Preacher Priscilla Shirer discusses how she got long natural hair and how she maintains it.
hey hey hey hey
i hope y’all are doing good
all right i’m just hanging out waiting
for everybody to
wait for everybody to get on hey there
how you doing hey rumble c
good to see you guys the nana hope to
i’m glad to see you good to see you hey
y’all hey
what’s going on my my 11 year old jude
is standing here because he got me
situated
he got me set up i am simultaneously
recording this on another device so that
i can try to post it um because i get
asked about this for those of you that
are joining me let’s see there are about
900 of us on
so far i’m assuming many of you have
logged in because you saw i did a little
post that said we were going to talk
about hair
not theology not bible study not
spiritual disciplines but hair and
that’s because hair is ministry how
about that so we’re going to talk about
hair i’ve been asked to do it
um for a very long time to do a little
live to just talk about hair so i
decided today while i have on this green
shirt thank you very much lynn wallace
you said that um you like the green i’d
like to say thank you today i had to um
do i loved doing a session on discerning
the voice of god for an online
conference and i had the best time so
while i looked halfway decent
in my good uh
shelter-in-place situation i was like
you know what let me go ahead and do
this live so let me give everybody a
chance to hop on good to see you guys
hey from nigeria
hope you guys are doing good thank you
carolyn good to see you good to see you
hey
amanda fort i appreciate y’all
y’all are very kind hey okay so i’m
gonna i’m gonna just jump right into the
reason why we have all gathered together
today
um
i started having to
every now and then explain some things
about my hair 20
years ago when i decided that i was
going to go natural for those of you
that might be um unaware of what that
means because maybe you are our
vanilla sisters and you don’t know what
it means to go natural i’m gonna explain
all of that explain what the process was
for me what it looked like
and there are some spiritual threads
that run rampant through
for me and for many women of all hair
types and every color and every uh race
every hair texture there is such a
security issue that can be tied to our
hair particularly for black women in a
culture that historically has not valued
all of our curly headed glory so um
we’re going to talk about all that okay
is everybody here laura hey laura hey
crystal
hey there you watched my live session on
hair previously so that what was that
maybe two years ago or a year ago so i’m
glad you did every now and then i have a
um
saturday like today today saturday yeah
a saturday like today you know our our
quarantine days are running together at
this point
um but every now and then we have an
opportunity like i have an opportunity
to just be on a on an afternoon i’m like
i’m gonna do it today i’m gonna do it
today the hair conversation
and then i’ll leave time to answer some
questions too as i’m able to do that
okay
hey there good to see you from baton
rouge louisiana
good to see you guys
all right i’ma jump in y’all and um i
could spend all the whole time just
saying hello to everybody white girl
mama with mixed hair babies girl i got
you i got you we’re gonna talk about the
whole situation okay because it’s a
situation and i appreciate you for being
here because that means you acknowledge
the fact that it is a situation and you
need to be educated a little bit about
the situation so thank you for being
here
all right i see your questions i’m going
to try to answer those
all right so let me start by telling you
a little bit about my hair story
a lot of women women of color call it
their hair story because we all know
what it’s like to have gone through some
of the
the seasons that we’ve had to go through
with our hair
and what that has meant the damage it
sometimes has caused not only externally
but to our self-esteem as well
and i have gone through this too so i’m
going to share a little bit of that
um i got a relaxer when i was about um
12 13 years old
for black women
a rights of passage so to speak into
womanhood was when we got to get a
relaxer when we got to get a perm now
for those of you who don’t know a perm
for a black woman means the exact
opposite of what it means for a white
woman or a woman with a straight
textured hair
so whereas a perm for a woman with a
straight textured hair will cause it to
be curly um for
a woman like myself who has a afro
texture hair what it does is it
straightens the hair but it straightens
it by breaking down the hair follicle
now i need to tell you guys as i go into
this i’m i’m just y’all gonna have to um
be patient with me because i’m a little
scattered in all the things i wanna uh
say i didn’t really organize a you know
a full on message or anything like that
about this i’m just kind of randomly
talking so forgive me if i stray every
now and then
um
but
i am not a hair stylist i’m not a
scientist i’m not a chemist i’m not any
of those things i’m just a girl who has
curly textured hair and i’ve walked
through some seasons with my hair so
just hang in there with me and if i
don’t say anything
everything correctly don’t worry about
it
thank you
tangerine pascaline something like that
thank you i appreciate you all right so
thank you all for giving me a pass in
that regard thank you justin
uh justina i think take take your time i
will take my time girl so anyway what a
chemical what a chemical relaxer does
for curly textured hair women is it
breaks down our hair shaft to make it
straight
so throughout this the 80s i was about
to say the 70s but really the 80s and
the 90s strong you saw a lot of
african-american women with their hair
straight most black women wore their
hair straightened and the way it was
straightened was by a relaxer a relaxer
has it’s a white
almost looks like white glue or paste
and it’s put on our most of you already
know this some of you may not so be
patient with me while i describe it it’s
put on the roots of our hair so that as
our hair grows out we tame the new
growth that grows out of our hair
um and put that chemical on it that
breaks down the hair shaft all right
this is all well and fine the first
couple times you do it but once you do
this every six weeks every eight weeks
because like clockwork
we was up in that hair salon getting our
hair relaxed like clockwork this is
something that you did not miss okay
yes it doesn’t smell great it actually
smells like a chemical it smells like
you’re putting a chemical on your hair
after it’s sitting there for about 15
well 15 minutes might be long it’s been
so long since i’ve gotten one i don’t
remember how long we would let it sit on
there some of you may be able to uh
remind us but after like 10 or 12 15
minutes it it would literally burn your
scalp so i need you to get the picture
here for years and for decades
black women were putting um chemicals on
their hair that we knew was strong
enough to actually burn
our scalp and once that was rinsed out
of our hair oftentimes we would walk out
of the beauty shop i would walk out of
the beauty shop with actual literal
burns
on my scalp
okay if anybody knows what i’m talking
about go ahead and just just say amen
put your hand up something because i
know y’all know what i’m talking about
your hair is your scalp your skin
literally has burn marks on it if it’s
left on too long and a lot of times that
happened these chemicals obviously were
not just on our hair but because they
were it was on our scalp
um we know now that those chemicals
actually go into your body because your
pores on your scalp so
at the time you’re doing this though our
society was so um
accentuating and
highlighting the beauty of straight hair
that i was willing to do it because it’s
just what we did
we tamed our hair so that it in its
natural state um was not was wasn’t seen
we did everything we could to mask that
and so we would have scabs i see
somebody saying that we’d have scabs on
our hair i had scabs on my head and over
time
as you were putting these relaxers in
your hair and it keeps on breaking down
your hair so that it’s no longer kinky
and coily and ziggly and zaggy but it’s
straight and flattened out
after you do that over and over and over
again it begins to damage your hair
so a lot of times again we’ve seen a lot
of um
women that have curly textured hair um
particularly black women with short hair
we have been convinced for a long time
that our hair doesn’t grow that our hair
can’t grow
um but really was it’s a lot of it was
that we’re breaking it down so much and
putting such harsh chemicals on it that
it doesn’t even have an opportunity
it doesn’t even have an opportunity to
throt to thrive even if it wanted to
so i started that my little rites of
passage getting a chemical relaxer i
started that when i was about 13 years
old because that was what we did a lot
of us waited until we were going into
our teenage years and then our mama told
us we could do it um after she had been
you know using the pressing comb all the
years before on the stove not the kind
that plugged in they didn’t have all
that back then it was just you sat by
the stove your mom turned a burner on
she put a hot pressing comb on that
thing and then she
ironed out your hair so my mom my sweet
mom did that for me and my sister too
for special occasions um and then i got
a perm and thought i was grown ooh
thought i was grown with that perm in my
hair
um so i did that until i was 24 years
old and this is really where
my hair story really began to change
when i was 24 years old
again
so not for the first time but again i
was looking at my hair and it just
wasn’t doing well it was breaking off it
was damaged um right over here
i’ll never forget but right here in my
scalp
there was a patch of hair about the size
of a
um i was about to show my age and say a
silver dollar ain’t nobody seen no
silver dollar in a long time but it
wasn’t a quarter size it’s a little bit
bigger than that
um it was just broken off it was like a
circle of hair that you couldn’t see
because of a lot of our damage you can’t
see you know it’s there oh if this ain’t
a spiritual lesson i don’t know what it
is you know it’s there other people
can’t see it so you just sort of hide it
you keep combing over the damage that is
there i know y’all i know that there are
some women here that know exactly what
i’m talking about so you just sort of
keep covering up the damage and right
under here when i was 24 years old again
i had a circular patch of hair that was
only about um
this long it had broken off
and at the time i had just gotten
married
um
and i had just gotten on some medication
and i um
i went to my doctor because i assumed it
was the medication that i was
on and i went to this doctor she’s still
my doctor to this day she’s a sweet
wonderful
um
woman who she and i are so close friends
now she is a white woman with straight
hair
and i went to her and i said i think the
medicine you might have put me on to
prepare for marriage
so you might know what
you might know what medication i’m
referring to
but i said you know this might not be
the one for me i might not have to i
might have to get on another one because
i can see something’s going on with my
hair
so my sweet white doctor doctor uh sat
me down on her um you know examining
table there
and she searched out the spot that i was
talking about which was right over here
over my ear
she looked at looked at it a little bit
and i remember her kind of feeling
around on it
and then um she took a couple strands of
my hair elsewhere and she pulled it she
pulled it out
she did one from here she did one from
back here she did another one from here
and she pulled out another one even in
that spot she pulled them all out
and um
she saw that the bulb of the root
was on each one of the hairs she had
pulled out so she could see
that the root was fine on each of the
hairs
so she said priscilla
i don’t think that there’s anything
wrong with your hair she said i can see
that they’re all they’re not breaking
off they’re coming out by the root i’m
looking at your follicles your roots and
i can see that your roots are actually
strong so she said what that tells me is
that it’s not something that’s going on
inside of your body it’s actually
something you’re doing to your hair once
it comes out of your body so my sweet
little innocent um
in terms of these things hair and black
women in their hair she looked back at
me and she said um
what do you do to your hair after it
comes out of your head that’s what she
said
so i said to her well girl
i get a relaxer
but what black woman doesn’t get a
relaxer this is this is like 99 2000
okay year 2000. so this is 20 years ago
i said i get a relaxer and she said um
is that a chemical i said yeah it’s a
chemical that has lye in it l-y-e is the
main ingredient
she said hmm it definitely is the
chemical you’re putting on your hair
after your hair is coming out of your
head in other words
the way god is growing the hair is fine
it’s what you’re doing to it after it
comes out of your head that’s the
problem and every now and then y’all if
you don’t mind because you know i can’t
help it i gotta just pause and give you
a little a little spiritual principle
because god gives us
so many he gives us our lives
and
