Wednesday, March 30, 2011

No-poo

"Every day is a new day in a curly girl's life,"
said stylist and author Lorraine Massey

ha.. bet you thought this blog would be about poop. Well, its not. Its about shampoo and how I have gone without it for the most part of four years. Yep you read that right neither me or my girls use shampoo!!

This system comes from this book that I love so much: Curly Girl - and if you have naturally curly hair or even just a little tiny bit wavy hair you should read it!!


me before curly girl with my straightening attempt - look at little Benjamin :)

To sum up my no-poo understanding - AVOID SULFATES -Sodium Lauryl/laureth Sulfate is the main ingredient in most shampoos and for that matter, handsoap, dishwashing soap, laundry detergent, basically anything that suds up! Its good at sudsing up but not so much cleaning hair - it may break up oil but mostly it adds build-up. (Its not cancer causing like some granola people like to claim)

Think of your pretty curls like a new sponge - ever put a squirt of dishsoap on a new sponge squish it up a bit?? Then how long does it take to really wash out that soap - FOREVER - and does it really all come out?? I doubt it. So that main ingredient in shampoo is doing the same to your curls...


building up, weighing down your hair, stripping of it its natural oils which fight frizz, and attacting dirt to what doesn't get washed out all the way.

I used to have this vicious cycle with my hair - I'd wash it... it's be a frizzy mess then for the next few days I'd avoid washing it until it started to look less frizzy and kind of ok, then I'd start to feel guilty "ewww I better wash my hair its been too long - conditioner and water isn't enough to get it "clean" and then I'd wash it - starting the vicious cycle over again. I even for a while bought "clarifying shampoo" the mother of all sodium lauryl sulfates and really washed the frizz right into town - thinking that would make up for the days when I only used water and conditioner!

Then Lorraine Massey and her AMAZING book gave me permission in a sense to do what instinct had already been telling me - DON'T USE SHAMPOO!!!!!

This system is known as no-poo, or co-wash for (conditioner washing) or CG method named after the curly girl book.

So how do you No-poo exactly?

Since her book came out almost ten years ago - this movement has caught on and there are many different ways to "no-poo" - some do wash rarely, some "wash" with vinegar or baking soda. I avoid shampoo almost altogether except after many days of swimming in the summer.

I do it this way:

1. Treat curly hair with respect - curly hair is actually very thin - which I didn't believe when I first read it - but its true my hair is thin there is just A LOT of it! and it breaks easily and frizzes easy. So I don't brush dry fragile curly hair. I only use my fingers on wet conditioned hair- no comb, no brush, no pick - If you wanted you could use a wide tooth comb but my fingers work best

2. Stand in the shower and let the water soak your hair completely.

3. Add a HECK OF A LOT of conditioner. Conditioner has some mild surfactants, that with friction do CLEAN your hair!!
I use so much I stick with the cheap stuff and its perfect - don't get swept into the expensive is better - I've used almost all of them and el-cheapo is just as good. I buy in bulk at Sally - do their survey online and I am paying after my monthly $5 coupon - almost nothing... (about every other month that conditioner is 1/2 off)

4. "Wash" your hair with that conditioner - scrub your scalp and run your fingers through getting out all of the knots.

5. rinse well

6. add a little bit more conditioner and just barely rinse this through - leaving some in. Wrap hair in old t-shirt when you get out not a towel - towels frizz up curls

7. Add gel when wet and gently, ever so gently scrunch up your curls - use clips to pick up hair on top of head and pin up to dry - to avoid triangle head:

Once your hair is the way you like it HANDS OFF - If you like it wet you'll like it when it dries - don't touch.

8. avoid products with silicone - like frizz ease - they just coat your curls with plasticky glue!!! - I If you have been using those products you will have to start this system by washing your hair with clarifying shampoo to get that stuff out.



And now for my rant....
I am so saddened by all the straight ironing, poisining our bodies with chemical straightners (did that in college)- hating our natural hair phenomenon.
Embrace your hair ladies - its like the bra burning of our day and age. How much time is wasted blow drying our hair straight - standing in front of the mirror with the flat iron - money wasted on the expensive chi appliances? Avoiding humidity, swimming pools, because of the time it would take to re-do your hair. Sometimes not even showering because you'd have to re-straighten your hair.
Many black women spend HUGE percentages of their income just on their hair. Money wasted in my opinion. I make a point to tell every woman I see who has embraced natural curl - I LOVE YOUR HAIR. And I do- Heavenly Father didn't make wavy, curly, kinky hair so we could spend hours and thousands making it look straight like everyone else's.

My hair may not always look perfect and I do think it ok to change it up once in a while - so I am not 100% against owning a straight iron - but for the most part I am rocking what nature gave me. It took me a long time to come to this curly nirvana - but I am glad I am finally here! Thank You Lorraine Massey!!!



PS. some of you will say/think, but only if I had "good" curls I wouldn't straighten them. Read the book, do the routine then talk to me - because I'm not buying it.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

grand plans

I had these magnificent "spring cleaning plans" for Spring Break
We were going to keep our normal go to bed and get up for school schedule. Then every day we would work on a spring cleaning project until lunch. Then eat lunch and head out every afternoon for a fun excursion!


This was the plan - exactly as I had it on the ipod:
Big projects

Wash walls
Shampoo carpets
Organize summer clothes
Scrub bathrooms
Purge toys
dusting

REWARDS
Nickel games
Library & ice cream
Swimming
Dollar movies
Roller skating

SCHEDULE
Breakfast at 7
Dressed and at work by 8
Clean until 12
Lunch & leave

All of these plans were derailed by this
So we missed out on most of the cleaning I had planned. I did get them to kind of wash the walls and I did manage to organize clothes and scrub the bathrooms (alone) after the puppy came home. But I am sad that my carpets didn't get shampoo'd - but that would be a silly project to do with a new dog in the house.

