World Femininity Day......I missed it!

Did you know that yesterday 24th June was world femininity day? I accidently stumbled upon this fact whilst reading the guardian newspaper. The mission of WFD is:

"To acknowledge and celebrate femininity by women, for women, for humanity. We believe it is vitally important as women to be encouraged to feel powerful through our femininity as opposed to matching or competing with masculine ways of being to achieve power in our lives whether that be socially, in relationships, family or career. check out the website below."

http://www.worldfemininityday.com/index.html

Wear a flower in your hair, go on ladies this will make us all very feminine and empowered! This sucks so much I am probably the least feminine out of the BDSS ladies, I like to get ready and go, I wear no make up on a day to day basis the exception being when I have somewhere fabulous to go, I don't do my nails, or make a huge fuss over my hair. I am feminine in that I shave my arm pits and legs but I am not overly so. I work with my natural God given feminine attributes! I do occasionally dabble in youtube make up tutorials but after 2 minutes of watching, where the person is bringing out a 5th make up brush to apply a 3rd layer of foundation to the other layers already applied, I get disinterested. I think I do a sort of low maintenance femininity by default; I am a woman so I act as such and do feminine things. I often get people commenting on the fact that I don't wear make up on a daily basis like it is the strangest thing ever. However I feel very comfortable with my look and appearance and I know that when I glam up and get all womanly I feel great, so I don't feel the need to do it every day.

So I am wondering BDSS'ers what does femininity mean to you? How do you express it? And also for the BDSS'er guys, what feminine qualities do you love about women and how feminine does a sister have to be? Lol!

One week TWA (teeny weeny afro)

So if you have read my previous post He won't support my natural hair dream... then you will know that I made the decision to forgo the relaxer around November last year and I'm happy to report that this week I have been wearing my twa to the fullest and right now I can't imagine going back to relaxing.

Now originally I was planning to keep my hair in cornrows (washing and trimming the relaxed ends in between) until it grew out to a sufficient length to look well-decent!…

Plus I was a bit put off by the price of the styling products such as kinky Curly Custard which I can only find online for what I consider an extortion price in these austere times: 2011 the year of... 

However the more I watched the youtube natural ladies (which I mentioned in the above post) the more I was itching to see my curls, kinks or coils what ever you want to call them in their natural state…

Plus I was worried that the front of my hair was starting to recede in the middle (maybe I'm paranoid) but that was not a path I was willing to go down! lol

So anyways my lovely hunny bun who I moaned about in the above post (for not supporting my natural hair dream!) forked out the fee for my products and when they arrived last week Friday I could not resist…

So picture me late Friday night upbraiding, then conditioner washing my hair before applying the Kinky Curly Knot Today, cutting off my relaxed ends, applying the Kinky Curly Custard and then leaving it to dry…

…Three knackered hours later I was able to see the results and the results were that I fell in love with my TWA! Lol

Trust me it really is such a dramatic change considering it was only last September I was calling my hairdresser after 4/5 weeks of relaxing my hair to say it needed relaxing again because the thought of going on holiday with an inch of re-growth was so unappealing! (I was a fully fledged fiend to the creamy crack!)

Now I can't lie I was a bit nervous about my mother and child seeing my new do, as my son also doubles as the style police; and my mother has many notions around who in our family got the good hair and the negro hair (I've been told I got the latter –ha ha!) I was also pretty nervous about my boyfriend's response (his opinion does count sometimes!) as he has been looking at me like I was crazy ever since I announced I would be going natural! Lol

Not surprising they were not that enthusiastic. My mother said it looks nice but I should put the plaits back in and my boyfriend and son said it was not to their preference (fair enough we all have them!)

For a brief second I did start to question myself as in… Am I really not looking as great as the reflection is showing in the mirror? Am I fooling myself? Do I look a fool with my twa?

Well… let's just say the response I got from my work colleagues on Monday morning proved that my reflection was not lying… Lol and that I look bloody AWESOME! He-he

I was told I look healthy, gorgeous, like a model, like Halle Berry (in Swordfish -lol), stunning, and a wealth of other compliments!