we’re the ones that damage them and then
we blame him like he did it he’s like no
i grew the thing right it’s after i gave
it to you the relationship or the job or
the ministry or the whatever it’s after
i gave it to you is what you did after i
gave it to you that actually is causing
the damage that you need me now to deal
with so anyway back to the story just
take that receive that if that’s for you
if it ain’t for you then it ain’t for
you
um
so the doctor said to me what i need you
to do is i need you to stop getting a
relaxer for the next six months
come on now y’all know that i had no
interest
in being obedient to that i was looking
at my sweet doctor who loves me and i
love her we’re still close friends to
this day
and i actually wrote about her in a book
called radiant if you don’t know about
radiant it’s a book that i wrote on
self-esteem for women and chapter two is
all about hair okay because there are so
many elements of self-image and
self-esteem um that that i wanted to
write toward um in regards to who god
says that we are in our identity and i
couldn’t leave out this what the lord
taught me in regards to my own hair so
chapter two is about that and i wrote
about dr diane in chapter two so if
y’all are wondering if you’ve read that
book and you’re wondering is this that
doctor yes it’s that doctor
so she said to me i mean just you gotta
stop getting relaxer for six months
girl i look back at her like you don’t
lost your whole your whole mind if you
think that i’m gonna not get a relaxer
in the 90s and 2000s early 2000s black
women weren’t not getting a relaxer that
wasn’t happening that’s what we did we
did it we would sit in the beauty shop
for hours on saturday if we had to to
get it done so um and and we did sit in
the beauty shop for hours by the way
so
anyway um
i left the doctor’s office that day
with her
with her guidelines
stop the relaxer for six months let’s
see if everything turns around with your
hair
i left with absolutely no
desire no willingness no intent on being
obedient i mean i just left like
she don’t know what you’re talking about
and i’m not doing that
no interest in being obedient i got in
my car i’ll never forget this day
i got in my car and i started driving
home
something happened on the 25 minute
drive between my house
i’m sorry between the doctor’s office
and me going home
it is one of those moments that i will
never forget because there are several
times in my life where um i just
remember god moving in and making
something as superficial
and as natural as hair or some element
you know just in regular life making it
really personal and spiritual to me this
was one of those times i was driving
home
and it occurred to me and i know now
this is the holy spirit it occurred to
me
that if my doctor had said to me i need
you to stop eating fried foods because i
can tell that your arteries are clogging
and you you might have a heart attack if
she would have said to me some other
directed that had to do with my physical
health i would have listened i would
have said okay i’m gonna stop smoking or
i’m gonna stop eating fried foods or
i’ve got to stop putting using that
chemical on my skin because it’s
actually causing uh something to go
wrong if she would have said to me
anything else i would have obeyed her
because i trusted my doctor still trust
that doctor with my health why was it
that i was so attached to straight hair
that i was willing to continue to damage
myself to get it
what was it that was so important to me
about having my hair straight that i was
willing to
forgo my actual health
in order to maintain
this um standard of what had been called
beautiful
i’m telling y’all this thing hit me like
a brick as i was driving home it hit me
like a brick
am i really willing to keep on doing
doing what the doctor is telling me is
the problem just because i want straight
hair that bad and what’s wrong with my
view of my intrinsic value and beauty
that i’m willing to do that
so as i drove home
this was all occurring to me on the way
home
um the lord was really dealing with me i
felt so convicted and challenged
and i pulled off on
off of highway 35 in dallas texas i
pulled off on illinois illinois is the
exit that led to wynwood village wynwood
village is still there but wynwood
village used to have a african-american
bookstore in it called joe kay’s
bookstore i miss
small boutique mom-and-pop bookstores i
really do
um there were great christian bookstores
and great african-american bookstores
this was one of them i drove straight to
that bookstore i asked them do you have
a section on black hair
and they led me around to one little
shelf one little corner of the shelf
where they had books lined up on black
hair
now of course here we are 20 years later
there are so many resources available to
you and to me to help us manage our um
our hair there are so many products that
were not available in 1995 or available
in 2000 i’m telling you there were
probably 10 books that were available to
me not shelves and shelves of books and
that that’s a blessing that it’s
available now because so so many people
um have seen the importance of helping
you know us each other to steward curly
hair
um so um
i i grabbed a few of those book books
off the shelf i still have them i’m so
sorry that i don’t have them to show you
right now um but it doesn’t matter
because you can just now look up
um hair that you want or books that you
want on natural hair there are so many
options available to you
and i i grabbed those books and i took
them straight to my mom’s house i went
straight to my mom and dad’s house
instead of going home okay because i’m
having this whole
this whole internal crisis okay i go
straight home to my mom and dad’s same
house they raised me in and i grabbed my
mom’s photo albums she is a prolific
keeper was a full prolific keeper of
photo albums
am i taking to you too long y’all i hope
i’m not i’m telling y’all the whole
story i hope i’m not boring you okay
forgive me if i am hang in there with me
um
i look through my mom’s photo albums
she um keeps kept tons of photo albums
we have them from when we were all
growing up
and i have them too
oh thank y’all for saying thank you all
for saying that i’m not boring you i
appreciate that i feel like i’m being
long-winded
um i’m like my mom in that way i have
photo albums from all the years of my
kids life and all that so she got the
regular photo albums you know like our
parents used to keep photo albums with
actual pictures in them and i grabbed
the ones from when i was pre-relaxer so
like 8 9 10 11 years old i opened up
these books
and looked at myself
and i saw
these huge thick ponytails
huge thick ponytails on either side of
my head
and i felt my own hair which at the time
had had a little bit of length on it but
it was real scraggly and thin
and didn’t have any body and didn’t have
any um excuse me that’s the doorbell
um it just was so thin i could gather up
all i could gather up all of my hair in
this tiny little ponytail tiny little
ponytail but in my pictures
it went from when i was little i had
these huge ponytails like this you
remember when you used to have the uh
the little rubber band thingy with the
balls at the top right here and then you
had two little balls at the bottom of
your ponytails and your ponytails will
be swinging on either side and these big
old thick plaits on either side of my
head that’s what i saw
and i remember feeling my hair and i was
like
that’s me in the picture that means i
have hair
i have the potential to have healthy
hair
but this ain’t it i mean it was so thin
my ponytail was completely gone
and it just started to weigh on me
am i really going to sacrifice my own
health
the health that god has given me with my
hair
am i going to sacrifice my continued
health as an adult woman now
because i want straight hair that bad
and i started to pray about it and this
is what i want to encourage you guys to
do too if you’re considering
it’s because see it’s i’m telling you my
hair story but you realize this ain’t
just about hair this was the thing god
used for me to help me begin to see
clearly the areas of my life where i
lacked a sense of significance that was
rooted in him a sense of beauty because
of the beauty he’s given me the
intrinsic value that he’s invested in me
that i don’t have to look like her or
act like her or be shaped like her this
could be about your figure this could be
about your hair yes this could be about
your skin color that god has created you
the way you’re supposed to be created
why is it and i know why partially
because we live in a culture that so
celebrates certain kinds of beauty
certain kinds of appearances certain
sizes certain styles that we slowly
start to lose ourself because we start
masking our real self and acquiescing to
what someone else has determined was
beautiful
and you know for me all throughout high
school i was a cheerleader in high
school and we had one of them serious
teams where we were like in national
competitions and we so we didn’t just do
football games and basketball games and
stuff we won like national championship
cheerleading things so you had to be not
only just in uniform kinda you had to be
uniform like for real and our hair had
to be uniform
and i remember that our hair had to be
in a ponytail and it had this big bow
that was at the top and it was part of
the way it had to be
so for me as a black girl coming into
this system that had decided that the
uniform
is something that actually don’t even
work for me
my hair don’t even fit in that barrette
but to make it fit in that barrette
i’ve gotta now straighten it and put
this chemical on it so that i just meld
in a little bit more and a little bit
more
and we live in a culture not just in
america but in other cultures as well
where we don’t even recognize the slow
um progressive way that we begin to
quiet our natural
the way god made us our natural um
inclinations this could be even for your
personality that we’re talking about
that you’ve started to quiet your
god-given personality because
the the construct you’re in has
determined that that’s not good enough
or that’s not the way it should be so
you don’t even know who you are anymore
for me i hadn’t even seen my natural
hair at that point in over a decade i
didn’t even know what it looked like
anymore i was looking at my mom’s
pictures of me with those big plaids i
hadn’t seen those plaits
in years
so by the time i left my mom’s house
and i got back to my own house
i was done
i cannot tell you what happened to me
other than god so convicted me and
challenged me
and lovingly graciously reminded me
priscilla the way i made you is okay
you are right
be you do you
and it i felt the holy spirit like just
whisper to me a little bit and say
if you will give me what you damaged
i i didn’t damage it
you damaged it but here’s here’s how the
grace and mercy of god is so astounding
he lets us give back to him what we
messed up
and then somehow in his grace and his
mercy he gives it back to us
better than we had in the first place
anyway
that was what i felt sort of was the
promise to me priscilla if you will give
me back what you damaged
i’ll give it back to you
i’ll give it give it back to you in
astounding way
so i did
that was the last time i ever got a
relaxer i think i was about
two weeks away from my retouch
at the time i went to see the doctors i
was about two weeks away okay
and y’all know once you start getting
about two weeks to retouch date you
start feeling them roots they coming
back in you you anxious to go ahead and
get back to the beauty salon and get all
this stuff situated and so i could see
the time coming
and um at the time i was married i was
one year into my marriage i had married
my husband with
straight um hair i think it was about
chin length or so at the time so he was
used to a woman that had some hair on
her head
and had a relaxer and so
for those of you that are married please
don’t get off this live and decide to do
what i’m what i’m telling you that i did
you need to talk to your spouse about
this because you can’t just jar the man
i mean you gotta you gotta be kind and
gracious to the brother okay um but for
those of you that are single um single
and you’ve been considering um the
avenues that you can take if you’re
considering going natural i’ll tell you
what i did but there are other ways as
well that you can do it okay
so for me i stopped getting a relaxer i
just i never went back that’s been 21
years ago now never went back to get a
relaxer from that date i waited about
three or four months so here’s what
happens all your new growth is just
growing in growing in now of course the
new growth is is basically whatever the
texture of your childhood hair is when i
say childhood i mean past toddler stage
i mean you’re in your good eight nine
tens elevens you need to look back at
your pictures to see what your hair was
that is likely what it’s going to be now
the reason why i say that part
this is the reason why i say that part
is important because y’all social media
is killing us in this regard we are
looking to someone else at someone
else’s instagram feed whose hair we love
their hair texture is beautiful there’s
so many of them that i follow um natural
85 her name is whitney
lipstick and curls i follow her
paging dr dre i follow her
dr cammy there are many of them uh the