I do plan on renting a heavy duty machine as soon as house training is set in stone. - I am a little (read alot) embarrassed at how disgusting our carpet is. Now that we have a dog I wonder if people think the stains are dog related -- they are not. I have the bad habit of letting my kids have the bad habit of eating on the carpet (I pick my battles) - so our over 10 year old bottom of the line builder carpet is nasty.

Maybe when we are debt free it will be a purchase to save for - new flooring...
and a new dishwasher
and a blentec blender
and a suburban
and Kyle wants a shotgun...

enough with the wants - we are close to being debt free (except not really because we have a huge student loan that we are putting in baby step 6)

anyway I digress.. Since we didn't do our Fun activities over spring break we did take the kids rollerskating this past Saturday - want to return to your childhood for a moment - literally this place has to be exactly like it was in 1982 -
Thunderbird Skate Rink in Plano:


do not be overly impressed with Maiya's mad skills there - she ditched the skates and came out in socks.
Ella LOVED it there and skated her little heart out - everyone else started to ditch us - Kyle wiped out big time, Benjamin fell and commando crawled to the exit and decided the arcade even without money was more fun, Cora liked skating on the carpet and Sarah thought it was better to let me embarrass myself alone.
even though this is a crappy blurry pic - it cracks me up - I love how all the kids like to stop and entertain PJ throughout the day - its like he's on a little cruise in life with unlimited cheesy shows.


And on to the little dude really running the show right now:
Hickory, (at Allen Dog Park)
Hickory is a good puppy. Hickory is a good puppy. Hickory is a good puppy.
There I said it three times.
He has come out of his shell - he made quick work of beating out the baby gates and he dug up two squares of my garden.
BUT... He is a lot of fun - there haven't been too many accidents and for the most part chews on his toys - and the laundry basket but that is ok.
He is sleeping with me and Kyle and he does sleep through the night. I keep him with me everywhere during the day - I think training is a lot better if they are very socialized puppies. This means he even comes in the bathroom with me when I shower and yesterday he started to poop ... I stopped him and ran him to the backyard completely naked and dripping wet. I hoped all my neighbors were at work.
We have been to Allen leash free dog park many, many times. Its funny how getting a new dog is kind of like a new baby - everyone thinks they can give you all this unsolicited advice.
What are you feeding him?
oh don't give him that its baaaaddd
Are you crating him?
you better crate him
or
oh nooooo don't crate him its cruel
is he neutered?
who is your vet?
you just have to drive all the way to X you won't regret it....

it gets annoying - but the kids and hickory love it there!
Its been the first thing Benjamin asks when he gets off the bus:

"Are we going to the dog park"

Monday, March 21, 2011

my garden


I blogged about it HERE

and now there are 9 mouths to feed...

Introducing...
HICKORY
the newest member of the Oyakawa clan/pack/family
named after the Tin Man
The day we adopted him we couldn't take him home because he was already scheduled for his "big snip" We spent the morning getting ready to go get him spring cleaning, puppy proofing, and looking at videos of dog getting neutered on you tube, (Benjamin couldn't watch)
When we got there to get him there had been confusion and our collar was missing and they didn't know which dog was ours - good thing he has the mis-coloring on his nose so we were sure it was him.
He has a microchip now
We have been thinking and talking about a dog for a while - and had nixed the idea 99.9999999% of the time, until we made the mistake of actually looking at the cute puppies up for adoption at Petsmart - this little guy stole our hearts. Especially Kyle's!
He's a gentle soul - and PJ is completely intrigued

They say he's a boxer/black mouth curr mix - we see the blackmouth curr thing (they are cow herding dogs - very loyal and smart) - and no we'd never heard of that breed either.
We don't so much see the boxer in him - he doesn't have the kinda scary boxed mouth thing going on... yet.
He is fitting right in and already learning to sit and go potty outside.
We have taken him with us just about anywhere we could so far, except the pinewood derby and church but other than that he's come along for the ride
he's slept in the bed with Kyle and I every night and we are sort of crate training during the day
We loved taking him to the leash free dog park in Allen and see ourselves making that drive quite often. I wish I could have taken Zeke there but with his arthritis it would have been too much. When we were there the other night there were two great danes playing and it sounded like horses bounding up behind me.
Cheers to life with a dog again - and thanks to my mom for encouraging me. I asked her several times what she thought (thinking she'd be the voice of reason to talk me out of it right now) and she said and I agree:
Every kid needs a dog!

P.S. - He was in a litter of seven that were abandoned in a ditch with their momma - 5 siblings are still up for adoption from here and they come to Petsmart every weekend... you know just in case you are crazy and thinking about a dog too.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

I saw a baby be born!! I saw a baby be born!!

Introducing imagesfromoz birth photography:
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It was such an amazing experience to be there for this little angel's birth! And a week later for her newborn shoot:

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Tuesday, March 08, 2011

happenings

Ella was elected for spring student council!!!
We're in the process of planting a garden

Benjamin was Francis Scott Key for a school project
We made a mardi gras cake from scratch, the pic makes the color look terrible, but its purple green and gold...
Maiya got a new haircut, it made her mom and daddy sad, but she loves it
And so much for recording every little thing...
Mr. PJ is kicking, rolling, grabbing, babbling and starting to rock on his knees every once in a while... I don't expect him to be nearly as mellow as his sister Cora is...