public ones especially. They are after our mental health through and through.

Tweet 2

Because God would always answer your prayers. Sometimes it may not be how we want the it, but He makes all things beautiful in His time.

Tweet 3

This is my year of confrontation. As a quiet person, I tend to overlook a lot of things and sweep things under the carpet but I’ve learned that I have to voice my opinions and have conversations even when I’m not comfortable. Confronting people has really been hard for me but it’s something that I’m easing into this year.

Tweet 4

This is not a tweet but I’m relating to this. One thing I’m not going to do is assume something and end up looking foolish in the end. I may or may not ask to clarify things, depending on the situation. But I will not accept hints and assume.

Tweet 5

Whew! This one. This one was shouting at me and I remember how January this year went for me. I felt like a zombie most days. Life can come at you fast, so we should learn to take breaks. There’s no award for sufferhead.

Tweet 6

Last year September I was praying to God for something in my life and it got me constantly worrying. It was a very serious case that my parents noticed it from when I was in school. I lost my appetite and had to go home. I had already thought of the worst situation if God didn’t answer my request the way I wanted him to and I was going through a lot. God finally granted me my request and I felt at peace but anytime I remember how I felt and reacted during that waiting period, I don’t feel good at all. So many nights wasted on worrying.

Tweet 7

I find it very rude actually. This should be literal common sense, but again, common sense is not common. Do you know if I have enough data? Do you know where I am or if I can talk at that moment? Do we even have that kind of rapport? A lot goes into video calling. Sometimes, depending on the person, I’ll even text before I do a normal voice call.

That’s it for this post. Tell me which was your favourite in the comments.

Hope we all have a calm, relaxing weekend cause we deserve it✌️.

Don’t forget to like, share and follow me if you haven’t.

Thank you!

Things I miss about having relaxed hair

Welcome back to my blog.

I was moisturizing my mini twists and I realized that it’s been over 2 years I cut my relaxed hair and over 3 years since I relaxed my hair. I transitioned for about a year.

So I was going down memory lane and it was a good one. I hardly knew anything about haircare in my relaxed hair days. The only thing I did intentionally for my hair was stretching my retouching to every 5 months because I noticed retouching every 2, 3 months was making my hair weak.

Then applying ori(Shea butter) because there was this rave about Shea butter. I think it was the period when having natural hair became more popular. Everybody was swearing by Shea butter and coconut oil for their hair.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I hardly did anything haircare to my relaxed hair apart from relaxing, applying hair cream(sometimes Vaseline) and braiding my hair) but it was growing fairly okay till it reached a plateau and never passed my collar bone. And I had my relaxed hair for about 6years.

Dealing with my natural hair meant a change of lifestyle literally. I could no longer be nonchalant about it the way I was with my relaxed hair. It was kind of easy though because I transitioned so I eased into it. And let me tell you, if you think maintaining natural hair is hard, try transitioning hair. It was twice as hard because you’ll be dealing with 2 completely different textures of hair.

I miss being able to comb my hair freely.

I can’t do that anymore with natural hair. My hair has to be damp with water or saturated with conditioner for proper detangling. Infact since going natural I don’t comb my hair as much. I basically only comb on washdays and I finger detangle every other time. I remember I could comb my relaxed hair dry but I don’t have that luxury anymore.

My relaxed hair wasn’t thick thick.

You guys, my natural hair is thick thick. Now don’t get me wrong, I love it but sometimes it’s just a lot. Especially the top of my hair. I can’t pull my hair into a low ponytail easily because of it and it stresses me out.

There was no shrinkage

This should have been the first point because!!!!! My hair shrinks a lottttt. Even when it’s not wet. My hair shrinks when it’s exposed to air so I can’t go out and come back with the same hair length and it’s so annoying.

I can’t impulsively put my hair in any style.

My hairstyles have to be planned. You know how you can just wake up one morning and feel like wearing a wig? I don’t have that luxury because if my hair wasn’t in cornrows prior to that time, I can’t wear the wig because like I said, my hair is thick and I can’t put it in a smooth ponytail easily or do quick cornrows because it won’t be flat enough to wear a wig on top. And ain’t nobody wearing a wig that doesn’t lay flat on my head so that’s a no. It’s a whole lot. I have to know what I want for my hair before the morning.

There were no single strand knots.

With shrinkage comes single strand knots and that can be very hard to work with. And tangles too. My hair tangles a lot. I didn’t have to bother about this with relaxed hair.

My hairstyles lasted longer.

Natural hair gets frizzy very fast and that makes hairstyles look old faster. My braids could comfortably last 2 months with relaxed hair and I only had to worry about my roots but now the roots and body of the braids start looking old from 3 weeks, 1 month if it was braided tightly and with proper care. My cornrows look old after 1 week(I usually make about 10 cornrows).