growth
guru is another one of them i follow all
these incredible women who have these
beautiful um heads of hair and i follow
them mostly because they’re able to do
tutorials there are people have been
asking me to do two tutorials
and i want to tell y’all yep there’s
natural 85 she’s a great i’ve been
following her for she’s been doing this
for like 15 16 years now
um
so people have been asking me will i do
youtube videos on hair the answer is no
i i’m not i’m not
i’m not doing it
so can i just get that out here right
now i am i’m not doing
natural hair videos they take so much
time and effort
editing them getting them all together
all that stuff tayani uh ferris the
actress
she does she’s doing some hair tutorial
now um
so there’s so many out there y’all don’t
need me to uh contribute to that
so there are women that i admire so much
they’re doing that and if you watch them
you will find ways that you can style it
products that will work for it but the
problem is if you’re looking at someone
whose hair texture is different from you
then you start thinking when your hair
grows out it’s going to look like that
girls
and then you think that the products
that work on their hair are going to
work for your hair and it can become
very you can become very disappointed
very disillusioned you can become very
frustrated because you really actually
still aren’t enjoying your hair you’re
trying to get your hair to do what
you’re seeing on her hair on your social
media feed so follow those people
celebrate those people enjoy what they
do have to teach you but don’t get
wrapped up in the fact that my hair
gonna do that because no her hair
texture not your hair honey you a 4c
she’s a 3c it’s not gonna work out the
same on your hair as it does on hers and
that’s okay
for those of you that don’t know what
i’m talking about
um the 3c 3b 3a 2c 4b there is basically
a um
somebody help me describe it i was going
to say rating but it’s not a rating of
hair it’s just a labeling of hair
texture they’re labels that go with each
hair texture um and so i don’t even know
some people know what theirs is i don’t
even really know exactly what mine is
but i will tell you that most of us that
have curly hair most of us have
different textures in different parts of
our hair the hair that’s on the side of
my head right over my ears on each side
is a tighter hair texture than all of
the hair that goes through the middle of
my head so i have different uh different
hair textures and most people do curl
pattern thank you sr mayfield one thank
you it is a kind of a
um
labeling system for curl patterns and so
you might have one curl pattern and one
part of your hair and another curl
pattern and another part of your hair
and that’s okay but if you’re looking at
someone on instagram and social media
who has a different pattern than you
period
then you’re going to be setting yourself
up for a lot of disillusionment so if
you can get your hands on baby pictures
i’m sorry not baby pictures
elementary age pictures of yourself you
will see what you’re in for so that you
can be prepared to enjoy what god gave
you
not your imagination of what you hope
god’s gonna give you no it is what it is
what he gave you is what you’re gonna
have okay
so
um i went about four months growing out
my hair okay so i’m getting new growth
coming in
now
when you get your new growth coming in
all right and you still have permed or
relaxed hair on the ends of your hair so
the rest of it’s permed but you’ve got
new growth right here you will find a
couple of things happening number one
your new growth is dry
it is horribly hard to manage
it feels um
it just feels
the only word i can think of is really
really dry and part of the reason is
because which makes it less manageable
part of the reason is because you’ve
still got chemicals that are attached to
your natural hair those chemicals you
better believe it those chemicals are
still sucking the moisture out they’re
still drying your your hair they’re
still sort of in the way of your natural
texture flourishing
now i’m going to tell you what i did you
do not have to do this but i’m going to
tell you what i did after i got to about
four months i couldn’t i couldn’t take
it anymore it felt so dry it felt so not
manageable your relaxed hair at that
point begins to snap off it starts
breaking
which if you are growing out your
natural hair i want you to expect that
your relaxed hair is going to start
snapping off as you maybe brush it or
comb it or try to style it you’re going
to see your hair start breaking off and
falling away don’t be discouraged by
that actually because it will be
discouraging
it really will be discouraging because
you’re going to be looking at your hair
in that sink like oh lord i’m losing all
my hair
but
you want to
lose all of that relaxed hair
a relaxer for those of you that don’t
know is permanent once it’s on
it’s on your hair the only way to get
rid of it is to cut it off or to grow it
off and to slowly gradually be clipping
the ends of your hair as it grows off
over a year or two but it can be hard to
do that because
styling your hair as it grows out
becomes difficult to manage this texture
along with this texture okay so after i
got about four months out i had about
that much new growth okay and i cut off
all of my relaxed hair
i went
to get a trim
that’s what i told my husband because i
think i’d convince myself it was just
going to be a trim
nope if you’re cutting off whatever hair
you got left and it’s only attached to
this much new growth and you’re doing
what we call the big chop
the big chop is what we call it
um then that means that you’re going to
cut off everything that is not relaxed
so in the year or that is relaxed so in
the year 2000 y’all i did the big chop i
cut off my hair if i were organized i’d
have a picture right now to show you of
uh my hair
when i cut it off i will tell you i came
home and my husband was not happy we’d
only been married a year and he was like
where is my wife what have you done with
her bring her back he wasn’t prepared
for that that was not fair to him and
again i say for those of you that are
married and you’re considering all this
you do need to talk to your husband and
not just like throw this on him
certainly don’t tell him priscilla said
for you to go cut your hair up i’m not
saying that
not saying that so i cut off all that
relaxed hair and i came home with about
an inch of hair so i had a little a
little twa
somebody that knows what the twa is go
ahead and put that in the comments
because i know y’all know what it is but
some people don’t
so y’all can help me teach the class
help me teach the lesson so if you know
what a twa is put that there i had a twa
and um i will tell you how long it is
because i remember i remember that i
could pull my hair
and it stretched down to my first
knuckle that’s how long my hair was
it went from here
to here and yes a caribbean beauty you
win teeny weeny afro court zero six one
nine that’s what it is girl yep a teeny
weeny afro i see you sassy jazz yep joy
kirby teeny weeny afro kiki yes so my
teeny weeny afro went to about right
here now of course it’s an afro now so
it’s standing straight up to right there
all right so i’ve got this much hair on
my head literally about an inch worth of
afro all
over my head so if you can picture me
looking more like this that’s exactly
what i look like and i came home and
surprise has been
boo
um
so i will tell you that i wasn’t really
a short hair person
i didn’t love my hair like that but let
me tell you what i did love
when i came home that day after getting
it cut off was one of the scariest
things i ever did
oh and i should back up and say i kind
of already said this but i should back
up and say i do remember the drive there
and i remember talking to the lord
and saying
i just are you
oh gosh should i do this this is a big
deal i’ve never had hair that short in
my life
and i do remember the holy spirit kind
of whispering to me again
he said if you give back if you give to
me
what you’ve damaged
i’ll give it back to you bigger and
better than what you had in the first
place i will never forget that y’all and
i don’t want to over spiritualize it for
you i’m just saying this is what it was
for me
so i went got it cut off came back home
and i had this little afro
i got um in the shower that evening and
i let the water just run all over my
head
i had never done that in my entire life
get in the chat listen
black women don’t get in the shower and
just let water run all over their head
let’s be clear you know them um rain
shower nozzle heads where it’s right
overhead and it comes down like a big
shower sometimes they have those in
hotels that is not a blessing to us
anybody home that’s not a blessing
it’s cute but it don’t bless us because
uh we don’t want no water coming down
straight on our head like that
we plan wash day in advance we need a
whole
a whole day set aside when we’re gonna
wash our hair okay but on this day for
the first time i stood in the shower and
let my my hair just be soaked an inch of
hair be soaked in all this water and
then i put conditioner in and i got out
of the shower and when i saw my hair
without the chemicals attached to it yes
it was very
liberating whales dolphin
when i saw my hair without those
chemicals sucking the life out of it
i could not believe it it was beautiful
the waves of it were beautiful the curls
the tight curls on the side the loser
curls in the middle all of it um
was pretty
now i had to get over the short hair
hump but i wanted healthy hair more than
i wanted natural hair
and i know for a lot of women that’s not
your goal that was my goal that might
not be your goal i was on a healthy hair
hunt and i was willing to do whatever it
took to get over this hump of having
patches of that have an issue right here
y’all remember the days where you got to
get a protein treatment and get a
treatment over here and work on this and
this side is breaking off i was tired of
all that i wanted healthy hair more than
i wanted to have a hairstyle that i
liked
so you’ve got to decide what your goal
is your goal might still be style
there’s nothing wrong with that that
means decide what style you like and if
it’s going to be a little bit damaging
to you to do it nobody can question the
intent of your heart and that’s really
all i want to get at to you you know
whether or not you’re doing it because
you’re trying to please other people or
whether it’s just the style you like
girl if it’s a style you like whatever
style you like that’s enjoy your life
but if you recognize that you’re
actually doing things that are damaging
to you because you’re trying to appease
people or feel included or feel apart
that’s the thing that i’m saying
we all have to watch that in every area
of our life and for me
this hair situation is what the lord
used to show me that but he put this
almost militant desire on the inside of
me to have healthy hair even if i didn’t
like the process that was required uh to
get there
so
i see you juni mossy author you’re on a
healthy hair journey good for you good
for you all right so i’m gonna tell you
what i did that hopefully has helped me
to have healthy um healthy hair because
my hair has thrived um over the past 20
years it has it’s thrived
the main thing i have done is that i
have not had chemicals in my hair for 21
years now i don’t get texturizers i
don’t get relaxers and i’ll tell you my
hair is straight right now and i’ll tell
you why in a second but i don’t get
relaxers nothing i don’t put no
chemicals on my hair about 10 years into
having natural hair i did get a um i got
some color i thought i was going to try
some color it was a a natural color that
was supposed to be less less harsh and i
got that color it was just a light brown
highlights my hair was dry brittle it
didn’t
it i could tell that it was gonna make
my hair break off some more so i grew
that off and was done with that that’s
the last time i ever even tried any
chemicals in my hair i’m just letting it
be
the second thing that i did that over
the years helped me the most and this is
going to be the hardest for many people
who
want healthy hair but you like styling
your hair in certain ways i’m going to
tell you this is just for me
for the first five years of having
natural hair i did not put any heat in
my hair not a blow dryer not a curling
iron not a hot comb not a nothing
i didn’t put any heat in my hair
i feel like i have to wait and see the
uh comments about that right there
no heat
oh
hashtag no heat
somebody’s taking notes
tash are you taking notes girl okay so i
see somebody crying about the no heat i
know see
yeah i see you going like this brenda
no heat so for five years ouch you write
for five years
i didn’t put any heat in my hair
um
after about the five year mark and i’ll
tell you the style let me back up and
tell you the styles that i did so my
hair was growing out from a very short
place i used to get at the beginning i
got either wore it just in its afro or i
got comb coils
comb coils are when a stylist will take
a comb she puts a little gel on a small
portion of your hair and she coils it
around and you just have a little curl a
little coil a little spiral and she does
those spirals all over your head um to
be honest i didn’t love it that much
when she first did it the first week or
so it kind of was just little spirals
