Keri Hilson - Pretty Girl Rock

New Chapter

I thought this would be my new start
My new beginning
This was supposed my world so could finally start living
I was so excited
I felt renewed
Then realized settled in
And I took a deeper look in the environment I’m in
These people are mean and not what I excepted
I don’t know what do you
I don’t how to feel
Someone please wake me up out of this dream
Please tell me that this is not real
I feel like there is so much in store for me if could just hold on
Before sometimes the wait it just seems so long
I must have strength
I must have faith
I have to believe that I can win this race
The race is not given to the swift or the strong but those who can endure to the end
I must believe and know that with God’s hope I can win

Why I Decided to Go Natural : )

Since I was a child I wore braids, weaves, and extensions. This was because my hair was extremely short. I did not wear my own hair until my junior year of high school. By this time my hair had grown out significantly, and I finially had the long and healthy hair I always dreamed of. During college I tried to maintain the health and length of my hair which was difficult. I began to perm, color, and cut my hair unneccessarily. My hair became damaged so I went back to what I knew best...weave. This only made my hair, skin and self-esteem much worse.

Weave became my addiction. It gave me a confidence I never knew I had. I felt beautiful, sexy, and powerful. However, I began to not like how I looked when I took it off. The weave actually damaged my hair more. I started to get bald spots and my hair began to break off. I stopped perming my hair because I knew something had to change. The weave also made my face break out. It was absolutley horrible....my hair was falling out and my face was breaking out because off the one thing I didn't think I could live without.

I transitioned for four months. I took out my weave and big chopped on September 16, 2009. Going natural was not an easy process. I learned so much about myself. I honestly lost friends and gained soooo many. Some people actually did not accept my natural hair, and tried to make me feel like I was not feminine and beautiful. Despite it all I could never be happier. I am no longer hiding damaged hair and acne skin behind weave. Instead of investing in my hair and now am investing me as a person. I have a healthy lifestyle now. I eat healthy foods, I've lost weight, my skin is clear. I can truely say that I feel beautiful and no one's comment about my hair can alter my feelings about myself.

Negative Comments About Natural Hair

I do not understand why people continously make negative comments about natural hair. I don't think people really understand the meaning of natural hair and what it represents. Natural hair makes a statement, and has a purpose. It represents the black culture, our history, and our struggle. Black people did not always wear weaves, perms, and texturizers. When black people lived in Africa.......they had natural hair. When black people were slaves....they had natural hair. Even during the civil rights movement black people had natural hair. What has changed in our culture in the last 42 years? Black people went from fighting for the their freedom and equality to putting people down with nautral hair because their hair is "Nappy". Why are we trying to be something we're not instead of enbracing who we were born to be....

Natural Hair Care Products Now Sold at Target

While browsing through Target for cold medication and decorations for my new apartment I strumbled across the new natural hair section. This is wonderful opportunity for people with natural hair. Target is now selling Miss Jessie's, Curls, Shea Moisture, and Jane Carter. No longer to need to order products on the internet and drive to stores not within your local neighborhood. If you currently use these products please give me a product reveiw : )

How To Determine Your Natural Hair Type

FIRST CLASSIFIER: Your curliness (or lack thereof)

The straight ones
1a – stick straight
1b – straight but with a slight body wave, just enough to add some volume, doesn’t look wavy
1c – straight with body wave and one or two visible S-waves (e.g. nape of neck or temples)
The wavy ones

2a – loose, stretched out S-waves throughout the hair
2b – shorter, more distinct S-waves (similar to waves from braiding damp hair)
2c – distinct S-waves and the odd spiral curl forming here and there
The curly ones

3a – big, loose spiral curls
3b – bouncy ringlets
3c – tight corkscrews
The really curly ones

4a – tightly coiled S-curls
4b – tightly coiled hair bending in sharp angles (Z-pattern)

SECOND CLASSIFIER: What (most of) your individual strands look like

F – Fine
Thin strands that sometimes are almost translucent when held up to the light. Shed strands can be hard to see even against a contrasting background. Similar to hair found on many people of Scandinavian descent.



N – Normal
Strands are neither fine nor coarse. Similar to hair found on many Caucasians.



C – Coarse
Thick strands that where shed strands usually are easily identified against most backgrounds. Similar to hair found on many people of Asian or native American descent.



