Product Review: Blended Beauty (Part 2)

Last month, I posted a review of Blended Beauty products used on a family member's hair (click HERE for that review). And, as promised, I am here to post a review of different Blended Beauty products I used on Syd's hair.

The products I used in this post are:
Blended Cutie Curly Cake Shake
Blended Beauty Happy Nappy Styles
Blended Beauty Curly Frizz Pudding

To start, Syd washed her hair with a clarifying shampoo to remove any product residue that may have been in her hair. I then sprayed her hair with Curly Cake Shake and used my fingers, then a wide tooth comb to detangle her hair in sections. I braided each section to keep it detangled until I was ready to style.

*Curly Cake Shake is a moisturizing detangling lotion in a spray bottle. It left Syd's hair feeling moisturized and added enough slip to make detangling a breeze.

I decided to define her curls by working with one braided section at a time. I started in the back, and removed one braid. Since it had started to dry, I sprayed it with water to get the section wet again.

Once the hair was completely wet, I added a generous amount of Happy Nappy Styles and used a Denman to distribute the product evenly through that entire section of hair. Then I topped that with some Curly Frizz Pudding, again using a Denman to make sure all the hair was coated.

My next step was to define the curls. I did this by smoothing each individual curl from root to tip, twirling it around my finger as I went. The picture below shows the amount of hair in each curl I was defining.

I continued until the entire section consisted of curls that were clumped together and defined.

I moved on to the next braided section and repeated the whole process, working from the back of her head and moving forward.

Below are pictures of her hair right after the styling was finished. You can still see a bit of the product, but that disappeared as soon as it started to dry.

At the end of the day, her hair was dry and she had a head full of curls that were soft and well defined.

Final thoughts:
Blended Beauty worked like a charm. The combination of Happy Nappy Styles and Curly Frizz Pudding offered the right amount of moisture, weight, and hold to make Syd's hair look great without feeling greasy. And I was very pleased that none of these products made Syd's hair feel the slightest bit crunchy, which is something that Syd and I both dislike.

After trying two sets of Blended Beauty products on two different heads of hair, I can honestly recommend this product line for all types of curls. Be sure to visit blendedbeauty.com, where you can discover their wide range of products and even use their tools to help find the perfect product combination for your curls.

* Note - These products were provided by Blended Beauty for review and at no charge. The opinions expressed are my opinions based on my personal experience.

Thanksgiving Fun!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all had a great day!

Check out this picture....Syd was looking fabulous today. She's always thrilled to let her big hair come out to play.

We had a wonderful day with family. Now we're back home and somehow found ourselves playing with the webcam. I thought I'd share some of our fun pictures. Enjoy!

Down and Out with Kinky Curly Products

After Syd had her hair in box braids for 2 1/2 weeks, she was ready for a few days of big hair. I'm a huge fan of her huge hair, so I was more than happy to oblige.

After the box braids were removed, Syd washed her hair. I wish I could tell you what kind of shampoo was used, but there is more than one open bottle of shampoo in the shower right now and I didn't think to ask her which one she had used.

While her hair was still soaking wet, we applied a pretty generous amount of Kinky Curly Knot Today and detangled her hair. This didn't take long at all because her hair had just come out of the box braids and it hadn't had much time to tangle up.

After this, I took a small-ish section of her hair and applied Kinky Curly Curling Custard to that section. I then defined each curl by smoothing it from root to tip using the tightly curly method. When I had finished that section, I grabbed another section and repeated the process, continuing until all of her hair was done. When using Kinky Curly products with Syd's hair type, the hair should be soaking wet. So if a section of hair was starting to dry before I got to it, I just wet it again with a spray bottle of plain water.

This is what her curls looked like just after we finished.

Here's what it looked like after drying for a few hours.

And a few hours after that, it was time for bed. Unfortunately, Syd's hair is so thick that it STILL wasn't dry all the way through. I didn't want to cover up her curls with a scarf or bonnet before they were dry, and I certainly didn't want her to sleep with free hair that was still damp. So my solution was to split her hair in half and put it in low, loose pigtails. I gently banded each side with only a few ouchless bands. This kept her hair from tangling and exposed the middle of her hair so it could finish drying.

She slept on a satin pillowcase that night and when she woke up, her hair was dry. We removed the bands and very gently fluffed her hair to make sure the center part disappeared. 

We ended up banding her hair like that for 3 nights in a row because it was a pretty effective way to protect her curls while she slept. The hair probably would have looked good for a couple more days, but Syd played in the water, which meant the end of the style. :)

Oh...and here's a shot of her with her homemade hair accessory. She makes these with duct tape and plain headbands. I'll make a post about these in the next week. Super easy, creative, and fun!

Dealing With Different Curl Patterns

Most of you probably know that Syd loves big hair. Wash-n-go styles make her a happy girl because that's when her hair is the biggest. However, that is also one of the hardest styles for us to get looking good because of the variety of curl patterns on her head. I have spoken to a few people who said they chose to relax their hair because of this very thing.