everywhere but then after about a week
it starts to get messy and unruly and
that meant i had an afro with little
coils all over the place i liked that so
i still had to get over the hump that
the style in general wasn’t my flavor
but again i was i was on a mission i was
okay with that by the time i got to the
six month mark i had about three inches
of hair or so so at three inches of hair
what i could do was wash it and two
strand twist sections of it okay so i’ll
tell you what that is for those of you
who may not know now obviously my hair
is a little bit longer now and um it’s
it’s straightened right this minute so
so it’s not gonna look the same but two
strand twist is basically when you take
some of your hair
and
whoops sorry can’t really see well
and you just twist it around itself
so it’s a two-strand twist just like
that
okay you can even do this by the way if
you are growing out your natural hair i
forgot to say that if you don’t do the
big chop like me you don’t have to be as
drastic if you don’t want to my
sister-in-law kanika she just grew out
her natural hair she just kept going and
kept going and let the natural hair keep
going and she would just trim the ends
as she went so eventually the new growth
takes over the relaxed hair and
eventually you’ve clipped all the
natural hair off at the end so here’s
the trick if you’re going to grow out
your natural hair y’all still following
me everybody all right
um
if you’re going to grow out your natural
hair you’ve got to wear styles
where your hair style is matching your
new texture
not trying to make your new texture
match your
relaxed hair
now this is a spiritual lesson too if
you think about it you’ve got to start
wearing styles that match the new
direction you’re going
you can’t
you can’t keep styling your hair
to match the straight stuff you’re
trying to get rid of
okay
sarah jakes roberts are you in here
somewhere sis we having a hair
conversation girl okay so
you got to decide if you’re going to
grow out your natural hair you got to
try to find styles that are going to
match the curly texture of your hair all
right
so for my sister-in-law for example for
a lot of times that what it meant was
she would wash her hair and it would be
wet and she would cornrow her hair and
she would let it dry in flat twists or
in cornrows okay once it dried and she
let those cornrows out now she’s got a
wavy texture so the wavy texture is
matching
basically she’s matching the new
direction she’s going
and if that ain’t a word for our whole
lives listen i don’t know what is
if you’re going in a new direction hey
danny my cousin from germany i love you
if you oh we’ve had so many
conversations about natural hair danny
and i
um let’s see her tag right there is
j d-n-c-j-y that’s my cousin she’s um
biracial she’s a german mother and then
her black father who’s my mother’s
brother and so her hair is all curly but
in germany for the longest time even
still it’s hard to find products that
are for natural hair because she lives
in europe hey girl so we’ve talked a lot
about
about how you do natural hair when
you’re in europe or you live in a part
of the world like australia i remember
being there to see if there was anybody
who could do my hair there wasn’t nobody
knew how to do natural hair there
so um you have to figure out as you’re
growing your natural hair out you have
to figure out how to do styles that are
going to protect the direction you’re
going
okay
if you decide to keep on straightening
your new growth straightening your new
growth so it keeps on matching your
relaxed hair
i promise you’re going to damage your
new hair which is
that’s that’s contrary to your whole
goal right there
so if you keep on straightening
straightening straightening you run the
risk of damaging your um new growth and
also you’re going to train your new
growth to be straight
now for some of you that might be your
goal might not be to wear neck to wear
natural styles your goal might just be
not to have relaxer anymore so if you
don’t mind training your natural hair
under there to be straight just know
you’re going to have a hard time doing
twists you’re going to have a hard time
doing curly styles
because your hair will have been so
conditioned to being straightened with
heat pressing combs and that sort of
thing that you’re not going to be able
to have coils at the end of your hair
and that sort of things that make sense
y’all so you gotta wear protective
styles that go in the direction you’re
headed
which means
you might have to wear some styles that
are not your preference and that’s what
i did
for the first five years or so um i wore
styles that weren’t my preference but
they were headed in the direction that
i’m going they were supporting that
hunter mariah15 are braids healthy for
your hair by braids i’m assuming you
mean when we get braid extensions
the reality is
that any kind of extension can be
damaging to your hair mostly
the growth guru is here
i need to get you in on this live if you
hang out for a second whitney
um
and if we have a second i would love for
you to come in here with me
um and i’ll tell y’all who the growth
guru is in just a second because she’s
my friend and she’s amazing about hair
but um
where was i at
i lost my i lost my place because i got
excited because my cousin and also
because whitney was in here
um
i lost my place
so anyway
that’s what happens when you get old so
anyway um
the reality is that what you have to do
is choose a style that’s working for the
direction that you’re going if you get
braids that’s where we were if you get
braids and extensions over time that’s
going to wear on your your hair
a lot of times it has
even more to do with the person that’s
putting it in if it’s tight
you’ll see a lot of people who don’t
have a hairline that’s because that hair
the um braids and extensions have been
pulling on their hair
anything tight on your head and it’s not
working in your favor
anything tight
on your hair is not working in your
favor
um
anything um
anything superficial
um that’s not natural
that you’ve added to your hair you just
run the risk if you’re not careful
okay
so
um
you got to be careful if you’re going to
add things to your hair you have to be
careful now again only you know what
your what your goals are
i knew what my goals were and i was
determined to get there so for some of
you again you might decide like my
mother my mother wanted to go natural
but she didn’t necessarily want to wear
twists and natural styles so she did
press her new growth out as it was
growing out
she did press it because she knew that
even once her relaxer was gone she was
still going to want to wear a straight
style so it was okay for her to press it
so you get to decide okay
so by the time i got to about six months
my hair was about that long and i
started twisting and i would twist it
while it was wet just like this all the
way down and at the time you know i only
had about this much of it i would twist
it and i’d let it dry and all these
twists over my head and um and then
after it was completely dry which is
kind of the key you got to let it
completely dry then i would let those
twists out all over my head and i would
have a cute little curly afro that was
about this long all over my head i wore
it that way for a very long time then
after about a year or and a half two
years my hair started to get longer and
my twist because my hair was longer i
started making my twists smaller
so now instead of big chunks of twists
that i was going to take out i would
have my stylist do my hair and twist
again
but she’d do them nice and small
and those twists would hang down all
over my head as it grew out okay
so they would be here
then as my hair got longer my twists
would be here then my hair got longer
and my twists would be here okay so
those twists would stay in my hair for
about four to six weeks at a time
all right
so for four to six weeks i would not
comb my hair wash my hair because it was
in the twists
so for the past 15 years of ministry
a lot of people maybe you have even
noticed that you’ve seen my hair in
those twists a lot and it’ll be up in a
ball on top of my head and my hair is in
those two strand twists all over my head
i’ve worn my hair like that so much
for years now because it is what is
called a protective style
okay
protective styling i just saw simply
sinead say protective styling you’ve got
to figure out a style that allows you to
leave your hair alone
okay
i got kind of off track earlier but
that’s one of the keys that i wanted to
tell you
what can you do
to have a style you enjoy while leaving
your hair alone you got to leave your
hair alone for those of us with curly
hair combing it every day is
antagonistic to the goal of growing out
your hair brushing it every day washing
it every other day dries your hair out
as women of color with curly hair
we don’t thrive by manipulating our hair
every day every week
day in day out straightening drying blow
drying all that stuff it doesn’t it’s
not helpful to your hair you got to find
some style
that again depending upon your goals my
goal was to grow my hair out in the most
healthy way so for me i found a style
that even though at the beginning of it
it wasn’t my favorite style what it did
was allow me to leave my hair alone for
four weeks at a time at least
and then after about four weeks of those
small twists being in my hair i’d take
the twists out and my hair would have
kind of basically been molded into a
wavy kind of curly style so most of what
you’ve seen of me over the past 15 years
has been
either in the twists
or i took the twist out and my hair was
all curly
and i’d wear it that way for about a
week
then i’d go back
wash my hair comb it out condition it
real good put it back in the twists and
i’m done for another four weeks does
that make sense
so if you saw um
war room
my hair was in a twist out that’s what
it’s called when you take the twists out
for those of you with um
i’ll try to save this live letters from
the kingdom i see you i’ll try to save
this live um
i see someone put moisture moisture
moisture yes
what protective styling also does is
help to retain the moisture that is in
your hair
so the more your hair like i rarely i
don’t wear my hair out like this and
i’ll tell you about this in a moment but
i don’t wear my hair out like this often
at all and the reason why is because as
our hair is exposed to the elements and
as our hair has to be combed when it’s
in a style like this one that over time
not just one month not just two months
but over time if you’re constantly
constantly wearing your hair out and
it’s exposed to the elements and those
sorts of things it’s going to be
damaging to our curly textured hair
so i still mostly wear my hair in
protective styling
i um probably have my hair
straightened like this two or three
times a year used to be just once a year
now a little bit more um two or three
times a year and then i get it clipped
off at the ends i every time i
straighten it which again is just two or
three times a year i’ll clip it at the
ends and i wear it this way for that
month or so and then i’m getting ready
in fact in the next few weeks next
couple weeks i’m going to have it washed
again and i’m going to have it
conditioned i sit under a hair steamer
to get that um moisturizer uh moisture
in there locked and sealed into my hair
and then it will be twisted
and all throughout this whole summer my
hair is going to be twisted and those
twists are probably going to be up in a
knot on the top of my head or in a
ponytail or whatever but my hair is
going to be locked into each other
to itself locked into itself as to
protect it to keep me from having to
comb it every day and um
yeah that’s the way that i wear my hair
so i was saying if you’ve seen war room
or if you saw um
let’s see overcomer
my hair was in a twist out in both of
those
when the
let’s see someone’s asking do i wash
style my own hair or do i have a stylist
i have um someone who does my hair
um not because it’s uh
not because i’m bougie but because
combing out my hair is a situation i
literally can’t
comb out this whole part that i can’t
see it’s so thick and my hair is like
velcro so literally if i tried to comb
it out myself i’d be ripping it out um
because i can’t see my stylus my hair uh
the person who does my hair i had one
lady that did it for about 15 years and
i still see her every now and then then
i have another sister whitney who is on
the slide she she does it now and i mean
it will take her two hours just to comb
out my hair
and and she can see it from the back so
you know if i’m looking at the front of
me i can’t see back here it would be a
disaster so when i wash my hair um
i have to get my knee my sister-in-law
kanika too she has done my hair for me
before and they’ll get a section about
like this this big
and before they ever put a comb on it
they have to pull it apart at the roots
in particular
get it all pulled apart
with their fingers before they start
going to a ginger going through it
gingerly with a comb i’m saying that to
say that y’all you literally if you’re
going to do your own hair or you’re
going to have someone else do it you got
to be
super patient with natural textured hair
oh thank you so much patricia welsh i
appreciate it
um
yes laila girl i’m not even playing with
you it takes her two hours just for the
