HAIR AND NOW: My Favorite 4: Ridiculously Easy DIY Conditioner Recipes for Naturals

Winter is coming--- in more ways than one since Donald Trump will soon take office.

I will share my thoughts on our impending doom in another post that is still a work in progress. It started as an open letter to our first female President and now is mostly composed of invectives and incoherent sobbing. But I digress.

Winter is my favorite season. Snow is a great equalizer. Beneath its crystalline blanket, every neighborhood looks like a postcard.

Yet winter’s dry air and harsh winds take a toll on my eczema, not to mention my natural hair.

Over the past few years, my hair and I have developed a love/hate relationship with winter. On the one hand, less rain and humidity adds miles to my stretched styles. On the other hand, colder weather and harsh wind often leaves my curls dry and tangled while my scalp gets itchy and flaky. Usually by January I have given up on wearing my hair out and rock a sew in, only to lament the heat damage I caused in my leave out area. I’ve started many a spring with a mini chop.

Sound familiar?

Keep reading.

Nine years as a Naturalista has given me the opportunity to try out just about every DIY treatment on the internets, from rare to ridiculous (Yes I did try fish oil and NO you do not want to smell like that shit for a week). Now I could share all my favorites with you in this week’s hair and now, but if I did that, you wouldn’t have a reason to keep coming back every Friday(I’m getting back on schedule, I promise).

Plus, I really enjoy doling out information like a miserly psychic.

So instead of a top ten list, I’m sharing My Favorite 4: Ridiculously Easy DIY Conditioner Recipes for Naturals that will keep your curls healthy and hydrated all winter long.

Note: You will need a stove, a microwave, and a blender or Magic Bullet to make most of these recipes. These products are all natural and will spoil, so use it all or freeze what you have left. Most ingredients can be found affordably online or at your local Indian or Asian grocer. If you need help sourcing an ingredient, leave a comment below and I’ll help!

The problem: Flaky, dry scalp

Snow belongs on the ground, not your shoulders. Keep your scalp (and sweater) flake free with this all natural DIY deep conditioner. Borage softens and nourishes dry skin, which is why it is a common ingredient in eczema relief products. Rosemary and Tea Tree Oil fight dandruff and Sage has been used to stimulate hair growth.

 

The Problem: Dull hair days

Dry winter air can lead to dull winter hair. If you want supermodel shine to rival the Victoria Secret fashion show, Mango butter is your new best friend. This three ingredient miracle mask adds shine to hair without weighing it down.

The problem: Heat protecting

Your winter of stretched styles should not result in a spring mini chop. You can have beautiful straight and stretched styles without heat damaged hair if you prepare your hair correctly for straight styling. Curls are very fragile, and curls stretch best when they are properly moisturized. Products that contain softening sweeteners like molasses or honey help add elasticity to your curls so that they can ‘bounce back’ from straightening.

The problem: Color treated curls

Color treated natural hair is especially fragile. It need lots of vitamins and minerals to beef up tiny tears in the cuticle that can cause breakage. Enter Fenugreek. This incredible hulk of a legume is packed with iron, potassium, calcium, selenium, copper, zinc, manganese, and magnesium, not to mention Vitamins A and C. The only drawback? They smell kind of beany. You may want to add a few drops of vanilla extract to the final product for scent.

So there you have it. Everything you need to turn winter hair woes into winter hair Whoa! Give your curls a little TLC this weekend and let me know how it worked for you in the comments below.

And if you want more haircare, skincare, and selfcare products made from only the best nourishing all natural ingredients, check out my Etsy shop. In the meantime,

Keep Shining,

A

Safety Recall: A defective product of State

When I was a little girl, I had a Roller skating Christie doll. Christie was Barbie’s brown friend, for those of you who did not have the good fortune to come of age during the ‘highly progressive’ nineties.

Christie was fairly identical to Barbie in every way except coloring. Her lips, hips, and hairstyle were exactly the same as Barbie’s, she just happened to be brown. It is worth mentioning that all my Barbies were Christies-- my mother(an Art History major) didn’t believe in the idealized body image that Barbie represented, and made exceptions only because my Aunt (A Black Studies minor) insisted that having black toys was germane to positive self identity in black children.

Hence, roller skating Christie.

I loved that doll. Her purple roller skates trailed sparks and the slight scent of butane as I dragged her back and forth across the hardwood floor of our living room. If I dragged her fast enough, I could make her long hair flow in the breeze, mahogany locks streaming out behind her like a Soft Sheen Carson ad.