I have trust issues with people handling my hair.

I’ve only been to the salon a number of times since going natural but it always ends in tears. It’s either they’re not handling my hair carefully or the grip for the weaving is too tight. It’s always something and these hairdressers do not listen to complains. It’s like they don’t care what you want. Luckily I can do my hair myself and I enjoy doing it but sometimes I want to relax and let someone else do it but it always ends in tears. The one time I went to a so called natural hair salon, I wasn’t impressed with how my hair was handled. I would try out some more natural hair salons, but they’re more expensive than regular hair salons.

Do you miss your relaxed hair if you’ve ever relaxed your hair?

Thank you so much for reading.

Don’t forget to like, comment and share✌️

Back to blogging|Life Update

The title of this post in my head is are we still reading blogs in 2022?

Hey Guys. Happy New Year I guess. I was just telling my friend that Nigerians will say happy new year till April and now look at me. Anyway, I’ve been prompted me to dust this blog and get back to blogging. I mean, I have so many posts sitting in my drafts but I’ve been feeling a certain kind of way about them.

Talking of drafts, I lost my drafts in December when I sort of lost the apps in my phone and when I was trying to log in back into WordPress I kind of forgot my password so it was a whole lot of stress and long story short, I lost my drafts. So I’ve been thinking of what my ‘welcome’ back post should be after not blogging in a while.

I’ve been overthinking a lot, even though I try to not overthink. It’s really a bad habit. And once I start overthinking like that, it either I find a way to just do what I feel would be good immediately or I just abandon it completely to get my mind off it. There’s literally no in between. And unfortunately the latter happened with this blog.

So I’m back and this is a very impromptu post. Basically to see if I still have any kind of traffic on this blog and to give me a push to start back blogging. I really miss blogging. I had a whole lot of things keeping me from blogging apart from what I said above. My phone being the biggest challenge then school.

Anyway, a little life update. I wish I could say I’m done with school, I’m almost done with 400 level so 2 more years to go. I had my first clinical posting in the hospital for a month and I blogged about it but I lost my drafts like I said. I could do it again, that’s if anybody is interested (let me know in the comments)

The highlight of my 2021 was that I finally started my brand as a hairstylist. You guys know I love hair and it took a lot of back and forth but I finally made it official. I have a brand now, still yet to have a social media presence because again, my phone. So I’m slowly building my portfolio and when I get a new phone we can start with the social media presence.

Shout out to Ada @mopelolaaukpai for this beautiful flyer

So this year, I plan to do a whole lot of reviews. I’ve used a bunch of products for my hair and if anybody is like me, I don’t just buy products blindly. I love to read or watch reviews about the product before I buy. And it’s quite hard to find reviews of cheaper or let me say less popular products which are the products I usually buy so doing reviews of the ones I’ve used would be guiding somebody to make a decision on whether to buy a product or not.

I also wanted to blog about skincare this year. 2021 was my skincare year and I learnt a lot of things about skincare so I want to share my skincare journey too. But I’m not sure if to do that here or to open a separate blog for just skincare because I was going through my blog and even though my main niche is natural hair, it’s kind of too all over the place. But throwing the question to you guys, what topics and type of content would you like to see here?

How have you all been? What’s been going on? How did Valentine’s day go? Let’s gist in the comments section

Unlearning and Relearning||Romanticizing Suffering

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

So this has been on my mind for a while. It feels like if you don’t have a sad story before your success, people don’t take you serious or they feel you don’t deserve it.

In Nigeria we glorify suffering so much that it’s like we’re in a suffering contest. Everybody wants to hear a grass to grace story before they feel you deserve success or they base your achievement on how much suffering you had to go through first and because of this some people fake a grass to grace story.

Can never be me though because I’m a grace to greater grace child. Sure I’ve had some struggles and setbacks here and there but I would not emphasize on them to make me feel better or more deserving of what I have or who I am. Am I making sense? I choose to focus on my blessings and not things I’m lacking.

If you can’t talk about how you trekked to school barefoot because you couldn’t afford shoes(no shade to former president Goodluck Jonathan) you’ve not ‘seen anything’.

When you bring up an issue or a complain to a group of people be rest assured that there’s somebody ready to beat your complain with a worse experience, whether it’s true or not. Sometimes it may even be to invalidate your feelings because ‘you haven’t seen anything’. And the worst thing is that these people want you to go through the same suffering because they feel they turned out ‘okay’. Sorry sis, bro, you are not okay! You’re traumatized and you need to heal.