comb out um particularly right here in
the crown my hair is really dense and
thick so she’ll take a little section
and she’ll just finger through it at the
roots and get that all separated and
it’s like velcro in there she’ll get it
all separated then she slowly combs it
out um very very patient very very
slowly to make sure to not pull my hair
out if i did it myself my hair would be
torn out because i can’t see well enough
to separate the hair without um
without damaging it and pulling on it
so someone’s asking what’s my hair
porosity
can i tell you i don’t even know what
porosity means honey i don’t know i
think i saw
on something that someone let the piece
of their hair sit on some water and if
it
floats then it’s got porosity and if it
doesn’t float then i don’t know the
growth guru might have an answer for my
hair porosity
i don’t even know if i’m saying that
word right so
um let me see where was i at oh we’ve
gone for an hour now so y’all forgive me
um we’re going long and
oh well we’ll be all right right what
else we got to do we’re all sheltered in
place um
so anyway for basically the last 15
years that is what i have done with my
with my hair thank you growth guru
medium porosity
that’s what i’ve done with my hair i
have put it in protective stylings i’ve
washed it
combed it out
moisturized it
and then had it styled in a protective
styling the one that i found for me was
twists
so i’ve worn twists at every stage
whether it was this long this long this
long this long or this long
i’ve worn it in twists most of the year
and then i take it out for a week or two
then i get it twisted back up
so you’ve got to find a protective style
y’all you’ve got to find some
moisturizing um
some moisturizing products that are
going to work for your hair and really
anything thank you quan lee
anything that has natural moisturizing
agents in
and i’m going to bring um whitney on
here in a second because she’s really
going to be able to speak to this more
intelligently
um because i’m not an expert in this i
just know my own hair what i do know
is that there are many natural products
out there that can be helpful to you
i’ve used karen’s body beautiful for
years karen with a k
karen’s body beautiful products
um
[Music]
i’m trying to think of there’s obviously
the curls brand
is amazing mahesha
has a wonderful brand you can find so
many options that are available to you
those of you that are raising mixed-race
children
find a african-american friend of yours
that you can really sit down and talk to
how do i get moisture in this young lady
or young man’s hair because moisture is
the key for retention and moisture is
sustained when you have your hair in a
protective styling when you have your
child’s hair in a protective style that
can help retain the moisture over the
long haul so the reality is you do need
help when you’re dealing with
um
young children and adoptive children or
you’re fostering children i appreciate
those of you that have come in oh design
essentials that’s another brand that is
great
those of you keep saying the brands that
you found that work well for you we can
help each other in that regard
um but those of you that have said i’ve
got mixed race children i get a lot of
comments about that how would i advise
you i would advise you to be open to the
advice of some black women in your world
that can say to you let me help you let
them help you okay because it is
different than your hair they can’t your
child cannot have their hair washed
every day they have to have some real
live good oils in their hair which would
be the opposite of what you if your um
european descent the opposite is what
you need to do you don’t need to put oil
in your hair your hair creates its own
oil ours doesn’t so we have to put oil
in our hair
nature’s blessing is a wonderful pomade
that i’ve used for 20 years in my hair i
use it in my boy’s hair
it’s fantastic nature’s blessing you can
find it on amazon buy it in a pack of
three i love it it smells like heaven
too
and then um the growth guru she has a
line of incredible products
um i’m gonna bring her on to tell you
about them this was not this is not a
commercial for the growth guru by the
way her name’s whitney i call her the
growth guru because that’s her instagram
handle but um whitney and i did not plan
this just so you know she happens to
just be here on the live
uh yes marina the main choice is another
uh line that is very good but um
whitney and i didn’t plan this i don’t
want you to think that this is me trying
to promote overtly promote whitney’s
products what i can tell you is that
they’ve worked wonders for us
um not just me but my sons um they’re
fantastic she’s created them herself so
they have natural products in them and
this woman knows some hair so i’m gonna
see if i can get whitney in here for a
second
let’s see here
whitney okay there you are i’m gonna see
if i can get
i love her so much she’s a sweet lady
mother of three
and she knows some hair
the growth guru declined whitney did you
just decline did you do that on purpose
are you trying to tell me that you ain’t
coming in my life to have a conversation
with me
oh she said give me a sec
she’s probably like girl
it’s too many people up in here for you
to call me on without notice
um so anyway
i want you to find some products for you
that have some um moisture in them and
then i want you oh
whitney says she just got out of the
shower okay go ahead get yourself
together with me it’s all right get
yourself together girl it’s okay
um but if you guys see the growth guru
here you need to follow her because
she’s got lots of incredible insight
um
about hair i see kanika kanika is my
sister-in-law who
uh does my hair sometimes she has
straightened my hair in fact this
straightening situation that i have
right now
um because i could not go to a
salon
none of us could right we’ve all been
doing our own hair i knew better than to
try to wash my own hair because i like i
told you guys i wouldn’t be able to
really comb it out well at all it’s just
my arms hurt they tired i can’t see back
here all that
kanika uh did it for me and i think we
had a record this time right kanika
i think it only took you five hours
instead of seven
so i think i think for about four or
five hours kenik and i were together
all right let me see while we’re waiting
for whitney and whitney don’t feel
pressure at all uh hi tanisha i see you
don’t feel pressured uh whitney to come
in if you’re busy right now sis i’m
gonna answer some questions as i’m able
can these tips work for a more silky
curly hair type yes because really what
i’ve given you are general tips you have
got to find if your hair is curly that
means combing it um brushing it
maneuvering it is going to make it
easier for it to snap hair textures that
aren’t straight like this as we
manipulate them they snap so if you’re
trying to retain hair you still gotta
find some protective styles for many
people that has been
wait a minute y’all hold on one second
for many people that has been um
you part wigs
um
the growth guru and others are excellent
there are some you part wigs out there
y’all that look like your hair and your
hair is safely tucked up underneath that
wig and nobody knows that you’re walking
around with a u-part wig on for a little
while so you can protect your hair
here’s something she said to me
somebody’s asking what’s my hair type i
don’t know i’m gonna have to ask whitney
that she might know
but um
somebody said actually whitney said to
me that your hair your own hair on your
head is like a bentley
like the car evently she said if you had
a bentley and you had a honda or a
chevrolet or something
would you drive the bentley every day
or would you want to protect
that
and actually would you drive the the
more functional car every day and
protect the more valuable car so so
she’s right when i thought about it i
was like that’s a great illustration
she’s like you don’t wear your own hair
all the time every day wearing it out
putting a curling iron in all the time
brushing it combing it not those of us
with curly textured hair that’s going to
bring damage to our hair more quickly
over time she said every now and then
you just gotta park that stuff in the
garage leave it in the garage
take out some other stuff that can be
more functional and you can curl it you
can do whatever you want to do to it and
it doesn’t damage your hair at the same
time so we’ve really gotta value the
hair that’s on our our head so anybody
else questions how do you care for your
hair when it’s straightened so like
right now my hair has been flat ironed
this is one of the two times this year
or three times maybe that i will flat
iron my hair and honestly i’m pretty
lazy about it i just have it like this
um most of the time i have it in a in a
ponytail or you know when i go to sleep
at night i might put it on a
pineapple on top of my head and i just
have it in a
have it in a ball of some sort like this
and then i go to bed so i’m not really i
certainly am not curling it every day i
guess i need to say that i’m not putting
a flat iron in it every day i’m not
putting a curling iron in it every day
um we have had to do a lot of filming
and online
things online so i have had to have my
hair kind of done for some events
um with the whole shelter in place thing
um you know everything’s moved to online
so when i’ve had to do that i do have
some old-fashioned um
hot rollers you know the kind that you
can you plug in and they’re in a little
set
and um
i will put like five hot rollers in my
hair those sit there for a little while
i take them out and then because my hair
won’t it doesn’t hold curl very well
when it’s straightened like this because
it’s kind of heavy
i have some um
not they are they look like flexi rods
meaning they’re those long rollers but
they’re cloth so they don’t hurt to
sleep in their smooshy
and i just roll my hair up in them they
have a snap at the end i snap them and
i’ll go to bed with like four or five of
them in my hair and that helps it to
retain the curl for the following day if
i’ve got you know to do online bible
study or filming or something like that
but what i don’t do is still put heat in
my hair every day i still don’t do that
i don’t put it in my hair it might be
once a month that i put heat in my hair
so i just am adverse to that sort of
thing
i know i’m so sorry i don’t have the
pictures
i’ll try to work on that i’ll get better
at being um
organized how do i handle uh gray hair
girl i don’t know yet because see this
the only one i got see that one right
there
that’s it that’s the only gray hair that
i have so i can’t tell you how to handle
gray hair
um
i will ask the growth guru the question
about wigs when she comes on
uh let’s see here
how do i maintain protein and moisture
balance do you use protein treatments um
i don’t specifically use them anymore i
think i did use them a lot when i was
getting a relaxer but you had to because
you were stripping your hair of
everything with the relaxer but now in
our natural state if we’re just
continuing on with um
but for love you needed to do a rollout
yes girl
um but for those of us who um are
wearing our hair natural if we just keep
our hair moisturized then that means
that that moisture in and of itself
including deep conditioning treatments i
i saw someone ask about that yes
including deep conditioning treatments
um i will do those when i get my hair
washed i always do a steam treatment
steam treatment means that it’s kind of
like a hair dryer and you can get one
online but it’s kind of like a hair
dryer that you can sit under but it
actually creates steam
okay so i will have conditioner all over
my hair and then i just kind of pull it
up just like this and kind of get it
around like that and pin it all up and
everything and then um i’ll tie one of
those long boot socks around my head
because sometimes it starts dripping and
it’s hot and it hurts and blah blah blah
so i tie that around my head and then i
sit under a steamer and the steamer just
lets all that moisture soak into all of
your
your hair and um retain for a longer
period of time so i try to do a steam
treatment every single time
i get my hair done no matter what style
i’m doing i try to get a deep
conditioner or steam treatment because
remember i’m only doing it like every
six weeks not more than that sometimes
it’s eight weeks um
one question i’ll ask and then i’m gonna
get whitney in here because i see that
she’s ready or one question i’ll answer
um i do blow dry my hair one time
and that’s when i get it done
so
when i go get it done every six to eight
weeks
wash
comb out
steam treatment or deep treatment okay
so a good conditioner that’s got lots of
oils in it and you sit under a steamer
so it can kind of let it absorb
and then
it is combed out slowly patiently got to
be real patient about that if you don’t
have a den men brush d-e-n-m-a-n
go get one on amazon
den men brush really great for helping
to comb out slowly comb out hair or a
wet brush is another one kanika let me
know if i have that right
um but the wet brush is helpful as well
mostly what you need is your patience
okay
if you can’t be patient with your
daughter’s hair if you can’t be patient
with your own you need to get a
sister-in-law or a cousin or your mom
and him or you like aunties or a great
hairdresser who can be patient with that
