Every holiday I am pressured with thoughts of how to wear my naturally coily hair.  I remember many holidays where I felt pressured to have to press my natural hair out, usually to please someone else.   Well, after several bad presses (read in "My Journey") I have long accepted that I don't need to press my hair for the sake of wearing straight hair for the holidays.  I am perfectly fine wearing my coily hair the way it is.

So, this Easter I finally decided to leave my two stranded twists in (that I have actually been maintaining since last November) and just wash, condition, and oil them for the Easter holiday.  My plan was also to curl them the night before but I had way too much fun the night before and didn't get home in time to put my hair on my fave jerri curl rods to sleep in.    I went to church "as is" and was still pleased 'enough' to label it my 2010 Easter Hairstyle.  What do you think?  Share your links to your own holiday hairstyle.

:-)

Regimen:

Day Before:

• Rinsed twists under running warm to hot shower water; washed using Dr. Bronner's 18-in-1 Castle Soap.
• Used about 3 handfuls total of the soap to wash my scalp, using the pads of my fingers (focusing on my scalp mostly)
• Squeezing the life out of my Kenra Conditioner to use up the last of it to condition my hair; also added Pantene Moisture Conditioner (the one with the gold label)
• Left conditioner in for at least 10 minutes before rinsing out with medium to cooler water.  I rub my scalp with the pads of my fingers to make sure that all of the residue of the conditioner is rinsed off of it.  I have learned not to leave conditioner sitting on my scalp because it encourages things like flaking, dandruff, and buildup.
• I squeezed the excess water out of my twists in 4 sections:  right, left, middle and back.  I'll repeat until I feel I've squeezed out most of the water that I could squeeze out.  After the shower I just leave the twists to dry 30-50% before I start adding my products.
• I scrunched in my Cantu Shea Butter into my twists and then followed with a tablespoon's worth of my African's Best Ultimate Herbal Oil (not African Pride) and added to it my Avocado Oil and massaged throughout my scalp.  Oil always gives my fine hair strands the weight it needs and gives it 'movement.'  It also does a good job of sealing in moisture.  This took about 5 minutes to do.
• I then rubbed some more oil down the length of my twists.  I know this helps to create frizz in my twists but I do it anyway to ensure proper coverage of oil down my strands.  What  I usually do later is re-twist some of the more visible twists after they dry a bit so that the entire style looks less "ruff."

Morning Of:

• I freshened up the style with my Pantene Leave-In spritz.
• Spritzed my Organic Root Stimulator Nature's Shine Spray and gently massaged into my twists for sheen.

Then I was red' to go :-)