When taking a picture of the big hair for this post last week, I took the picture below, too. Syd was making a weird face so I almost deleted it, but then I realized how visible her different curl patterns are. I know I have talked about this before, but this might help show what I'm talking about.

The hair on the sides of Syd's head curls up much more loosely than the rest of her hair. There's only a small amount of hair with the looser curl pattern and it just lays on top of the tighter curls. This used to drive me crazy (and sometimes it still does) because it means the hair in the back curls up much more tightly and appears shorter than the sides.

Because of this, we have learned to adjust the amount of product we use on the different sections. The sides don't require near as much product. If we didn't use less on the sides, those parts of her hair would be weighed down and appear lifeless. I also keep thinking about having the sides of her hair cut shorter than the rest to help even things out, but I haven't done that yet.

Another method you can use to deal with different curl patterns is to stick with twist outs, braid outs, and roller sets. This helps give all the hair a more uniform look. We don't use this method as often anymore, but that's mostly because of Syd's growing love for big, voluminous hair.

I know most curly-headed people don't have uniform curls all over their heads, but some heads have more varied curls than others. There is always a way to work with your hair without reaching for chemicals or heat. Play around and embrace those curls - all sizes of them!

Extra Long and Wide Curlformers

I have been wanting to try Curlformers out on Syd's hair for over a year, but I never got around to ordering them. Well I finally did, and we couldn't wait to try them once they arrived.

I have seen enough reviews and how-to posts about Curlformers to know that I had to be careful not to use too much hair, so I didn't have a problem putting them in Syd's hair. But I did encounter a problem. I ordered the extra long Curlformers, but Syd's hair is way too long even for those.  Now I've read that it is possible to use 2 Curlformers to cover all the hair from root to tip, but we only have the styling kit and one extra starter pack, which gives us 46 Curlformers, which is simply not enough to use 2 on each section of Syd's very thick hair. Actually, it was barely enough to cover all her hair using just one per section!

The solution I came up with was to put the approx. 4-5 inches of hair closest to her scalp into 2 strand twists and then use the Curlformer to curl the rest. The curl won't be uniform because it goes from twist out to Curlformer-made curl, but I figured it was worth a shot.

She slept with the Curlformers in her hair. In the morning, I removed the Curlformers. After taking the Curlformer off of each section, I put my fingers between the 2 sections of roots that were twisted and gently slid my fingers down the entire section, separating the entire section in two from root to tip.

Syd and I are both very pleased with the results. Even though the roots aren't curled like the rest of her hair, all we did was add a headband to the front and you don't really notice a difference. If the roots get fluffy or frizzy before the rest of the hair, we can always pull it into a half-up or ponytail style to stretch the style an extra day or two.

I couldn't get a good picture from the back because I'm still using my Blackberry to take pictures and it just doesn't do a good job capturing the curl definition. Hopefully I'll have a working camera again before my next post!

Don't Give Up!

Sometimes you have to alter someone else's hair care and styling tips to make them work for you. It can be frustrating when a style doesn't work out after you carefully follow someone's instructions to the letter. As much as we wish it weren't so, no two heads of hair are alike. This means no two routines are going to have the same results every time. Here is the story of how I (finally) learned that lesson.

I have had quite a few people ask me how I got Syd's curls to look like they do in this picture, which is also found on the right at the top of the blog.

This was actually done by using Teri Laflesh's tightly curly method. We did the style for my niece's birthday party last summer, and it looked great, but that wasn't always the case. In fact, I almost gave up on this method completely when our first try produced some pretty disappointing results.

My first attempt at this method resulted in this in the front:

But this in the back:

Her hair looked so good from the front! But there was definitely a problem with the way the back turned out, and here's why.

If you can't tell from these pictures, Syd has several different hair types on her head. The hair on the sides is thinner, the strands are finer, and the curl is looser. As you move toward the back of her head, the hair gradually gets thicker, the strands get more coarse, and the curls are much tighter. The very back of her hair is very tightly coiled and very, very dense. It is nothing at all like the sides and front. This means I will never get the same results on the front and back of her head if I treat all of her hair the same.

A few months after the first attempt failed, Syd and I decided we were going to try again for my niece's birthday party. We could always throw her hair in a ponytail if it doesn't work, right? But this time, I put some thought into how I could keep from getting the same results again.

I used less product (normally Herbal Essences Hello Hydration for this method) on the sides of her hair, because that hair isn't as dry, course, or tightly curled as the hair in back. I gradually used more and more conditioner as I got closer to the back. I used a LOT more in the very back to help give the curls some more weight and keep them from shrinking so much more than the rest of her hair.

To my surprise, that actually worked! Here is another picture of Syd's hair from that day.

The curls look much more uniform and the whole style just looks better when I took the time to pay attention to the diversity of her curls. The sides aren't weighed down and the patch in the back hasn't experienced twice as much shrinkage as the rest.

I guess what I'm saying is this: Don't get discouraged when you don't get the same results as someone else, even though you're doing the very same steps. Pay close attention to the needs of the hair you are working with, and don't give up if something doesn't work the first time. A second or third try can lead to some pretty great results!