curly textured hair
um
and then um it is blown out so after my
hair is combed out then it’s blown blown
out even before i put the twists in
there’s several reasons for that i’ll
tell you real quick then i’ll get
whitney in the reason why i blow it out
the main reason i blow it out before i
do twists is because when my hair is wet
and dries on itself
it gets so tightly coiled in my roots
that it is actually more damaging for me
to let it dry on itself like that
because it’s like velcro trying to pull
it apart when it’s time to redo it it
starts to lock and become like
dreadlocks
um and so since i’m not locking it which
by the way is another great option for
you if you want uh sister locks
dreadlocks those are options but anyway
um it literally locks on itself so when
i blow it out that at least relaxes it
enough that when i twist it
um it will enable it not to be so um
tightly coiled upon itself which might
tear it when i have to pull it apart
hope that makes sense
another reason why you can blow it out
once every six weeks or so
is because that lets you keep your twist
the length of your twists
okay so shrinkage is real did y’all know
did you know that shrinkage is real it’s
a real thing for those of you that don’t
know about shrinkage let me inform you
that shrinkage is when a woman of color
washes her hair and when that water
starts to drip out of her hair and her
hair starts to dry it goes from this
right here to this right here i kid you
not
you could have
20 inches of hair that looks like three
inches after it’s wet and has dried on
itself
because it shrinks upon itself so if you
want your twists for example or your
style to retain its length that means
you’ve got to knock the water off of it
with a blow dryer so that it will
already be fairly dry at least when you
put your style in place and in that way
you can retain the length instead of
shrinkage sort of causing it to draw
back up again
all right
i hope this has been helpful to y’all
right
teaching you how to get closer to jesus
and keep your crowns beautiful yes yes
yes okay i hope it’s been helpful let me
see if i can find whitney there’s my
friend
here she comes y’all i think she’s
coming hold on one second
let me see
let me see
yes you all know about the good
shrinkage
okay whitney are you coming y’all hang
tight
how often i’m going to let whitney
answer some of these questions i see
your questions i’m going to let whitney
answer some of them
uh whitney did i lose you hold on let’s
see let me try again
okay it says that we’re waiting for
whitney right now
hi friends girl how are you
i’m making i’m hot because i was trying
to get ready i was like taking a shower
i hear priscilla shire said yeah i’ma
bring whitney on i’m in my town like
sorry girl
it’s okay
how are you
good i miss you this is the longest i
like i think i’ve gone i haven’t seen
you it’s been a very very look at you
you all made you don’t look like you
sheltering in place what’s going on 10
minutes i’m still sweating from the
shower i was like
girl you didn’t have to get cute we just
doing the thing i mean you
know come on now that’s the way you roll
though
kanika says hello
hi
i see her on here
okay let me introduce you i’m gonna
introduce you and then i just wanted you
to answer a couple of questions that
people have that i don’t know because
you know i’m not a hair expert like you
are for example
this is whitney
whitney is the growth guru you can
follow her on instagram and i first
learned about her um whitney we actually
found this out later i think i told you
this whitney i found out about whitney
six years ago i didn’t realize it at the
time that it was her but i was on the
set of war room and the lady who was
doing our hair on war room and i was
saying to her you know we’re not using
heat on my hair as we film this movie no
you can’t you can’t do all that stuff we
can twist it and we can untwist it for
these shots but that’s it
and as we were just talking about hair
through about the eight to ten weeks
that we were filming
one day she sent me and she tagged me on
a post she said you know what i think
this girl um would be great for you to
follow because it seems like she’s on
the same vein as you in terms of taking
care of hair so at the time i didn’t
even realize it was you but i learned
about you six years ago
isn’t that something that’s crazy like i
was still doing like hair out of my
house yep yep and then all these years
later i guess it’s been almost two years
ago as i was kind of trying to need to
needing to shake up my own hair regimen
because i could tell my hair had changed
some you know partly with just probably
some damage from
some little things i was trying here and
there and i needed to kind of revitalize
it and then age you know age has
something to do with the hormones and
vitamins in our body all the stuff and i
thought of you and i and i looked you up
came to visit you and since then i’ve
kind of been um adhering to your
very wise plan about how you help women
retain their hair and grow their hair
back
so one of the main questions that people
have asked is
um well you know what where i want to
start i want to start by you talking
about the line of products that you’ve
created because we were talking about
products that are available to women in
terms of moisture and retaining
all that they need to keep their health
healthy so tell us what you’ve got
so like 10 years ago i started
formulating my line of products i went
into the lab my background is really
like pharmaceutical working with
pharmaceutical um
chemists and scientists so i kind of
already understood like how that works
and i’m also a hair nerd so i’ve been
like researching you know products and
everything i used to be a product junkie
all the all that stuff so i started um
formulating like 10 years ago and it’s
just been like a labor labor of love but
the problem with naturals is we don’t
retain moisture at all the problem the
main problem is hydration
versus moisture so a lot of people think
that we need like these heavy products
and we need all this stuff to like
slather on our hair but our hair is
really not
retaining moisture because it’s not
absorbing
um i guess the benefits of the hydration
first and so i came up with my line
juices and berries um hair care we have
a ton of stuff
coming up we’re really about to like
expand really quickly but we sold out of
like everything
yeah we just launched um
january was pre-sales and then i just
got the products in april we sold out oh
my goodness
um all this um all this inventory that’s
coming because you know coveted
manufacturing and everything so you get
a chance order your stuff now because
it’ll ship in july um which is crazy
it’s almost june but anyway hydration is
key and hydration really is a mixture of
like natural proteins uh water-based
products and um like botanicals and so i
have a line like this is i’m in my
office so they were like sitting here
but um these are the products and i’ve
actually been using this stuff on
priscilla’s hair
for probably like the past year every
time i get every time i was getting like
a new formulation i’ve been using it on
personal hair especially the leave-in
conditioners um so it smells amazing but
the key to retaining moisture is to
hydrate your hair first
and then you moisturize so what does
that look when you okay help to
differentiate that for someone who’s
like okay i’m just i just do my hair at
home could you tell me if i need to
moisturize and then hydrate what does
that actually mean
okay so your hydration routine what like
with my line juices and berries we start
off with a co-wash but if your hair
needs to be shampooed we always
recommend a shampoo at first i’m still
launching like the shampoos and
everything from the lime so you’d want
to start by cleansing your hair um i i
am a huge proponent of co-washing um
which for those of you don’t that don’t
know it’s like washing your hair with
the conditioner
it’s a gentle cleanse so this right here
is what we use and i’ve used this um on
priscilla’s hair it’s like a rinse kind
of like after um i’ve done her shampoo
um and this has a ton of slip slip is so
important as you know because you say
your hair is velcro i say your hair just
really loves itself so to get it to kind
of slide apart for us
um i love products that have a ton of
slips so the co-wash is essential um and
you actually detangle your hair with
this in and it keeps your hair from
breaking off because of the slip so the
second thing you know i’m big on
leave-in conditioners um and we always
do a spray weave and it’s a liquid
leave-in this like replenishes the hair
because i don’t know where y’all are
we’re in texas and our water is super
dry so this replenishes everything that
the the hard water strips from your hair
um this has um
like quinoa in it rice protein um it has
like amla bergamot and so we use this
first and then we follow with a
secondary leave and this is called the
quench cream and um i’ve definitely used
this both of these on priscilla for sure
um
while we were like testing formulas and
everything and her hair loves all this
stuff so this right here is fortifying
and this pretty much starts to protect
your hair from like environmental
stuff um and it really like if you have
curly hair you start to see your curls
kind of come alive with this the quince
cream but everything in our line and
everything i use on priscilla is
lightweight
so i i’m not a fan of heavy hair and
never been like
a fan of heavy hair even if you have a
fro your froze should still have life
and it should still bounce and move and
all that stuff so we always do this
first um and then moisture you can fill
in moisture with an oil um and we use
like we were using the heart program
hands oil for
the longest so someone said oh let’s see
real food and drink she says this sounds
like a lot of work i’m like it is
it’s literally like sex it’s like it’s
just cleansed first
and then you you it’s like taking your
vitamins so you’re gonna cleanse first
you’re gonna take your water and then
you’re gonna put the vitamins on and
then the moisture would be more like you
know your meal i guess yes but in order
to retain the moisture because if you
just put like moisturizing products on
your hair and it’s not fully hydrated
it’s going to be super dry
like as soon as your hair dries so this
like keeps your hair really soft but
it’s just like like taking your vitamins
got it got it okay
let’s see i think maybe tammy franklin
is here hi tammy if you’re here i miss
you too tammy yes absolutely okay there
are a lot of questions about your hair
would you please tell us about your own
hair and what you do to protect your
hair yeah so for me i’m huge on my
protective styles low manipulation low
tension um priscilla and i definitely
like agree on that i have a ton of hair
personally but i ain’t got time i’m not
going to be like we talk about we’re not
going to be brushing it every day
doing twists every week like i’m not so
for me the main rule of thumb if my hair
is dirty i will shampoo it if it is not
i’m probably leaving it alone right now
i’m protecting i’m protecting i have a
line of natural like wigs ponytails
um you part wigs all that stuff so right
now i’m actually in um one of my pieces
that looks just like my hair but my hair
is happily marinating that dude that
does look just like your hair yeah they
my old mother can’t tell the difference
so at this point it’s like pointless
you know to take my hair out of the
garage as you would say
so how do you feel about wigs because
someone was asking that could wigs be
damaging or do you feel like no they’re
helpful to your hair speak to that it
can be very damaging if you’re not
wearing them the right way so it’s like
anything in moderation everything in
moderation but you have to wear it the
right way um the rule of thumb is this
your skin is the biggest organ on your
entire body so if something doesn’t feel
right like if the wig feels tight or it
feels like it’s rubbing or it feels like
it’s pulling it is and your skin is
trying to alert you that something’s
wrong so i’m not a huge fan i know
frontals are like huge and the glue and
the tape we don’t do any of that um at
all but you should not feel
uncomfortable and if you do feel
uncomfortable it means you need to make
some adjustments
got it okay
now this is something else i wanted you
to speak to because i remember sitting
in your chair one day getting my hair
done
and you said
priscilla do you want me to do your
edges and i remember looking up at you
going i don’t even really know what you
mean by that and you said well do you
want me to lay them down and i said girl
no i don’t ever do that and you said
back to me
that’s why you have edges that’s what
you said you said you have edges because
you’re not trying to lay lay them down
all the time so edges are a big deal
especially for black girls we got to we
got to get these situations figured out
so i want you to just give
fair warning about what’s the balance of
having our edges situated but also being
mindful of the fact that situating them
too much could actually be damaging
yeah so here’s the deal i’m i’m also
like priscilla i do not care if my edges
are slick or not my edges are
like this so i’m not going to try to get
them to be something that they’re not
and i think that at the end of the day