THIRD CLASSIFIER: Your overall volume of hair


Put your hair in a ponytail with as much hair as possible in it. Don’t bother with the way it looks – the goal is to have most/all of your hair in there. If it means it sits smack dab on top of your head, put it there.

Measure the circumference of the ponytail. If you have bangs and/or you can’t get all of your hair in there adjust according to how much of your hair you have measured.



i – thin (less than 2 inches/5 centimeters)


ii – normal (between 2-4 inches or 5-10 centimeters)


iii – thick (more than 4 inches/10 centimeters)





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If you are having difficulty determining the thickness of individual hairs, this might help:



Take a strand of hair from the back of your head. Roll the strand between your thumb and index finger.



Fine Hair — Your hair is difficult to feel or it feels like an ultra-fine strand of silk



Coarse Hair — Your hair feels hard and wiry. As you roll it back and forth, you may actually hear it!



Medium Hair — Your hair feels like a cotton thread. You can feel it, but it isn’t stiff or rough. It is neither fine or coarse

Natural Hair & Politics

Skin Deep
Black Hair, Still Tangled in Politics


By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS
Published: August 26, 2009



SILKY straight hair has long been considered by many black women to be their crowning glory. So what if getting that look meant enduring the itchy burning that’s a hallmark of many chemical straighteners. Or a pricey dependence on “creamy crack,” as relaxers are sometimes jokingly called.

HER CALL Michelle Obama and 11-year-old Malia, who wore her hair in twists this summer.

Getting “good hair” often means transforming one’s tightly coiled roots; but it is also more freighted, for many African-American women and some men, than simply a choice about grooming. Straightening hair has been perceived as a way to be more acceptable to certain relatives, as well as to the white establishment.

“If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed,” the comedian Paul Mooney, sporting an Afro, says in the documentary “Good Hair,” which won a jury prize at the Sundance film festival and comes out in October. “If your hair is nappy, they’re not happy.”

The movie, made by Chris Rock, explores the lengths black women go to get long, straightened locks, from a $1,000 weave on a teacher’s salary to schoolgirls having their hair chemically relaxed.

In the face of cultural pressure, the thinking goes, conformists relax their hair, and rebels have the courage not to. In some corners, relaxing one’s hair is even seen as wishing to be white.

“For black women, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” said Ingrid Banks, an associate professor of black studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “If you’ve got straight hair, you’re pegged as selling out. If you don’t straighten your hair,” she said, “you’re seen as not practicing appropriate grooming practices.”

Anyone who thought such preconceptions were outdated would have been reminded otherwise by some negative reactions to the president’s 11-year-old daughter, Malia Obama, who wore her hair in twists while in Rome this summer. Commenters on the conservative blog Free Republic attacked her as unfit to represent America for stepping out unstraightened.

Although legions of black women in America straighten their hair (including Michelle Obama), hair salons specializing in natural styles have proliferated, and more black women are working with their virgin hair. Many wear their twists, locks or teenie-weenie Afros (known as TWAs) with an attitude — proud to have not given in to the pressure to straighten hair. In “Good Hair,” Nia Long, the actress, describes the conventional wisdom that straightened hair is more desirable: “There’s always a sort of pressure within the black community, like ‘Oh, if you have good hair, you’re prettier or better than the brown-skinned girl that wears an Afro or the dreads or the natural hairstyle.’ ”

Afua Adusei-Gontarz, 30, of Brooklyn, wore her hair natural for five years in a French braid, two-strand twists or a puffy ponytail. But she doesn’t think those looks made her more authentically black. “If you have natural hair, you’re considered more real, or in touch with your African-ness,” said Ms. Adusei-Gontarz, an assistant editor at Columbia University Press.

She rejects that thinking: In Ghana, her older relatives relax their hair — as she does now but for convenience — and “it’s more the newer generations who have natural hair.”

Last year, sales of home relaxers totaled $45.6 million (excluding Wal-Mart), according to Mintel, a market research firm, a figure that has held steady in recent years. So many African-American women use relaxers or a hot comb to get a straight look temporarily that not doing so can require courage. Online where black women discuss hair, commenters may support the natural look for strangers but don’t adopt it, said Professor Rooks, the author of “Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women.” I’m not brave enough, they write — it’s so wonderful that you can accept yourself as you are.


The the remainder of this article please click the link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/fashion/27SKIN.html