100% Natural Products!!!! Aubrey, Karen, and Kinky

Ok, not REALLY 100%, but everyone should be able to read the ingredients of their shampoo, conditioner, gel, etc.... without needing a chemistry reference book.

*FLASHBACK*

I've been wearing my hair naturally now for about 9 years. Rugby started to become more serious and it was just too hard to try and keep my hair straightened in between practice, working out, and games. So one day I just decided that I was going to wash my hair, and NOT blow dry it after (GASP!!). At first it was cute - sorta wavy and long. Then, the perm started to slowly grow out, and my ends started to rapidly deteriorate, and I ended up chopping off like 4 inches. This is when my search for products to aid my new natural-ness began.... but there was nothing out there! I used gel, mousse, lotion, grease, baby-oil gel, etc.... anything that I thought could hold my curl. Some things seemed to work, but in the end everything just made my curls crunchy, dry, and messy. It was so bad that I resorted to giving myself what I called "mini-perms" like once or twice a year:

mini-perm: If my curls started to get a little too "woofy," I would put a perm on them and literally just put it on, then quickly take it off. I thought it was loosening my curls, when it was really just damaging my hair all over again.

ME during mini-perm time....it LOOKS cute, but you can also see that I don't have much curl definition because the perms took that away, and eventually damaged my hair!


Once the mini-perms started to take their toll, I finally decided that I was not going to give myself any more perms. So, as you can imagine, this started a brand new process of perm grow-out. Not as bad as grow-out #1, but not too pretty either.

And here we are today. I haven't had a perm on my hair in about 3-4 years (so long ago I can't even remember), and my hair has never looked so good....except back before I had perms, but that's a topic for another blog....

It's only been a few months since I SERIOUSLY began a search for new products for my hair, which has led me to the topic of this blog - NATURAL PRODUCTS!!

*PRESENT DAY*

Here are some ingredients of the conditioner I USED to use on my hair:
Behentrimonium Chloride, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Octyldodecanol

Here are some ingredients of the natural conditioner I CURRENTLY use on my hair:
Organic Aloe Vera, Wheat Germ Oil, Balm Mint, Organic Sage Oil, Camomile, Mistletoe (ooooooh, maybe someone will wanna kiss me!!)

Moral to the story....you want to be able to PRONOUNCE the things you put into your hair!!! Though it's hard to find a 100% natural product out there, it's super easy to find some that are close to being 100% natural. And seriously, the natural products are better than the crap they sell in drug stores.

Some of my favorite organic products:

1. Aubrey Organics (Can also get at Whole Foods)

• I love their Hair Moisturizing Jelly, JaNelle has the B5 Design gel, I also love their Camellia Ultra-Smoothing Conditioner.
  

2. Karen's Body Beautiful

• Ummmm...JaNelle and I go crazy on this site, so my suggestion is to buy it all!! These products smell SOOOO Good. Go Crazy! Hahahahahahaha.

3. Kinky Curly (Can also get at Whole Foods)

• I love the Curling Custard, but it's a bit strong so you only need a little! It will last ALL day, and with an overnight scarf will last 2-3 days :)

4. Others: I like leave-in conditioners from both Beauty Without Cruelty (BWC) and Giovanni Direct. I'm also waiting on an order from Oyin Handmade, so no review, but I hope it's decent!


ME after I stopped getting perms. You can actually see that I have curly hair. This is not fully dry though, and I love my hair when it's fully dry :)