that’s the philosophy that i have like
covering hands or my salons and
you said that really quick her salons
are called her
growing hands so if you go to at
her growing hands and don’t forget what
you were going to say whitney but i
don’t want to go so fast that they
missed that at her growing hands if you
if you follow them you’ll see that what
because whitney is a boss this is what
you need to know whitney is busy
building an entire um an entire line of
products to help women with her hair and
an entire business where she’s
replicated herself so any of her
stylists that you see in her salons they
are all trained in this methodology
where they are not interested in
straightening your hair every week for
you they are not going to um and that’s
what you need even if you don’t live in
dallas you live somewhere else but you
need to find a stylist who is less
interested in just letting you have
straight hair and let your edges be laid
and all that she’s more interested in
doing what is necessary to make your
hair as healthy as it can possibly be so
for those of you wondering you might not
actually be able to get whitney do to do
your hair because whitney is actually
building a whole business and
replicating herself but any stylist you
get of hers you need to know they all
use the same philosophy okay go back to
what you were saying
okay so i’m not one of those girls who
who like loves sleek edges my edges can
be on like frederick douglas and i’m
cool like as long as they’re there it
doesn’t bother me as long as they’re
there as long as they’re there you know
what i mean i’m just happy that they’re
here so here’s my thing when you were
talking earlier about the big chop and
the spirituality of it it’s so spiritual
to me hair is spiritual to me and i
always say like my my um platform is
healthy natural hair but my ministry is
self-love and acceptance
and there are so many of us women of
color and women with textured hair that
have so much trauma and pain
behind their hair
and so my methodologies are centered
around you loving yourself exactly the
way that god created you to be and
you’re perfect
you’re perfect every kink every curl
every
wave on your head he knew what he was
doing when he put it there and so for
you to
permanently try to change that thinking
that it’s not good enough or that it
can’t perform or that your hair is not
worthy you know on its own is like
a it’s a spiritual thing you know and so
that is
essentially what i do and that’s why i
say i’m not a hairstylist i’m a healer i
am um
like here to breathe life into your hair
and i’m here to get you to fall in love
with who god created you to be because
you’re so special and our hair is like
fingerprints it’s amazing and you have
you know multiple curl patterns and one
head of hair that’s why i don’t hear
tight
hair type is healthy you know i’m not a
four feet because what’s your hair type
healthy is my hair type healthy is the
hairstyle and here’s the thing think
about this we’re such an amazing people
right we’re so just multifaceted and we
have beautiful features and all these
things how you categorize
us and put us in four categories with
three four subcategories like you can go
to your family reunion and see that all
these different shades all these
different curls you can line up you know
with your sisters and your cousins and i
mean you know what i mean we’re amazing
and you can have one head of hair like
you know you have what maybe four
different
curl patterns
and three different textures probably
you know because a lot of us will have
like waves over here tight coils right
here it’s a little you know and
everybody normally picks out one part of
the hair like why can’t this part do
this and it did you know but it’s like
our family tree if you
were to you know do your um your dna
you’d be like oh wow 23 here 15 here 8
here so why is your hair supposed to be
uniform
yeah yeah absolutely i completely agree
with that and the in fact the whole
point of this live wasn’t to suggest to
anybody who was going to watch today um
that you have to do it the way i’ve done
it or the way that someone else you see
someone else doing it you have to decide
what actually honors who god has made me
to be what actually um celebrates the
individuality that god has because i’m
all of us are created in that the
creative genius of god is on display
through each of our uniquenesses and
it’s a shame when we mute that
uniqueness because we’re trying to
assimilate or sort of fit in with the
crowd no just go ahead and be who god
has called you to be and that doesn’t
mean that doesn’t mean that you can’t
enjoy style
girl if you want to wear your hair
straight this day and wear a wig that
day and wear a little color do do
whatever you’re going to do but do you
really want to damage yourself to do it
that’s the question
and like the color purple you know until
you do right by me type thing until you
do right by your hair
until you honor your hair you will never
reach your full hair potential period
you have to fall in love with it and you
have to honor it in order to see it be
its best
okay so here’s what you’re going to do
because i see you asking again about um
you guys asking about uh whitney and
asking about her products and that sort
of thing if you will just follow
at
the growth guru is that did i get that
correct
at the growth guru
yeah it’s at the underscore
do you want me to pin it let me see it
yeah please pin it because girl i don’t
even know how to do that but the
products are she’s going to give you
both of those if you want to follow and
as she said because of kovan 19 her
products aren’t available right now
they’ll be shipping again in july but
you can pre-order now if you want to try
those but remember no matter what
products you have because i see some
people from the uk asking do you ship
over there do you ship internationally
not yet but there’s a website called
myus.com that you can actually order
anything in the states from okay so
the reality is though even if because
this wasn’t
i’m so glad whitney has mentioned her
products because i can vouch for them
because i use them but this wasn’t
supposed to be a commercial for whitney
her her commercial is i want you to do
what you need to do to have your natural
hair and you the principles are the same
regardless of what products you have at
your disposal so if for the next two
months you don’t have the products that
you would want or because you can’t get
until july or you live in europe or you
live in australia and you haven’t been
able to to to get them in the time and
you want remember the principles remain
wash your hair hydrate your hair
moisturize your hair nourish it and put
it in a protective style where you are
not doing it all the time
curly hair
people curly hair people we’ve gotta um
stop putting heat and utensils in our
hair all day every day that’s been the
main thing that has sort of saved me is
protective styling and also not combing
my hair all the time
yeah and i don’t even know
how much hair this woman has like i
can’t
i cannot just okay so there’s only one
person in the world that i’ve ever met
out of the thousands of people that i’ve
touched that has more hair than you
that sounds a little dramatic
no i like but here’s the thing they
don’t understand your hair holds volume
right now your hair is straight straight
and look how thick it is
like it’s not a blow dry
you do have all the hair
well i’m grateful for people like you
i’m grateful for people like you that
are gifted in this regard and that are
patient like
you know there’s a certain gifting to be
that patient to go
part by part section by section that’s a
great thing so i’m grateful for you and
i’m grateful for you coming on today and
like getting yourself all dolled up girl
so you could be with us
thank you look i took 10 minutes i was
like okay let me
let me but i i want to say this like
your hair i absolutely
i love your hair i treasure hair um i
treasure like our relationship through
your hair but it’s just it’s so much
deeper than hair and like for you to
have a similar philosophy
you know as me it’s just been like a
great kind of like you know
collaboration a beauty collaboration but
yeah yeah who who knew that i would end
up being a beauty collaboration person
and then when i started growing your
hair out i was like what did i just do
because we added on like another hour
because the longer it gets the longer it
takes us to do but it’s all good
yeah i appreciate you so much girl and i
hope to get to see you soon enjoy your
the rest of your shelter in place it
doesn’t look like it’s going to last
very very much longer
i know for real and i’ll see i’ll see
you soon we’ll figure it out all right
see you soon thank you okay bye bye
bye
oh that was so great so great
well
let’s see here it’s been an hour and a
half an hour and uh 40 minutes or so and
we’ve just enjoyed ourselves i hope that
you’ve had fun
um
you’re welcome you all are very welcome
and remember i see you saying you live
in bermuda so you need to
you need to move to texas for your hair
no you don’t you don’t what you need to
do is
find um products that work for your hair
look those things up that she talked
about
um hydration voice versus moisture and
how you can do both of those things
because i didn’t know the difference
between between those things before she
told me so those things are all going to
be helpful to your hair i see that many
of you are starting to get ready to log
off now the numbers are going down and
as you do i just want to say thank you i
hope that you enjoyed that
uh it took forever
but you know why not have fun and just
sort of um
talk about talk about this i don’t do
this often so um thanks for
being a part of it
um tanisha i’m so glad you were here
girl it’s good to see you tell my cousin
paul that i said hello uh hey katrina
inc i will save this live i’m
also technologically challenged but i’m
going to figure out how to do that
kanika i also saw you earlier trying to
trying to talk about i got four people’s
uh
hair on four people heads of hair on my
head
i see you because i know that was under
undercover you were scoring on me
undercover that’s okay um thank you so
much again uh whitney i appreciate you
y’all are so welcome yes i will not
forget to save it okay i’m working on it
i’m working on it
i hope it was super helpful great
i’m so glad
hey sylvia wash good to see you
tammy are you here
hi tammy we’re okay wait
y’all i’m just i’m just being
mischievous now tammy let me see if
tammy franklin is gonna go live with me
this is my friend
i need to come for you next
hey girl
hey girl i’m in my closet i’m looking at
a hot funky mess but
but see you got your protective style
yeah right now
yes see what you’ve been doing with your
hair for the quarantine
you know bye sweetie say hi to kennedy
hi beautiful girl
i love you
love you too
kennedy will pop on a wig honey earlier
today she was black and now she’s she’s
blonde i haven’t quite ventured out into
the wigs yet
but um
i’m kind of definitely wanting to try
but during the quarantine i’ve just been
washing i i have a steamer so i’ve been
steaming i have a steamer i have a
steamer i’ve been steaming my hair i
would see y’all our hair loves the
steamer tammy what brand do you have do
you know what serious a bunch of people
asked about the brand of steamer and i
there is one called beautiful like
beautiful with an h beautiful makes a
good steamer but if you go on amazon.com
they have all sorts of steamers
different price ranges and what i would
suggest um you do is when you go on
amazon um scroll all the way down and
you can start seeing um reviews like
real
real reviews as opposed to
just kind of seeing a few you’ll start
seeing lots of reviews okay okay good so
you use yours regularly
i would say i probably no
when i’m doing good
um
probably once a month
i steam
good
yeah but one
i said when i’m doing good uh-huh yes
um
but yeah and i co-washing i do a lot of
co-washing but and like you know
and i think the hard part too is when
you know protective styles often i had
to get used to
um because it wasn’t quite my thing yeah
you know i’m a i’m a silk silky press
and i had to just kind of
get used used to doing something
different and doing
what was best for my hair and whitney’s
um
the way her approach to hair and talking
and talking about keeping her hair into
the in the garage and looking at it as a
prized car i never
yeah i said it you know quite that way
but i’m i’m learning that not relaxing
for me personally
and having you know natural hair and
keeping it you know girl had to set it
off set it off braids are coming back
this week come on set it off bro
somebody got to who are you are you
jaded you little enough you joe i guess
i’m jada
but um i’ll be biblica
they’re coming back this week but i
think what i’m gonna i told kennedy
while we’re in this still in this
quarantine i want to try on some wigs i
just want to try to have fun so i think
she and i are going to do that that’s
good and can’t your sweet little girl is
the person to help you with it
girl because otherwise i don’t know
and i’m with you like learning all these
terms and techniques the difference
between hydration and moisture was i
mean i’m still really learning honestly
yeah because the truth is most of us
did we haven’t had to fool with our hair
our natural hair since we were like 10.