One of the greatest disappointments of my early childhood was the day my Aunt came for a visit and took my roller skating Christie away. She explained that a little girl in Mississippi’s roller skating Barbie has malfunctioned-- the sparks from her skates caught her brother on fire, and that the little girl and her brother were hurt and now they were recalling the doll.

Even at eight years old, I was already a bit of a jackass. Although I understood what she was telling me, I was confident that none of these issues applied to my Christie. Firstly, It was Barbie that caught fire, not Christie. And I didn’t have a brother or sister-- just my precious dolls. But most importantly, my Christie functioned fine. And just because other people’s dolls didn’t work right didn’t mean she should take my Christie away, that was like punishing me for someone else’s mistake, and that would be wrong.

I patiently explained to my Aunt that while the incident in Mississippi was unfortunate and I hoped the little girl and her brother were alright, this had little to do with my Christie doll. It was a Barbie issue and a people with siblings issue, and I had neither, so it simply did not apply to this situation.

She laughed, urged my mother to send me to law school (again), and took the doll anyway, promising to bring me a new one on her next visit. I was so upset by the fiasco that I swore off Christies, shaving and removing the heads of all my other dolls so my mother would know I was serious. Who needed a toy to grow attached to when some grown up could come along and take it away? No, it was better to my eight year old mind to stick with books, whose secrets, once revealed, were mine forever.

Twenty three years and countless hours of therapy has given me a bit of perspective on this issue. As a small business owner, I am now intimately familiar with safety recalls and understand why they exist: when a product fails to function as intended, posing a danger to one consumer, the entire product line presents a potential danger to all consumers. Even if a consumer’s product works perfectly, it could be just a matter of time before it malfunctions and causes someone to be harmed.

I awoke this morning on the cusp of epiphany: This country needs a police recall.

Eight hundred and sixty six people have been killed by police this year. The circumstances surrounding their deaths are of little relevance, just as the fact that the children in Mississippi were somehow coated in hairspray before playing with Roller Skating Barbie. The individual circumstances do not negate the inherent danger of the product-- a Barbie doll is not supposed to set a child on fire. And the police are not supposed to ‘accidentally’ kill unarmed citizens.

Think about it. If police were a product, one such incidence would be enough to justify a recall of the entire line.

Imagine, if Tamir Rice’s toy guy backfired and somehow killed him, what the consequences would be for the manufacturer. A recall would be issued, amidst public outcry. An investigation would be launched into every step of the manufacturing and quality control process to find out how a defective product got to market in the first place. Other toy gun manufacturers would be subject to scrutiny and would be put in the uncomfortable position of proving that their toys were safe. Tamir’s family would get a check, perhaps even a scholarship fund established in his name, signifying the toy manufacturer’s commitment to product safety.

Why then, do we hold our police to a lower standard of accountability than we do privately held companies?

Police Officers may be individuals (just as my Christie doll was an individual to me), but ‘police’ as an entity are a product of the state (as an entity). Their function, ostensibly is to uphold the law and protect citizens. They are supposed to be the same, act the same, treat everyone the same-- that’s why they wear uniforms. Yet every other day we are reminded that the product of our great nation state is defective-- it regularly functions in a manner other than intended, with dangerous consequences to the (taxpayer/) consumer.

Imagine if your toaster set your house on fire with every thousandth slice of bread. If your shower hose strangled you, but only sporadically. If you car exploded when you clicked the doors-- every once in awhile.

Would you accept the explanations most of these toasters never set houses on fire at all; sometimes a shower hose has a bad day; millions of people lock and unlock their cars every day, and very few of them explode-- or would you demand the manufacturer be held accountable for their defective products?

Unless your name is Ben Brucato, we can all agree that the institution of police as a product of our nation-state is defective. The question is, when will we, the taxpayer/consumers, finally demand a recall?

My #SoGoneChallenge

Here's a little social media takeout for you. I'm not a rapper but I have something to say.

The Lost Files: December 2015

A while back I promised you guys I would publish some of my thoughts I wasn't brave enough to share with you in the past. I'm making good on that today. So here is an uncut, unedited entry I started on December 13, 2015 and never quite finished. Perhaps because this story is still playing out on cell phones, laptops, and TV screens across the country. Enjoy.

_____________________________________________________________________

I should be asleep. I want to be. But I can’t. I have thirty seven names running through my head, reminding me that threat of terrorism is now my way of life.

