Nails, Nails, and More Nails..........Well Not Really

So over the past few months I have become a "Nail Polish Addict."  In the month of March alone I purchased over 20 new bottles of polish.  Every Sunday I give myself, Mom and my two little sisters, my mentees, a colorful manicure.  I've done animal prints, stripes, triangles, Easter themes and last night I create a TinkerBelle manicure.

Asha, the youngest sister is a TinkerBelle fan.  She has the graphic t-shirts, bead spread, pajamas, etc.  Since her Easter theme mani, which consisted of a chicken hatching out of an egg and colorful cracked "eggs" did not last the entire week we decided to try a TinkerBelle mani.  Now, for the life of me I can't draw very well on paper, but I can do it on nails, clothes, etc.  I attempted to sketch out half of TinkerBelle's face and another fairy from the movie.  After drawing it on paper I was convinced this mani was headed for disaster.  But I was wrong!!!  Here is the final result!!!! 

TinkerBelle :-)

Iridessa :-)

I LOVE THIS MANI!!! MY BEST YET :-)

Intro to the Natural Hair Chronicles

Ok, I have a confession……I’m natural! Yes, like 100% natural. I wear my naps in braids and twist every day, every week, every month.  I stopped relaxing my hair in 2009 and SLOWLY but surely cut off all of my relaxed ends by September 2010.  Now I didn’t go natural because I saw the movie “Good Hair” or because I started being self righteous or anything like that.  My decision to go natural was because I would relax my hair and then weave it up.  I was putting chemicals in my hair for no reason.  One day when I was taking my tracks out I noticed a lot of breakage.  I decided enough was enough.  So from maybe Jan 2010 until Sept 2010 I cornrow my natural hair and rocked a lace front wig.  You could not tell me my lace front was NOT the business!!!  Almost everyone thought I was rocking my hair.    

      

It looks like it is my hair....yes, my weaving skills are GREAT!

                                                                            

Fast forward to Sept 2010 when I was told by the Creative Director of Get Lifted Ensemble, the dance company I minister with, that I needed to wear a bun for our concert.  Needless to say I was afraid to dance in my lace front because I did not want it falling off while I was in the middle of praise and worship.  Yes, ministering with GLE has caused me to give God a good, southern Holy shout!  I could not risk being embarrassed!  So I asked around and was led to this wonderful young lady named Lynda who specialized in natural hair!  For the concert she braided my hair into a side bun and it looked wonderful.  From that day forward I have been wearing my hair……sometimes I might add a little, but no full weaves, etc.

It took me some time to get use to rocking my own hair.  I haven’t done it sooo long….I’m talking 2003! There were days when I left ugly and wanted to weave it up or where a wig or grab the creamy crack and wear it straight….but I didn’t.  Between friends, family and other naturals I kept at it.  Here we are 16 months later and my hair has grown….A LOT and it’s finally healthy.  Lynda has managed to get my edges growing and my hair now touches my back!! That is a first!!! 

Now I have some THICK hair and every visit to the salon is a trip.  I have to take my style down the night before and sleep in conditioner in effort to keep my hair moisturized.  I arrive to the salon around 9:30 where I am washed, deep conditioned, detangled and blow dried.  That process takes about 2 hours!!! Yes, I know it seems like a long time, but my hair is that course *insert sad face* After that, the styling begins.  This can take another 2-4 hours.  But I come out looking GREAT!!!! 

My goal is to grow “arm pit” length hair.  Hopefully I will get there in the next 18 months.  It is my goal to blog my progress.  So here are the pictures of my hair growth thus far.  Look at the growth :-) 

Nov 2010

Mar 2011

Feb 2012

Nail Obsession

Over the past few months I have been purchasing nail polish left and right.  From stores, nail salons, online, off the corner…..everywhere.  It started because I grew tired of having bare nails.  I wanted some color to show off my style.  So I started getting manicures, but after a few nails the polish would begin to chip.  My nail tech Lucy talked me in to getting gel nails.  Now I use to wear acrylics for a long time, but they did damage to my natural nails.  Since I trusted Lucy I decided to give them a try.  I loved my gel nails.  I could wear polish and not worry about it chipping.  My nails also began to grow very long which meant I could do more with them design wise. 

While on one of the social networking sites I read about something called shatter polish and I had to try it.  I ordered three shatter colors from Amazon and was hooked.  I started ordering OPI mini sets and shatter polishes every week until I had every color.  It got to the point where I was carrying my polish bag to the nail salon.  I shattered everything…my nails and toes.  I would shatter all my nails or maybe just four depending on how I was feeling. 

After a few months Lucy informed me it was time to get another full set.  Meaning I had to soak off the gel acrylics and get more put back on.  Now I had been seeing signs around the salon advertising gel polish so I told Lucy I would try that instead.  According to reviews it would not damage my nails like acrylics and the polish would last for up to three weeks.  Lucy gave me the standard manicure and proceeded to use gel polish to finish me up.  The outcome was nice!  I loved it!! My nails were shiny, polsih won’t chip and would be able to recover from the acrylic damage……so I thought.  After a few gel polish manicures I noticed my nails were thinning and splitting L I had no choice but to remove the gel polish,  trim my nails down and wait for them to grow back strong #Losing

It’s been about six weeks and my nails are starting to look healthy again.  They are still short so I can’t do much with them design wise.  I just keep applying clear polish until they grow out.  Once they get a little length I will be back to being a full fledge nail addict and I cannot wait.  Plain nails are for the birds, expecially during the summer time!