This is also why bullying takes place. Cyber bullying especially. There are a bunch of unhappy people who are not okay seeing people not suffering or struggling before they succeed. Some people go as far as holding grudges and so because of that they would decide to hate random people because of that or for other petty reasons. Sometimes, you don’t even know the whole story behind someone’s success.

We should make peace with ourselves and focus on our blessings. Don’t invalidate people’s struggles because you’ve been through worse. If people feel tired after working for 4 hours when you work for 6 hours without getting tired it doesn’t mean they can’t feel how they feel because you’ve had it worse.

Suffering doesn’t lead you to a better part. You can be successful and learn valuable lessons without going through suffering.

Stop romanticizing suffering!

It felt good to let this out whew!

Remember when I said I scheduled a post last week? It was this post. I’ve hoarded this for so long because I wasn’t sure how it would be received but I’ve chosen to put on my big girl panties and just publish it.

Don’t forget to like, comment and share if you enjoyed reading this✌️😊

My Favourite Low Manipulation Styles For My Short to Medium Length 4c Hair

Welcome back to my blog 🙋Happy Friday. I’ve been waiting for the weekend since Sunday night. Classes have been hectic and we were told we’ve not even gotten to the stressful part. Chile…I don’t like it here but I’m grateful nonetheless.I think I can finally put the medium length when describing my hair even though I feel my hair is still on the short side. I mean, if my hair can be packed into a low ponytail then it’s not so short anymore.So low manipulation styles are very simple styles which are done to prevent everyday manipulation of your hair. They last anywhere from 3 days to a week. I like to think of them as short term protective styles even though all of them are not really hiding your ends.When I’m not wearing braids or wigs which are my 2 go-to protective styles, I try to do simple styles that prevent everyday manipulation.

Low Bun

This is my favourite. It’s very simple and suitable for any occasion. Together with my glasses, it gives the ultimate serious medical student look(don’t mind me, I just had to throw that there). I usually tuck my ends in with this style so it’s kind of protective for me and I don’t have to worry about shrinkage or tangling. I sometimes add kinky extensions for a fuller looking bun to elevate the look.With this style, my satin scarf is my best friend. I always tie my hair down so it lays flat and doesn’t get frizzy or start getting loose and scattered. I’m currently wearing my hair in a low bun and it has been this way for 2 weeks now.

High Bun

Basically the same as the first but it’s rather on the top of your head. Another chic hairstyle for any occasion.

Two flatwists

This was a favourite when my hair was quite shorter and I could flatwist easily. Now for some reason I can’t get my flatwists to come out right which is really annoying. But it’s a simple and quick style that lasts for about 3 days to a week.

Twist out updo

This is the last and it’s the only style that my hair is sort of free. I’m no longer a fan of twist outs. I only do them once in a while now. But when I do a twist out, after wearing it free the first day, I put it in an updo situation by pinning the back of my hair upwards with bobby pins and leaving the front in a side fringe or bangs situation.

What’s your go-to low manipulation style?Is it the high puff? I only wear high puffs on special occasions. I used to have issues with the tension it causes on the hairline but I’ve found a way to reduce the tension to almost none.Thanks for reading.Don’t forget to tell me your go-to hairstyle in the comments😊

No Knowledge Is A Waste

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

I’m typing this in class during my break that I’m supposed to be using to take a nap because I’m so tired but I enjoyed the class that just finished which prompted me to make this post.

I had initially scheduled a post for 12pm but I held that back to do this instead. Can we deviate a little to talk about my new found consistentcy? I don’t want to abandon this blog again.

Back to the topic of the day. No knowledge is a waste. It’s such a popular phrase I’m sure we’ve heard so many times and yeah it’s true.

So earlier this year I took skincare seriously and started doing research on proper skincare, I was exposed to a lot of new things I never knew about. I was intrigued about a lot of ingredients and a lot of terms so I kept on reading different articles and blogs. I learnt a lot from skincare Instagram. It was where I learnt about anti-oxidants and their use in skincare.

I went ahead to read during my leisure and understand what these anti-oxidants are all about and how they work. Today I had a pathology class this morning and because of how bulky our timetable is I don’t always get time to read ahead of each class and yesterday was one of those days where I didn’t read ahead of class today.

So in my pathology class we were taught inflammation. Anti-oxidants found it’s way into the topic. Not in skincare though, but since I already understood the mechanism of how anti-oxidants work I was able to flow with the class.

It’s so important to read wide. Having knowledge of something doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll use it. Conversations can come up and your input would be very necessary. Opportunities may surface and something you learnt or read about a while ago would save the day.

Meanwhile, this is my 100th post on this blog. Yay to me!!

What’s one thing you’ve learnt that you think you’ll never use? Mine is trigonometry and calculus.