3SB:

• I was in tenth grade when 9/11 happened.
• I went to a hoity toity prep school in Gates Mills
• I lived in East Cleveland.

The juxtaposition of my ‘normal’, neighborhood life and the brave new world that was Hawken was never made more clear than on September 11, 2001. I was sitting in the computer lab when an image of the blazing twin towers enveloped the screen. We all thought it was yet another cleverly executed prank pulled off by our then anonymous student hacker- a disruptive f*(@ you towards the establishment of regimented block scheduling and standardized testing.

By the time the second plane hit, we realized this was no laughing matter. I should say my mind went immediately to the safety of ,my family- my Aunt worked downtown and Cleveland had been listed as a potential target city, but I was sixteen and in love with the idea of love, so my first thoughts were of Jerry X, a businessman’s son with a poetic soul who was doing his senior project in New York City.

My concept of the world was embarrassingly small at the time. New York City to me meant right next door to the Twin Towers, maybe even in the Twin Towers. Jerry’s Dad was an Important Man, so his finance internship had to bring him to the Twin Towers on an almost daily basis, my juvenile mind reasoned.

My campus was locked down. Terrified parents were demanding the school send us home, but for our safety, we were confined to the building. Cell phones, which were still pretty much a new thing, were down. No one knew anything except that the TERROR ALERT was red.

School lifted the lockdown eventually and sent us all home. Jerry X was fine and so was my aunt. Our trip to the International  Choral Festival in Prague was canceled due to safety concerns. And there was an evening, and there was a morning, a new day.

Life went on. At least, it did in my neighborhood. There was no fear of terrorist retaliation in EC. We knew our worth as victims was equal to our worth as citizens: zero.

Even at sixteen years old I was able to grasp the simple concept of relative danger: I felt safer at home than I did at school.

Fear is an interesting thing: the amount you feel is directly relative to the perceived feasibility of the threat to you and your close associates. For white America, the fear of foreign terrorism is salient. Their status as default Americans makes them likely targets for the mentally disturbed subset of extremist ideologues to vent their hatred on.

For black America, the threat of domestic terrorism is much more primary than foreign extremism, the probability of being killed by police in one’s own neighborhood far more tangible than the imagined peril of being blown up by the owner of the local bodega.

This is MY ISIS, and it’s nothing new.

Your terrorists are hunted down through means ethical and unethical. Ours are placed on paid administrative leave. Think about that for a minute. People suspected of domestic terrorism are actually paid by taxpayers while their involvement is decided.

Yeah, that just happens. Everyday.

Where is the paid leave for Syed Farook? Oh wait, he’s dead.

His voice is just one of the forty I have haunting my brain, the unnamed masses that have been killed by police this month.

Did I say thirty seven earlier? Oh yeah, it’s gone up since I started writing.

I have a friend, a mother figure of sorts, whose nephew was killed by police a few days ago. I went online to find out more details about the case, having heard about it through another friend and not wanting to pry secondhand. I wanted to find his name so I could pray for his family and friends.

Instead, I found forty pair of sightless eyes staring at me in accusation.

As I wrote down the names of these men and women aged 18 to 66, the quiet seething storm of rage began to brew in me.

Prayer was not enough. Writing their names not enough. Blogging (even outside the box), is not enough. Justice, like international terrorism seems a distant dream when faced with stories like that of Robert Hinton, a former Rikers inmate who was awarded a sizable settlement when correctional officers hogtied and beat him for fun.

Hinton’s case led to five firings and nearly half a million in cold, hard cash from the city. Unfortunately, Hinton was killed just blocks away from Rikers, weeks before he was to receive his remunerations check.

He was a father. He was a fighter. He was a nigger.

Only I am too. How am I supposed to sleep knowing the terrorists are out there, laying in wait for me and my people,  with guns and the full support of the United States government?

I can’t. I promised to Choose Change, but in the face of such insurmountable odds, beneath the clouds of structural racism, what woman can see the silver lining?

The forty men and women who have lost their lives at the hands of police in December are victims 1088-1127 since January of this year- eight times the amount of people killed in the Paris attacks. How much more are we supposed to take? Which black body will be the last straw, the spark that sends a deeply racially divided country up in flames?

The issue seems too large, and the more I discover, the less I realize I knew. I’m spiraling out, or, as my bestie would say, going down the rabbit hole. I find myself on the FBI vault, reading reports about how white supremacist organizations have been infiltrating police stations since 2006 using a technique the Feds call ‘ghost-skinning’. To further complicate matters, the same prosecutors that depend on police cooperation to win cases are responsible for bringing charges against the very officers who ensure their paychecks.

