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When I was young, I had dead straight hair. So did both my sisters…except for my little sister who had dead straight hair ending in curls. She now has dead straight hair period. She’s the only one of the three girls who is lucky enough to have straight hair. It seemed to have gotten straighter as it went down the line. My oldest sister’s hair went curly upon the onset of puberty and now will fall into beautiful drop curls or frizz into oblivion, depending on its mood of course. Mine decides whether it wants to be curly or wavy, depending on the day, and sometimes even tries to straighten out – but never quite reaches any reasonably defined texture. As much as this is interesting, it’s frustrating, and since coming to England, my hair has been reminding me that 1) it does not like humidity and 2) it can curl and frizz too – almost as much as my older sister’s hair can.
When I first left Trinidad (no I’m not telling you how many years ago!!), I did not believe the difference in my hair texture and quality in the dry atmosphere of Canada. Or maybe I should say I screamed in frustration every time I visited Trinidad because my hair went “Ack – humidity?!” and curled up into big curly almost-80s-esque tresses – all of which I was not used to styling. If I had bangs/a fringe? God help me. My older sister had (and still has) the same problem, sometimes to a worse extent – we often just depend on the almighty ponytail to help get us through the day looking half-way decent. Woe be onto you if you happen to have a migraine that day.
In high school in Trinidad, a girl named Tamara had the most gorgeous curly hair….and I loved her hair (and still do btw Tams), and coveted it daily (and still do btw, Tams)…why? Because she had the most beautiful tumbling curls that always seemed to effortlessly fall gracefully over her shoulders in the most graceful manner. I wanted it. No more boring half-straight hair or frizzies, hello beautiful, lush curls. I could not figure it out for the life of me how her hair could be so flipping gorgeous (yes I am a little bit bitter!) yet my sister’s and mine were tied down into submission daily.
I never did find out what Tams did to make her hair so beautiful (even though I’m still in touch with her I’ve never asked her up to this day!), but I did find out that curly hair tends to be very dry once I moved to Canada and my sis and her other curly haired friend discovered a certain Canadian website that catered to curly haired women in Canada and had a full listing of curly-haired resources from best conditioners, to where to purchase them to where to find hairdressers most experienced in curly hair…and it had resources for every single description of curly hair….So that’s when my sister and I discovered hair products.
This was a good almost-2-decades ago (shadddaaap) and I had a lot less allergies then. Or at least, so I like to think – so I used to use all sorts of products in brightly coloured bottles and jars, with lovely fruity scents and all sorts of textures. Anything that would reduce frizz and increase moisture became good buddies with my sister and I. Wide tooth combs both in the shower and after the shower became commonplace in our apartments and all sorts of oils and conditioners over the years were well utilized. In fact, if you travel back in time and look at our washrooms in both Trinidad and in our respective apartments in Canada, the vanities were cluttered with all sorts of hair products (both conditioning and for removing unwanted hair…*ahem*). We both eventually found our favourite products and I got my hair under control (or at least where I thought it was)….and I like to think so did my sister. I was in wavy/curly hair bliss for quite a while – ask any of my Canadian blogging friends – I doubt a single one of them every heard me seriously complain about my hair (until I bleached it white so that I could dye it purple but that’s a different story altogether).
Then I moved to England. Not to worry, right? It’s notoriously humid in England so my hair should behave fairly similarly to how it does in Trinidad – lush curls, but because it’s colder, controlled lush curls, right? WRONG. Like so many other things that I assumed about this country, I was wrong about that. My skin and my hair have actually gotten really dry – and what happens when wavy/curly hair gets really dry (go read above if you can’t remember!) – FRIZZ. Luckily, I have this brilliant cousin who makes her own hair products. Her children are mixed-race, and her older daughter has about four different types of textures on her beautiful little head – with none of them being even close to straight. Quite the challenge for a wavy/straight haired Mama! So she developed this orange scented natural hair conditioner for her girls, which did wonders in moisturizing their hair and keeping it tangle free. She even developed a shampoo and a leave in conditioner for them! She did try to get me to use it and insisted that for my hair and my sister’s hair, we should try to find products that DID NOT SUD – that would mean there are less detergents in the product.
Of course, like most people I was brainwashed into thinking that if it doesn’t sud, it doesn’t clean – but the fact is that it does. I didn’t quite believe her 100% until recently when I tried the Bouclème line, a line of natural hair products developed specifically for curly hair. This is not my cousin’s line, in fact I discovered it completely independently of her. It would meet her approval, however, because the products are all natural with very little detergent in them, yet the shampoo cleans spectacularly, the conditioner is lush and thick and the scrunching gel does not stay sticky in your hands nor cause your hair to be rock hard.
I love it. I especially love that they are lemon-scented (I think – I tend to be bad with scents!) which has become one of my favourite scents recently! The gentle scent just makes me enjoy using the products even more. I’ll be honest and say that I do still interchange my favourite detergent-laden shampoo in between the Bouclème shampoo, just because I’m a bit brainwashed with the sudsing thing and can’t quite get the concept of no suds = clean into my head. The conditioner is just divine. I have to use a good bit of it and use it mainly on the bottom half of my hair (because my scalp gets oily but the ends get really dry), but the results are amazing. Once that conditioner hits your hair it practically melts away all the tangles and leaves your hair smooth and silky….to the point where I start to wonder HOW a natural product could create such amazing results.
Bouclème has also developed this special jersey hair wrap to wrap your head in while drying. This towel encourages natural drying and keeps your curls in place while they dry without squishing them. This results in curly, bouncy hair like I’ve never seen. Seriously. I am considering buying a few of these. My only issue (and I may be mistaken) is that you have to leave your hair to dry naturally (without a hair dryer) – and with my last minute tendencies and the cold climates of England and Canada, that’s just not always possible for me. I did do it once, however, and a second time used it and used my hair dryer while leaving it on my head and that worked quite well – see how to use it in their cool little video below:
What I loved most about the Bouclème products was that my hair was no-fuss, ridiculously soft, healthy, bouncy and full. I have been feeling as if I’ve been losing hair recently because I find it has been looking really flat – but I love the bounce and the fullness that the whole Bouclème system resulted in! I felt so beautiful after quite a while of feeling drab. These products are definitely on my “keep buying and keep using” list – especially the conditioner and the gel…and maybe even a few of those jersey based towels – at least for the rare occasions when I’m not washing my hair in the middle of the night!
Are you a curly girl? How do you get your hair to behave and look amazing?
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***Oh, and for more Bouclème fun, don’t forget to check out Actress Thandie Newton & Makeup Artist Kay Montano on Twitter and Instagram . Why be scared of your natural hair? – join the #frizzchallenge!
Also say hi to Bouclème on Twitter & Instagram for some great tips on how to treat your curly hair!***
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- ...just trying to navigate through this obstacle course called life...