…So yes this is a post to gloat about my hair! and also to encourage anyone who is thinking about going the natural root to do it!

I won't lie it is no more or less work than when I had relaxed hair but it is very satisfying to know I'm working with what the good Lord gave me!

He Won't Support My Natural Hair Dream...

Hey bdssr's just to let you know I have been indoctrinated by the YouTube 'natural movement’ (according to my other half!)… yep I have decided to forgo my relaxer and go back to my roots!! :-D

Now whilst I am quite excited about my new hair, apparently my decision to cut off my relaxer has already cost lots of money and ruined my relationship!

You see firstly a lot of these YouTube ‘naturals’ also do makeup tutorials and so I got a bit carried away in Boots the other day and spent a lot of money on make up (plus I frequent madeformakeup.com often).

I have also spent every spare minute of this (and last) weekend on YouTube trying to educate myself about natural hair care - hence neglecting my other half! lol

So my natural hair journey has already got off to a troubled start and I only have about one inch of natural hair on my head! however I am really excited about my decision and I’m anxiously waiting for the dreaded… (Relaxed haired ladies look away now) …regrowth! lol

Another major bump in the road to naturaldom is the fact that for the past two weeks my other half has been looking at me as if I have gone crazy and he has actually told me I won’t look good rocking the natural hair that the good Lord gave me!

Not only that … whilst I was watching all these natural women in all their kinky glory, he actually said and I quote: “none of these women actually look good Si!”

So I told him in no uncertain terms that everyone has different idea’s of what looks good and to me these women rocking their ‘wash and goes’, ‘twas’ and ‘defined curls’ confidently look great to me!

I also told him that it is HE who has been indoctrinated… with the idea that natural hair is not a good look… you mean to tell me he would rather have me putting the ‘Creamy Crack’ on my head resulting in dry itching scalp or rocking a weave for the rest of my life!? Why because the idea of my natural hair, which I might add he has never seen is so unappealing?

I mean my recent hair has just been lacking that ump! that va va voom! that wow factor!

It did grow to shoulder length last year after I wore a weave for about a year, however despite my best efforts to maintain the length every time I went to my hairdresser she said it was breaking, and at the root on one side! kmt

So I cut it into what a lot of people said was a really nice short style, and I quote ‘you could be a model’ type comments, however even that short style was hard to maintain (six weekly trips to get it relaxed and trimmed!) between then and now maintaining my hair has started to feel long!

Which is something I don’t think my other half gets, he only cares about the end results and not all the drama in between (i.e., the burning scalp, the itch you can’t scratch, the split ends, the hair turning brown, the constant blow drying and tonging to make it look decent etc) it was all just becoming laborious and the idea of ‘wash(ing) and go(ing)’ really appeals to me right about now.

Now don’t get me wrong I think no matter how you wear your hair as long as you feel good rocking it then it does not matter if its natural, relaxed, weaved or loc’d … as I have worn a number of hair styles over the years from when I first had a relaxed short Jada Pinkett cut, to a long weave, to braids with gelled down fringes… I have rocked them all and I have a wealth of photos on FB to prove it, lol.

But I have come to the conclusion that my relaxed hair is just not healthy and when I think back to the thick head of healthy hair I had as a child I miss it.

My relaxed hair is flat and limp, my hair of old had some umph to it!

Therefore I am embarking on a natural hair growth journey, and trust me after watching all the Youtube video’s it is a ‘journey’ back to healthy natural hair.

(If you have a minute have a look at African Export, Rustic Beauty, NappyChronicles and Kimmaytube on Youtube…as I said there is a natural movement going on!)

So what do you think bdssr’s have I gone crazy?  Is my boyfriend right, will I look atrocious rocking my natural curls? I mean I have assured him that if his predictions are correct and I end up looking terrible, that the creamy crack is available in all good PAK stores! So it’s really not such a big deal… or is it?