The system has not been corrupted, it is corrupt. Policing in the United States is rooted in the control and dominion over brown bodies. According to encyclopedia.com, the colonies relied mainly on a system of community policing called night watches.

“In addition to night watch systems, there were sheriffs appointed by the governor and constables elected by the people. These individuals were responsible for maintaining order and providing other services. [Researchers] Nalla and Newman have described the following as problems plaguing colonial cities that were considered the responsibility of police: controlling slaves and Indians; maintaining order; regulating specialized functions such as selling in the market and delivering goods; maintaining health and sanitation; managing pests and other animals; ensuring the orderly use of streets by vehicles; controlling liquor, gambling, vice, and weapons; and keeping watch for fires.”

Note that the primary responsibility of our earliest police officers was to control black and brown bodies. The racial residue from the institution’s inception persists in modern day, reminding me that black and brown bodies have not been criminalized- they are (and always have been) criminal.

The highly militarized tactics we employ in policing black and brown bodies have become the proverbial ‘backfiring gun’ in America’s face. Out of the 1,140  Americans killed by police so far this year, more than half of them were white. Most were Christians. Eighteen were children. This is not Justice.

I’m used to fighting the system. I’ve been doing it all my life. Reality has tempered my idealism to the point where I am no longer surprised by Pyrrhic victories. But I have no idea what to do when the system itself is the problem, when there is no victory, hollow or otherwise, to be had. If White lives don’t matter-- if Jeremy Mardis’ life doesn’t matter, black and brown lives don’t stand a chance.

I’m ready to give up when a scripture comes to mind: ““Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work... is finished.” (1 Chronicles 28:20) .

I chose change and I’m sticking to it if the police it kills me. I don’t have any answers yet,  just a burning feeling in my gut and plenty of questions. I force myself to lay down, zen out, and get some rest before sunrise. I’m going to need it. I’ve got work to do.

12.30.15

I walked away from this hoping that prayer and a steady diet of positive quotes would make things better. I even started another post about women and politics (my number two and three favorites to write about) and why Hillary will never be President.

I had the best of intentions, I promise. But then the Sandra Bland verdict came out. I am reminded of Roxane Gay’s eloquently condemning op ed for the Times last July where she said: “As a black woman, I feel this tragedy through the marrow of my bones. We all should, regardless of the identities we inhabit.”

Two days later, the Tamir Rice verdict was released.

This visceral loss is no longer something I can continue to ‘wait for an appropriate time’ to discuss. I am both unwilling and unable to be that patient.

Writers like Roxane Gay and Ta Nehisi Coates have the cloak of publicity to shield them from recompense when writing about the physicality of racism. Somehow, I doubt my meager readership qualifies as sufficient insulation. So when I speak about Sandra Bland, I do it with full cognizance that I am Sandra Bland, that if I am killed, no justice is forthcoming for my corpse, and that in some ways people will feel that I was asking for it.

I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to keep at it because while death is a certainty, living free is not.

... And now, back to your regularly scheduled psychobabble

As the six of you who regularly read my little column may have noticed, I struggle with depression. I was officially diagnosed in 2011, although I probably should have been outed somewhere around 2005.

Anyway, fighting depression is about having the mental discipline to feed your mind only positive information, the physical discipline to exercise your body enough to keep yourself in a constant state of endorphin induced euphoria, and the spiritual humility to beg for mercy and guidance when all else fails.

It’s like being on Paleo while doing a crossfit 30 day challenge.

Except my cheat days generally end with me crying in the shower.

So I apologize if you were totally unprepared for my last post, I was too.

I have been pretty dissatisfied with my life lately and finally decided to stop whining about it and actually do something about it.

I’m thirty one. I know what I think I should be doing right now. Kicking ass at business. Taking names on the dating scene. Changing the world with wry prose and witty peri-apocalyptic romance novels.

Instead, I find myself sitting in the basement, holding a pity party of one, frantically refreshing my Etsy inbox, hoping for a sale.

Well I refuse to squander my gifts any longer, and I refuse to live my life in any kind of box-- not even one of my own making.

An old friend helped me come to this realization on Independence day.

I know what you’re thinking.

And yes, as a matter of fact, we did  go to middle school together.

CK, my gorgeous, crazy, amazingly intelligent and funny Blendian friend has the kind of hair black girls dream about. It’s dense yet fine, soft, with lots of body and fluffy ringlets when air dried.

