Oyin Handmade Review

This is day 7 hair. I used shampooed with Organix Tea Tree Shampoo and deep conditioned with Honey Hemp Conditioner. I used a little Cantu leave in and rubbed Whipped pudding all through my hair. As I did each twist, I added Burnt Sugar Pomade. At the end I sprayed with Juices and Berries and put my bonnet on.

For my maintenance every night I put a little Whipped Pudding on my twists and put a bonnet on. In the morning, before I shower, I spray some Juices and Berries on my hair then hop in the shower and let the steam help my hair plump back up.

(clearly I didn't think it was important enough to clean off the table. There's a book, The Green Beauty Guide, my lovely new obsession- a label maker, my coasters, TheCount's keys, and nail polish, lol)

I love Oyin products. I also had Shine and Define, which my momma took from me, because her hair liked it a lot more than mine did. The Shine and Define is thin, like it could come in a squeeze bottle. I didn't feel like I needed it because the other products gave my hair what she needed. The Whipped Pudding ($18 biggest size) is thick and soft and I use it every single day. I even used this while I was transitioning. It is excellent at keeping my hair moisturized. It is my favorite hair product and it gets dangerous around here if I run out. It can also be used on your skin. It has a ton of good stuff in it like shea butter, aloe vera gel, cocoa butter, castor oil, and go to the website if you want to read some more because they aren't paying me for this!

The Burnt Sugar pomade ($10) smells really good and it's also really popular with guys. MrC uses it every morning (replacing his 6 year love affair with Blue Magic) and I took one of his friends to get some too and he loves it as well. I prefer to use the pomade on my wet hair and only on my edges throughout the week because it is waxy.

I broke the top on my Juices and Berries bottle ($11) so that's why this bottle looks so bootleg. Y'all this stuff smells sooooooo good. I remember all of the products I used to use on my hair smelled so bad, but I would say "if it stinks, that means it's working." Whatever! All of these products work, and they smell divine. I also add a little of this to my hair water spray bottle.

I haven't had the Honey Hemp Conditioner ($11) for too long so I can't give too much information about that one. I deep conditioned with it after clarifying and my hair felt moisturized, so I give it a thumbs up so far!

On my body I use After Bath ($10). Every day when I get out of the shower I pat dry and rub the After Bath on while my skin is still damp. I have the coco mango scent. I've had the bottle for about 6 weeks and I have 25% left and that's with daily use. I use a natural body butter after the oil, so it isn't my only moisturizer. I have extremely dry skin and I used to have to lotion up 3-4 times a day. This paired with my body butter has allowed me to lotion up once a day :)

I also have Funk Butter ($5), which is used in place of deodorant. I tried it out, but it irritates my underarms after a few days, so I stopped using it. I'm going to experiment (on TheCount's body) to find other uses for it.

I also had the whipped shea butter. It's whipped shea butter. Yep. I don't have much use for just whipped shea butter.

The prices listed are for the sizes I have. I think they're reasonably priced for a company that uses all natural ingredients and makes their products by hand. I like to support good people with good products. It's black owned and local (for me, not y'all) and the owners are really nice. Oyin products are sold online and at their boutique in Baltimore, exittheapple. Seriously, if you live in the area, it's worth going into the store because the people are so dang nice. I have never had a bad experience there. They are only open on Saturdays from 12-7 though. Anyway, long post over- go buy some Oyin (so I can stop buying everything).

In case you were wondering, I think I'm going to go this weekend to get some lip balm and honey wash. You weren't wondering that? Oh well.

Week long twists

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about my favorite hair products, but today I sucked up my whining and posted more pictures of my hair. The longest parts of my hair are 3 inches, and the shortest pieces are 2 inches. I guess that's good to know when keeping track of growth, lol. Last week I left my twists in Sunday - Saturday. I wore them out (last picture) yesterday and today. I'll probably pick the twists apart to give myself a fro and wear that for a few days. I rarely can go this long between washes, but my beloved hair products have kept my hair so moisturized.

The first picture is from Monday right before TheCount and I went out to Copeland's, the second picture is Friday when I was sitting in traffic, and the last picture is Saturday right after I took the twists out.

Transitioning so Far

It's been 7 months since my last relaxer. Every week I have to pry the scissors out of my own hands because I just want to cut my hair all off. Every day I have to not allow myself to stop by the Hair Cuttery by my job and get them to cut it all off. Y'all I'm tired of trying to manage my hair. I'm tired of trying to blend my new growth with my relaxed hair. TheCount has made it clear that he doesn't want me to cut it yet, so I continue to hold out. I am going to go get a hair cut this week though. Look at that mess on my head...it desperately needs to be shaped. I haven't had a hairdresser touch my hair since, I think, it's long overdue.

This is my go to hair style these days. I wash my hair and let it air dry. Then I cornrow it generously coating it with Whipped Pudding by Oyin Handmade, spray it with water and some foaming wrap lotion and go to bed. Every other night I re-cornrow it.

Unfortunately, I'm the worlds slowest braider and it takes me forever to braid my hair. It takes me about 2 hours to do 6 braids- how lame. I normally just do it while chilling and watching tv, which probably slows me down. This picture was taken at about 2:30 am, or was it 3:30, either way, I was ready to be finished. I need to figure out how to keep my ends looking nice while I sleep. The rollers get twisted and my scarf messes them up too.

Another style that I did while transitioning is twists. My mom helped me do this, because it takes me about 4 hours. We twisted it and set it on perm rods. This was the night I had to help work a birthday party so I did a faux updo and make it a little fancy.

This picture is old and reminds me that I need to get my eyebrows done this week. It's probably from back in May or something like that.

I don't know if I can even get my hair to look this nice anymore. It was my very first transitioning hair style to mask the new growth. You know what, this took a long time too. I notice a trend with me, it takes me a long time to look presentable.

Yeahhhhhhh, more and more I want to cut my hair off. 2 inches of hair has to be easier than this.


All of these pictures came from my cell phone, so excuse the poor quality. I have some more errummm disaster pictures that I may post, if y'all are nice to me on this one, lol.

I'm going to do it!

Alright, last week I posted that I was considering going natural. I got some nice help for some of you lovely chicas that have already done it. Coincidentally, that same day, I was over at PJD's site and she did a vlog in which she discussed Miss Jessie's products that she got for her sister. I went over to Miss Jessie's site, cuz I'm a follower like that, and started looking around. My main concern was that if I went natural, I wouldn't ever be able to have pretty styles like the ladies on all the hair blogs. That I would be stuck with a boring bush and that's it. On Miss Jessie's site, they had before and after pictures of people in their salon. I was blown away! It gave me the courage to want to try it! I know of some really nice natural hair salons here in DC, and her (their?) salon is in New York, so if push comes to shove, I'll hop my butt on a bus and go up there and let them fix me up.

So there you have it, I'm going to transition to natural. Let's hope this goes better than when I tried to be a vegetarian in January...




...in case you weren't around back then. I lasted less than 2 months because I realized eating potatoes and pasta every day probably wasn't the best idea and all those fruits and veggies just made me hungry (and kept me in the bathroom).