Chocolate Hair / Vanilla Care : Natural hair care for kids, adoption, and family life.

May 30, 2011

Memorial Day 2011

In the United States, today is Memorial Day. We are honoring and remembering the brave men and women who fought for our freedom, recognizing the immense sacrifice made by these selfless individuals. Thank you.

Yesterday I had the blessed opportunity to be interviewed on-air by Isidra Person-Lynn of Sunday Morning Live. Sunday Morning Live is a Los Angeles-based weekly radio program discussing current events, airing every Sunday from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon, PST. I have to admit I was a little nervous, but Isidra was awesome to work with and I have nothing but great things to say about the whole experience. The program of which I was a part also talked about Dark Girls, which I had written about just this past Friday. If you haven't had a chance to watch the preview, please do so. Then head on over to Sunday Morning Live to listen the archived recording of yesterday's broadcast, including a discussion of Dark Girls and interview with me!

Updating the Twisted Power Puffs for a Water-Friendly Style

As many of you already know, it's been a "winning" week for me. And part of that winning included a trip to Legoland California, with free park-hopper passes for the whole family, thanks to San Diego Momfia. The purpose of the passes were to invite us to help celebrate the grand opening of Splash Zoo at the Legoland Water Park. Boo could barely keep herself contained at the prospect of going to a water park. However, originally intending to leave her Twisted Power Puffs in for another week, I quickly needed to come up with a solution to both protect her hair while still allowing her to fully enjoy herself in the water.

"Dark Girls" Preview: Your Thoughts?

Yesterday I had the good fortune to discover a clip of an upcoming documentary called Dark Girls. Oddly, a good friend of mine posted the very same clip to my Facebook wall just moments after I found it, so I knew that it was something worth sharing with all of you. After watching the rather lengthy trailer I did more research trying to find out when/if the movie is going to be released. It's not yet listed in IMDB (as of this writing) so I can't tell you anything more about it other than what the preview shows. But believe me, there's plenty to talk about after watching the clip.

Winning (and Not In the Charlie Sheen Sorta Way)

Yesterday I wrote about Culturally Significant Events and how I was attending a viewing party in San Diego for Oprah's last show. I also mentioned that I won my tickets to the event (thanks to San Diego Bargain Mama). Little did I know, however, that I was going to also end up winning the Grand Prize as well!

Making Sure Our Daughter Participates in Culturally Significant Events

Today is a big day for me. I won tickets (thanks to San Diego Bargain Mama) to go see San Diego's largest viewing party of Oprah's last show today at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay. I originally entered the contest with the intent of bringing Boo along with me to bear witness to the ending of an era (even if it is just an Oprah-era). Alas, it turned to be s a 21-and-older event, so Boo will have to sit this one out. However, it did get me to thinking about how important it is to make sure we mark culturally significant events in Boo's life, whether she is old enough to remember them or not.

Type 4 Hair Really DOES Grow!

I was asked a couple of weeks ago to take a photo of Boo's hair to show how long it currently is. Don't ask me why, but it never occurred to me to do this before. I obliged and posted on Facebook, but decided that I should probably share here as well, for those who don't have Facebook. Looking back on Boo's bald spot, she was merely 6 months old when the above photo was taken and there was no hair in the back. Although she had been born with a full head of hair, she had rubbed that spot completely bald.

Twisted Power Puffs

Last evening I was once again at a loss for what I was going to do with Boo's hair for the next week or two. I had been wanting to do some more flat rope twists (see Flat Rope Twists for instructions) in a different style but was struggling to come up with something cute. So combing through online images I saw this style worn by Alicia Keys back in 2002 and decided to duplicate it, using flat rope twists instead of cornrows. And I love it!

Discussing Race: A Helpful Tool

I'm always doing research. And by "research" I mean "on the computer." So it's really great when I run across something worth sharing, mostly because it validates my computer addiction. And what I found over at PBS is definitely worth sharing. It might be old news, but it's new to me and I couldn't resist letting all of you in on my little discovery, just in case you didn't know about it either.

Learning Time with Hair Beads

Far be it from me to miss out on any opportunity to turn something into an educational experience. In fact, now that Boo is counting well with one-to-one correspondence she is becoming an increasingly bigger help during hair time.

Product Review: Long & Narrow Curlformers

After having these Curlformers in my house for a couple of weeks now, I'm happy to finally have a chance to give them a review. If you've been to their web site, you will see how successful they are on vanilla hair. There are even some great reviews out there on biracial hair. But I've been really skeptical when it came to using them on Boo's hair. She has very tightly coiled, fine to medium textured 4a (with a patch of 4b in the back) hair. I was thinking that if anything will give Curlformers a run for a money, it would some of Boo's chocolate hair!

Ponytail Spirals with Curlformers

Boo's cornrows from her previous style seem to be hanging in there pretty well. A little fuzzy but certainly nice enough to last another week. So Instead of taking her whole style out I decided to mix things up a bit. Besides, it finally gave me a chance to try out our new Curlformers.

Spotlight on Style: Mini Buns by Dominique-Alexis

Today's guest writer, Dominique-Alexis, will be sharing not only her cornrowing talents but also her unique sense of creative hairstyling.

Cornrows Into a Puff with a Front Side Bang

This week's style is at the request of Boo. She was very specific about it. A little too specific if you ask me. In fact, she was sort of asking for something that wasn't really possible with her hair. She, of course, didn't really know this. When I started this style it was requested that I give her "a ponytail back here," at the nape of her neck "that's long and goes down my back, like cousin S had at her birthday party." Uh, okay.

Share the Hair: "Mama and Me" Mother's Day 2011 Edition

Okay, so raise your hand if you tried to do "Mama and Me Hair" and had a "hair fail" because your little one pitched a fit and wouldn't cooperate. *raises hand wildly in the air* Believe it or not, we had three photo sessions. THREE! The first one she cried through, tears and all. The second one my Compact Flash card died and I lost all the photos (thank God it wasn't the camera!). The third one is what you see, taken with my back-up camera. Ah, the joys of being a mama!

Ponytail Headaches: How We Avoid Them

I don't know about you, but my go-to "mama style" is my hair pulled back into a ponytail. Or a messy bun (a ponytail that's pulled halfway through). So by the end of the day when I take out my ponytail, my head is killing me. And don't even get me started talking about how my head hurt when my hair was down to my waist. Having Boo's hair in puffs this week, I know that she wasn't experiencing any "ponytail headaches" because I always manage to avoid them while doing her hair. Now if I could only remember to do that for me!

Avoiding Sunburns on the Head

As I'm scratching at my now faded sunburn, starting to peel away, and waiting for the 90º weather to take another punch at me today, I'm reminded of the fact that I really do need to protect myself better. As funny as it may seem, there was a period in my life when I burnt the top of my head regularly along my part lines. And now that I have a little girl who very often wears her hair with many parts, I really do have to pay more attention to sun exposure in a place I often think about the least.

Opportunity for You to Donate Hair Pretties to a Good Cause

I don't know about all of you, but I just love having the opportunity to give back. I often feel like we are so blessed that we forget sometimes about those who are not. Chocolate Hair / Vanilla Care reader Elisa Hyman would like a minute of your time to let you know about something wonderful that she is doing at the end of this month and how you can perhaps be a small part of it. Sometimes it's the little things that can make a huge difference.