#hairenvy

No heat damage, thanks 2 GGC

So of course, she loves it when I straighten it.

I’ve gotten a lot better at taming her mane over the past ‘sixteen years. Still, she was in my ‘studio’ long enough for me to decide that I was definitely going to finish growing my hair out, that I had amazing products that truly worked miracles, and that I had to be more aggressive about going after the things I wanted-- in all aspects of life.

So I joined Bumble, made a seven page life plan, strapped on my big girl panties and waded into the murky, questionably toxic bay that is life.

I’m determined to be open. And I actually kind of love Bumble (I already have a date!).

I am taking advantage of the beautiful Cleveland summer by getting out there and participating in as many vending events as possible (I have ten shows this month so far).

Unfortunately, so much time spent living life outside the box gives me considerably less time to write about it, so necessity dictates that either the quality, frequency, or length of my posts will suffer.

I’m choosing length.

I refuse to give up on my writing or squander any of my numerous talents. So while I’m no Polonius, I’m going to give that brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit thing a try.

You’ll get shorter posts, more often.

I’ll get to have a life worth writing about and less shower sob-fests.

It’s a win-win.

Choosing Change Part III: Thank God I’m Black in America

The title of this week's post may come as a surprise to my regular readers (all five of you). That’s because, typically, I use this space to rant about life’s injustices, racial disparity, false faith, and generally all the way that it sucks to be black in America.

But racism, like all types of suffering, is relative.

Last year I promised to choose change, to try and be a better person, and to look for the good in the world.

I’m not always up to it, but today as I was working on my business plan, setting goals for my future, it suddenly occurred to me how profoundly blessed I am to be black in a country where owning a business can be more than a pipe dream, where people who look like me have adequate buying power to be considered a market segment, and where people who don’t look like me enthusiastically purchase and promote my brand.

When you think about it, being black in America, as bad as it is, is significantly better than being black most anywhere else in the world (except maybe Canada. Canada rocks!)

Don’t believe me?

Let’s look at the facts.

We already know that 62 people make more than half of the world combined. Now let’s look at where the poor people live:

Urban population living in slums:

Slums. Not ghettos...

Slums.

Now look at where people live on less than $2 per day:

Now look at where people are starving:

Now look at where people don’t live very long:

Seeing a pattern yet?

But Ajah, you might ask, what about those countries that are always in the Blue or Grey? Surely it can’t suck to be black everywhere!

Hmm, ok.

Let’s take Italy for example. They have a concept of Esterofilia, or a love of all things foreign. Yet it didn’t stop them from creating this awesome(ly racist) cartoon:

[Hint...teach your children racism from the cradle. It sticks better that way!]

Esterofilia is also some small comfort to Cecile Keyenge, Italy’s first black government minister. Fellow members of government threatened her with violence and likened her to an orangutan. Citizens threw bananas at her on her way to work on building a better Italy.

This article profiles a Bolivian writer and filmmaker in Australia and the racism she experienced while living there. If a hot, smart Bolivian wasn’t feeling the love, I doubt ‘chocolate me’ would fare much better.

I won’t even discuss blacks living in Asia, where pale skin and waiflike physiques are the standard of beauty.

Even in Brazil, where blacks are the majority of the population, discrimination is rampant, and hate crimes against black trans women are everyday occurrences.

Chew on this: Brazil is 51% black. Yet they have ONE prime time TV show with black leads.

We have Scandal, Blackish, the Carmichael show, Empire, Rosewood, The Daily Show, The Nightly Show, Little Big Shots, Truth Be Told, CHicago Med, Chicago Fire, Orange is the New Black, How to Get Away With Murder, Underground, and many, many more.

They have: Mister Brau, which is basically an evening soap about Brazil’s Jay-Z and Beyonce.

Sisters living in the UK routinely pay up to $20 for a single pack of kanekalon braiding hair.

Outside of Canada, no (developed) country seems to love and accept black beauty as much as the United States.

Don’t get me wrong, we have our problems-- the black community still doesn’t have much significant power in the States, but we do have influence, both locally and globally.

When America is at his worst and I wonder if it’s worth it to keep fighting (versus immigrating to Canada), I remember this:

Black and Brown people across the diaspora look to me and other Americans of African descent to forge a path, shoot for the stars and fail like lightning; dream; defy; demand; debate; to be beautifully, loudly, unapologetically black.

To be free.