so we all have to re-learn when you
decide to go natural you have to
re-learn how to do because it’s totally
different than when it’s relaxed i’ve
been natural probably for about
let me see my son’s 19
um i would say probably 15 16 years but
for the longest i would i still got my
i would i mean straight every two weeks
yeah you were still straightening it i
was straightening it and so
you know not to do that was
yes but then you decided that the health
of your hair you could see it taking a
toll and you were like you know what i
want healthy more than i want the style
absolutely absolutely i started seeing
it taking taking a toll on my hair uh
started having some thinning and
you know
going to whitney has completely you know
changed uh my hair but also too
educating myself i i went natural
kind of due to necessity but i hadn’t
educated my myself at all yep yep
somebody is asking is anyone in here
tenderheaded
i am so tenderheaded it’s ridiculous are
you tenderhead tammy i’m not
no
no i used to be when i was a little girl
my mom um told me i was tenderheaded
then but
girl
all this hair that the lord gave me on
my head and i i mean it’s like a ring of
fire on my head when somebody is
heavy-handed and really just going
through my hair quick
someone said whitney who is that whitney
was just on with priscilla was just on
with uh whitney live yeah you’ll have to
go back and watch the livestream
live yeah really and then she popped me
in yeah yeah
sorry girlfriend because i’m looking i i
literally just got out of the shower we
wouldn’t serve today and
um so i literally just got the shower
and i was watching y’all and i was like
okay
i’m going to accept
well i knew that you would decline if
you wanted to so sorry if you felt
pressure no not at all girl i would have
decla if i was feeling uh anything i
would have declined and said a friend i
am not presentable don’t play with my
friend
i love you girl i love you thank you for
doing this i mean i love you i i
literally caught the last 15 minutes i’m
going to go back and watch it again
enjoy
i’ll see you later all right love you
guys love you too bye bye
so i see somebody asking and i’ll just
hang around y’all and answer some
questions and stuff because
my kids are running around with their
cousins
i ain’t got nothing to do so i’m just
hanging out uh hanging out with you guys
someone is asking what co-washing is
again it is when you use a conditioner
to actually wash your hair so it’s a
gentle cleanser but it actually helps to
retain the moisture a lot of shampoos
since they’re stripped since they’re
cleansing your hair they’re harsh and
they actually strip the oils out too so
if you use a conditioner to wash your
hair not every time but maybe every
other time use a conditioner um you’ll
be keeping in the
conditioning um or the moisture and the
hydration and all that stuff
without using the heavy harsh stripping
agents that that shampoo might have
um so there are products that are co
washes you will find co washes and that
means that it does this okay let me see
where kanika is um because you guys are
asking for uh kanika and i i love to
talk to my sister-in-law
so hang on one second let me find kanika
um
because kanika does she has helped me uh
quite a bit
with my hair through the years kanika
i’m looking for you
so send a request or whatever
you do
when you come on to people’s lives i’m
i’m challenged
let me see if i can find her y’all so
hang tight
any tips on color hey melania
milani uh yeah did i get that right hey
girl it’s good to see you
hey
mel coop do i have grace girl look i
just have that one it’s sprouted up in
the last year that one that’s all i got
um
color
i just am not a fan of anything
i’m not a good person to ask about color
and stuff because i’m not a fan of
putting anything in my hair nothing has
ever done great in my hair whenever i
put things like that in
um
it it i regret it because my it dries my
hair out it makes it not as it doesn’t
flourish as much as it could if i would
have just left it alone so i’m not a fan
of that it’s good to see you girl
um
let’s see
all right let me find kanika y’all she
might have already gone i don’t see her
kanika holler at me if you’re here girl
cause i don’t see you
all right someone’s asking did i watch
the documentary on madame cj walker and
listen i’m glad you brought that up
because yes i did and if you have not
watched octavia spencer
in um
madame cj walker’s uh in the story of
madam c d walker you really need to
because it tells the story of
she was the first black um millionaire i
believe and she sort of is credited with
really
moving forward
hair
the hair movement for black women so
that’s something great to watch it’s on
netflix
okay kaneka i don’t know why it won’t
let me select you
i saw the request kanika
y’all hang tight okay let’s see here
all right i just requested her it says
she was unable to join
i don’t know what happened
sorry y’all hang on
whoops
let’s see here turn that back around
well you guys okay let’s see waiting for
kanika let me see if i can find her
hey girl hey
hey
let’s see your cute hair because it’s a
whole hair day that we’re having on as
well i haven’t done anything to it today
it looks so great what i woke up with
today
but you just got a good haircut has it
been two weeks or three weeks maybe
three
okay look okay
move the camera out a little bit so
everybody can see your cute bob
turn to the side
oh
kanika it looks so good okay tell
everybody why you decided to cut your
hair and what your goals are right now
okay so
my hair used to be long
um and i
had a baby uh we’ve had five of them
i have five but the most recent one
was about um
a little over a year ago
and then
kanika you’re breaking up is she
breaking up for y’all too
uh-oh i think you might have to go
somewhere where
your reception is a little better
okay is it better now
yes i think it’s better now keep going
and let’s try okay
so
um a few months ago i noticed my hair
was thinning
and um
i asked whitney to take a look at it
well this has become like a whitney
commercial yes
because i have always lost a little hair
right after pregnancy from hormones and
stuff but this was different than any
other time so when you know what i’m
glad you’re mentioning this kanika
because i saw a bunch of comments that i
wasn’t able to get to about postpartum
and the reality is every time well me
too but every time you had a baby you
would lose the hair right here at the
crown of your hair on either side yep
yep but this time it was like throughout
and that was different for me and so
when whitney looked at my hair she said
it looked like i had a vitamin
deficiency
and so then
that made me think for a minute
and i realized that i had stopped taking
my prenatal vitamins but i was still
nursing
so my body was using all of my vitamins
for the baby yeah and not for me
the baby took all you had and left
yep
and she was about so i did decide to
just go ahead and cut my hair to a
healthy length
and
try to grow it back out but it looks
really great
in like probably 15 years
yes and so what is your plan for growing
your hair back out
i don’t know because i’m kind of liking
it short right now oh okay well i should
ask what is your plan for getting it
back healthy
um well even though my hair is straight
i priscilla will tell you i don’t do a
lot to it you do not i don’t i don’t
wash it very often i’m not gonna say how
often i don’t wash it
um
it really is a long time though this is
a long time it’s a long time i literally
smell it and if it still smells okay and
my scalp is still okay then i just keep
rolling
and see i think this is a mental
horrible i have to go close the door
somebody left the door open but this is
a mental hurdle that a lot of
um people have to get over that you’re
not supposed to be washing your hair
every other day or every week or it’s
when your hair needs to be washed
because the more you’re manipulating it
and combing it and washing it and
blowing it out and all that the more
damage that’s going to come to your hair
yep
and somebody asked if my hair is natural
yes if it gets wet
you will see the whole shrinkage
situation happen
yes so for i i told i don’t know if
you’ve been on your girl we’ve been on
here for like almost two hours almost
two hours now and i just told the whole
natural hair story and that i did the
big chop for those of you that haven’t
seen it if you want to go back and watch
the whole ig live or in parts because
it’s been so fun but it has been long um
kamika i mentioned earlier i don’t know
if you were on but i mentioned that you
did it different than i did that i
chopped it all off but my brother who
knick is married to my brother was like
oh yeah you can go natural but you ain’t
gonna cut your hair out like my sister
did and you know actually every time i
mentioned going natural he started
getting nervous because he thought
the only way you could go natural was to
do the big chop
see and i think that’s a misconception a
lot of people have they think you have
to cut it all off to go natural so could
you describe what you did to go natural
so people can see there’s another way
so i basically
just grew it i did not cut my perm off
all at one time i probably cut it to
shoulder length
and then i would try to let it grow out
a little bit at a time but i was very
careful
with combing out my hair anytime i
washed it i mean like it took
a long time to comb it out because
really the breaking point is where your
natural hair meets your relaxed hair
that’s usually when it’s going to snap
off and honestly a lot of people
discouraged me from trying to do it that
way they were like oh it’s not going to
work your hair is going to get really
thin and you’re gonna have to cut it but
thankfully for me i was able to grow my
hair for about 18 months
before i cut off the entire relaxed part
did you just keep trimming the bottom as
your hair grew out you just kept slowly
trimming the bottom i did
okay
and did you find that a lot of your hair
was snapping off at the breaking point
and that you just had to relax yourself
and know that you’re headed toward a
goal so it’s okay to watch that relaxed
hair sort of snapping off
it did but it wasn’t that bad but i was
very careful with it and i still was not
washing it that often okay
so i think that helped
well somebody asked me about working out
yes so
i will say that i usually wear a
headband around the edges to try to at
least keep them compressed
somewhat
and then i usually put it um the rest in
a ponytail or a bun or something like
that where it won’t where the edges
won’t get wet
and curl up
okay okay
any other
hair wisdom that you would like to share
with us while i’m doing this once a year
hair life that uh
that i do every now and then hey amber
riley oh my gosh amber riley is saying
she shaved her head three times wow i
need to get her up on here to see what
that situation was like you do
so any other hair wisdom you need to
share sister-in-law beloved
what other hair i think um
i think you just have to do what works
for you like i have three girls
and of course all of their hair is
natural and they all have a lot of hair
so for me
like a lot of people say i didn’t know
you’re a natural or you always wear your
hair straight and usually i do wear my
hair straight because i need my hair to
not take a lot of time because i have to
worry about these girls
so um
i would just say do what works for you
in a healthy way yes in a healthy way
because i do think there’s a
misconception that natural hair is going
to be easier right it does not mean that
it just means it’s different
and you have to be just as attentive you
have to do what works for you um but you
have to you have to know that it doesn’t
just mean now you don’t have to do your
hair no more no you still do so you have
to decide what works for you and in your
case like you said you got three
daughters all my nieces
all my yummy nieces
yep oh and someone asked what do i do
with my hair at night yes i do wrap it
and like priscilla said i’m not putting
my i i don’t remember last time i put
heat on my hair i guess when i washed it
and blow-dried it the first time is the
last time i did it so
like during the day if my hair starts to
frizz up or something like that then i
will moisturize it and wrap it at night
and usually that will straighten it back
out
well there you go
i never understood that because my hair
don’t straighten back out once once
there’s a frizz on the way it’s all the
way on the way
thank you kanika welcome
i love you love you too bye bye
this is so great y’all i’m just having
the best time so um
i’m still not getting off
uh let’s see here you guys feel free to
get off whenever you need to let me see
if i can find um
my friend amber riley amber totally
declined this if you can’t come in right
now amber said she shaved her head three
times so i’m extremely interested
to hear about this situation
so let me see if amber’s coming amber
might be busy or indisposed at the
moment
he’s like
amber declined amber is like don’t play
me i’m not coming up in here without
without um
without any sort of
future or notice ahead of time so anyway
i hope that you guys have been um
have had fun i hope so
um
there you know i i see all of you that
have sent me requests because i normally
come on and pray for random people and
get to meet strangers and pray with you
um i’d love to be able to do that but
this time
it was all about hair and we happen to
have some friends to have conversation
with along the way amber i see you girl
it’s okay it’s okay you and i will talk
at another time maybe we can talk about
hair
another time so did we answer about
workout and hair um i i will i will say
that i don’t sweat a lot in my head when
i work out so i don’t worry about it as
much others do
and one of the ways to help keep your
edges laid down is to make sure that
you’re wearing something over that
hairline as you work out so that the
humidity or the sweat doesn’t
get to that and then you basically leave
that there while you’re showering and
everything and you don’t take it off
until your hair is sort of dried again
and then when you take that off you’ll
still see that your edges are laid um
and then we’re gonna have to talk to
somebody that sweats a lot in their head
when they work out and ask than what
they do i don’t sweat a lot so when i
work out usually i just keep on keep on
moving
so i’m sorry i don’t have a better
answer for that
lots of questions here about skin care
that’s something for another day isn’t
it maybe we’ll have to do that
uh next time
t
dot and i don’t you don’t want this to
end girl neither do i i’m having so much
fun this has been great
um do i ever swim the answer that is yes
i’m just hanging out hey jesse
he’s saying i’m missing her whole life
no she didn’t yes she was here no she
didn’t
change anybody see me
oh andrea what’s here why didn’t you get
me
andrea you came by my house
well i was talking to
kanika my sister-in-law and whitney
and about and like 2500 friends
and it just went a little longer than i
expected
you need me babe
wait a minute don’t leave
don’t leave
all right y’all
so i’m so dramatic
okay y’all i hope that you had fun i’m
gonna get off and tend to my family who
still live here apparently
um hope you’ll have fun i’m gonna see
how to save this okay so that it will
stay in my igtv situation
and
hopefully
other friends who might want to watch it
can watch it in
stages because it’s a little long
see you later love y’all bye