Thanks for reading✌️

6 Reasons Why Protective Styles Are Damaging Your Hair

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

Anytime I’m asked how I grow my hair I always say I just make my hair and make sure it’s always moisturized. Now when I say moisturized I don’t mean applying oil or hair cream to my hair or the actual LOC or LCO(leave in conditioner, oil and cream) method but that’s a whole separate story.

Today we’ll be discussing on how protective styles can do more harm than good to your natural hair. But before that you should know that I protective styles are really good and I swear by them. Why?

It reduces knots and tangles in your hair and keeps it more manageable.
It gives your hair a break from frequent styling or manipulation.
Protects your hair from harsh weather.
Reduces hands in hair syndrome.
Helps retain length.
Allows you to easily switch up your style.

Now if they do these great things for your hair how can they still damage your hair?

It’s too tight.

Do we still make styles that snatches away our edges in 2021? No ma’am, miss me with that. Your style can be neat without it being tight, don’t believe that lie we grew up with that tight hairstyles last longer. If it’s too tight, it causes too much tension on your scalp and can damage your hair follicles causing hair breakage or worse, hair loss.

You don’t prep your hair properly.

Since your hair is going to be tucked away for a while you need to make sure that it’s clean, deep conditioned and properly moisturized. Do not put away dirty or dry hair in a protective style.

You abandon your hair.

I know protective styles give you a break from your hair but it doesn’t mean you should totally abandon your hair. Leaving your hair dry in protective styles is doing more harm than good. You need to regularly moisturize your hair, oil your scalp and clean your scalp every 2 or 3 weeks.

Sleeping without a satin/silk scarf, bonnet or pillowcase.

With natural hair, we’re trying to avoid dryness at all cost and this is a good way to do so. I’ve recently started wrapping a satin scarf around my pillow because I sometimes get lazy and sleep without my bonnet or scarf. Protecting your hair properly also prevents your protective style from getting frizzy early.

You leave it in for too long.

It can be very tempting to leave your protective style for long because it’s easier to manage but that’s not a good idea. If you leave your protective style for too long your hair would be dehydrated and extremely tangled when you want to take your hair down. Your protective style should last you anywhere between 2-6 weeks. 8 weeks is okay but that’s a stretch for the brave.

You’re not gentle when taking them out.

Now that you can feel the new growth through your braids and it’s time to take it down, if you’re not gentle with the process you’ll be losing the length you were able to gain while your hair was tucked away. Your hair is going to be fragile since it has been away for a while so you have to handle your hair with care.

Are you guilty of any of these? In my next post I’ll be sharing how to take down your protective style properly and retain all the length you gained.

Thanks for reading✌️

Product Review: VO5 Dry Scalp Moisturizing Shampoo

Welcome back to my blog 🙋

Today I’ll be reviewing this very affordable shampoo I got a few months ago. I’m almost out of it so I’ve used it quite a number of times. I’m a black soap shampoo stan but I couldn’t be bothered to make one and this vo5 shampoo was really cheap so I got this instead.

This brand is famous for their five vitamins and five oils formula but this one contains just 5 vitamins and one oil.

Key ingredients: sodium laurel sulphate Sweet almond oil, panthenol, tocopheryl, niacinamide, ascorbic acid and biotin

Packaging: the shampoo comes in a 325ml(11oz) plastic bottle with a flip cap which closes perfectly so I didn’t experience any spilling.

Texture/Appearance: it has a light runny gel like texture and has a whitish transparent appearance.

Scent: the scent is not so overpowering.

Claims: Soothes and relieves dry scalp.

Pros

The shampoo is really cheap. I got it for less than a thousand naira. It was 850naira(about $2) in everyday supermarket.

It cleanses the hair properly.

Cons

It contains sulphates so it’s drying to the hair. It left my hair feeling dry and tangled.

It’s too runny and I wasted a good amount of product.

My experience

This shampoo is quite drying to be a moisturizing shampoo. Moisture where? If I don’t wash my hair in sections or in twists my hair is left feeling dry and tangled.

The only time I enjoyed using this shampoo is when I prepoo my hair with oil or shea butter. The oil barrier prevents the shampoo from drying my hair while still leaving my hair clean and the best part? My hair is soft whenever I use it this way.

I got about 8 uses from this bottle of shampoo. It would have been more but it’s quite runny and so it usually slips from my hands if I’m not careful. I feel like it can be used up to 10 times or more if you’re not heavy handed.

Rating

I’ll give this shampoo a 5/10

It’s an okay shampoo if you wash your hair monthly. If you wash your hair weekly, stay away from this shampoo. If you wash your hair biweekly you can get away with it if you prepoo your hair.

Have you used this shampoo before?

What’s your favourite shampoo for your hair?