Amla Treatment

(For some reason this post went out without me adding the recipe,lol...ok so let's try this again)

A friend of mine asked recently..."So what is an Alma treatment?"

Amla is an ayurvedic herb, gound into a powder. A paste is when you take an ayurvedic herb, mix it with boiling water, let it sit, then apply it to your hair. I call it a treatment because I add conditioners and oils to my mixture and use it as a pre-poo. Then wash it out and style. Amla is for conditioning the hair. Amla also cleans the scalp as well and in time, contributes to healthy hair and healthy scalp. Also, the more you use amla, the darker your hair will become. It also makes your curls pop which is something I love. 

Here is a recipe that I uses to make my treatment...

First you have to purchase a box of Amla powder like the one you see here. I use Hesh Amla I got mine from an Indian store and you can look for one in your area to purchase this.  You can also look on amazon to buy it as well. 

Your mix will look like this when you folloow the directions below...

• Detangle unwashed hair into twisted sections.
• Place 3 tbsp of amla powder into a bowl.
• Add 4 tbsp of conditioner (no protein)  Use a cheapie one for this recipe.
• Add 3 - 4 tbsp of another conditioner (no protein).
• Add 2 tspn of coconut oil
• Add 2 tspn of another oil (olive oil)
• Add 2 tspn of another oil (jojoba, coconut, olive, etc.)
• 1/2 cup of water (use sparingly as you don't want mix to be runny).
• Your mix should be like a paste.
• Add 6 drops of essential oils : Rosemary and Lavender.
• Mix together and smooth onto hair with fingers. Don't comb through.
• Place a plastic cap on & let it sit for an hour.
• Rinse off, wash your hair as you would normally, and then style.
• Any leftovers can be placed in the freezer for future use.

Your hair will come out feeling softer and stronger. This will also help with less hair shedding over time.  I try to do this every other weekend.  More on my routine in a later post.  Until, try to enjoy this very hot day!

The Natural Hair Diaries :)

Curlformers (My First Attempt)

Ok so in June 2nd (Saturday) I decided to do my first Curlformers set by myself.  I had Curlformers done on my in the past by one of my friends and it took a minute for her to put them in there.  The results were nice and done during the Winter time.  Nevertheless, I wanted to try it myself and see what I could do.  Now luckily, during this weekend, the humidity was low and the temp was about 70 (high).  So I figured, why not.  Prior to this, I purchased the Curlformers pack at Sally's Beauty Supply.  Click on the word Curlformers to learn more about this product or to order your own.
Curlformers

I am also a Beauty Card Club Owner so I did get this product at $63.99 price. I suggest if you love Sally's like I do, you may want to do the same.  The card costs $5 and you can get discounts on the products you buy instore as well as online.  Not to mention coupons.  But I'm getting side tracked here,lol...

Anyway, I figured it was an investment that would pay for itself since going to the salon and getting a rod set costs usually $65 and if I'm doing it myself, I don't have to get mad when the style I paid for doesn't quite look like I had imagined it would,lol...but more on not getting what you paid for later.  So on this particular Saturday in June, I actually co-washed my hair since I had done an Alma treatment the weekend prior (more on this later too). 

I detangled my hair and used a light leave-in on my hair.  I added a little water to my spray bottle and mixed in my Kimmaytube leave-in and then spritzed my hair.    You only need a light leave-in when you are doing a set.  The more products you place on your hair, the longer it takes for it to dry.

After this, I proceeded with the process of sectioning my hair into small sections, I added a little of my shea butter mix and some Eco-styler Gel to each section, then followed the package directions...

Feed the Curlformer onto the hook, with the hook facing upwards. Place the section of hair in the hook then withdraw the hook.

Sounds easy enough right, but it took some time.  I started around 2 pm and didn't finish until 5:30.  In between this I needed rest breaks and lunch,lol.  I'm sure it will be faster as I use it again, but it's not something you can rush through that's for sure. You will need your Saturday free in order to use this product. 
Well once I was finally finished, I looked like this...



I will have to get some longer ones as some of my hair was longer than the curlformer so I had to use rods for those parts.  Other than that, it was cool.

I sat under the dryer for about an hour under medium heat.   You can do this or let it set in your hair for atleast 6 hours if you don't want to use heat.

I let the set stay in my hair until bedtime. Once I pulled it out, my hair looked like this...

And that was it!  The curls stayed in my hair through Sunday to Tuesday and I did get compliments on it.   More on how I extended this style when it began to poof in my next post :).

The Natural Hair Diaries

Shea Butter Mix

Hey Everyone...

School has been keeping me busy but as of June 21, I was finally free to enjoy my summer and go back to some fun things that I had enjoyed doing.   Going back to my writing as well as updating my hair blog.  These next upcoming blogs will update you as to what I've been doing and trying since my last post.  I enjoy using natural products on my hair and I started incorporating some of my old products from the past and added some new ones as well. 

Shea Butter Mix

In May, I had found a shea butter mix on a Youtuber's site (Naptural85) that I had been wanting to try.  It required me to use a mixer to blend together some hair products that I already had.  Here's the link to where I got my recipie from...

The ingredients I used were...

-Unrefined Shea Butter at Room Temperature


-About 1 Tbsp Coconut Oil


-About 1 tsp Olive Oil


-About 1 tsp Lavender Jamaican Black Castor Oil (Tropic Isle Living)


-About 1 Tbsp Jojoba Oil


-About 1/2 tsp Vitamin E

I blended everything together and it was cool because I looked like cake batter, just a little harder to mix since the shea butter was a solid.  I guess it took about 4 minutes to mix everything together and my mix ended up looking like this...

I placed my mix in a plastic container and placed it in the fridge.  But there was not need for this because it just made it hard,lol.  So when I was ready to use it, I had to place it in the microwave for about 10 secs before using it.  Well lesson learned.  Now I just keep my container in my cabinet in the bathroom until further use.  Results on using this mix...coming soon.

The Natural Hair Diaries