Isn’t she lovely?

The beaming bella you see above is my homegirl Andrea — brilliant blogger of Fly, creator of awesome natural hair You Tube videos, and now creator of unique art that you can proudly adorn your walls with.

These prints are available to you at Andrea’s online store for the I Love My Hair project! This all began as a project for her thesis class, as Andrea herself explains in this post.

I love learning about the artistic process, and Andrea remains a continual inspiration. Her prints range from $25 to $30, and would make a fabulous gift for any Afrobella in your life during this holiday season (don’tcha think?)

Click here to get yours!

One of the most popular questions I get from my Trinidadian afrobellas is – where can I get these products you speak of? It’s true – in the USA we’ve got a wealth of natural hair goodness at ready disposal. When these products are imported and sold elsewhere, they’re often marked up to high heaven or imported in quantities that don’t meet demand.

Well Trini bellas, there’s a new store for you to check out. Body Beautiful, a brand new beauty supply store has just opened on Ariapita Avenue. I learned of this via my high school listserv — yes indeed, the owner is an alumni of my high school. Hilarians forever!

The store is offering natural bath, body, and hair care products. I’m not sure if Miss Jessie’s or Curls is available yet, but one of my favorite brands, Kinky Curly, is finally available for sale. Click here to read my review from 2006. Since then the brand has expanded to include some new products (the shampoo, the children’s line, and Midnight Miracle which I think I NEED in my LIFE). For now I’ll just say, start with the Knot Today. It remains one of my natural hair must-haves because it is THAT good.

Click here to check out Body Beautiful’s Facebook page, and if you’re in the neighborhood stop by and get what your hair needs!

Picture this: I’m standing in line at the supermarket last night, about to pay for my groceries. The casher and bagger are both young African American females with relaxed hair. One of them appears frustrated with her hair (judging from the haphazard way in which it was styled).

The bagger turns to me while bagging my groceries.

“Is that your natural hair?”

Yes.

“But you use a chemical to get it like that, right?”

No.

“Cause I saw on the Tyra show…”

You can just imagine my expression at that point. I bit back the “Lawdamercy” that wanted to come out of my mouth, and tried to engage the girls in conversation without being preachy. The cashier started to tell me that she was interested in going natural, but “can’t deal with nappy hair.” I tried to explain to her that it takes time to completely grow out a relaxer and transition to natural hair, it takes commitment and patience, and part of that means learning to love your hair’s real texture, regardless of how “nappy” it may be, it’s yours and it’s beautiful…but of course at that point I was holding up the line, my groceries were bagged and it was time to end the conversation. So I just let them know about Afrobella and BVHairTalk.com, and went on my way.

But I keep thinking about the reaction natural hair inspires.
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Bellas!

Your girl Afrobella is having a beauty crisis of her very own. It’s getting colder and colder here in Chicago, and I can’t hide from it forever… my first winter is just around the corner. My skin’s becoming noticeably dryer, and my hair… well let’s just say my hair seems to be trying to acclimate to the changes. My coil pattern has stretched out somewhat, my hair feels and looks dryer to the touch, and the less said about my scalp, the better.

I had some ideas about what I needed to do to resolve these issues and winterize my natural ‘do, but just in the nick of time, a hero came along.

I recently interviewed Nikki Walton, better known as Curly Nikki. Her blog is so focused, informative, and welcoming – truly a breath of fresh air in the natural community. Love me some Curly Nikki! You can read my whole interview over at AOL Black Voices — Nikki shared details on everything from her own interest and expertise in natural hair care, to her predictions and hopes for the future of black hair. And she answered a special question for me.
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Originally posted at BVHairTalk.com.

Can I be real with y’all? I’m kinda sick of Chris Rock’s Good Hair. Raise your hand if you’re with me.

The endless media tour. The premature outrage. The trailer, which showed all of the docucomedy’s best clips. To paraphrase Chris Rock himself, I’m tired, tired, tired of Good Hair.

So I’m gonna conclude writing about it once and for all with this review.

I hate going into a movie when I already know too much about it. And I already knew WAY too much about Good Hair. And to be honest, I didn’t quite understand the controversy and call for boycotting the film. As I said in the Black Voices podcast: it’s important to remember who’s making this movie. It’s Chris Rock, the man who brought us Pootie Tang! The comedian who continually courts controversy. What did we REALLY expect from Chris Rock besides comedy? Social commentary? A historical perspective? Sorry — wrong filmmaker. Wrong film. For more informed views on black hair, see some of the documentaries I mentioned in my previous post, Before Chris Rock’s Good Hair.

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Thanks to all of you who have sent me that Newsweek article by Allison Samuels about Zahara Jolie Pitt and “the politics of uncombed hair.”

I know y’all already know how I feel, but I wrote about it for BVHairTalk in a post titled I’m on Team Zahara! Just so everyone else knows.

Baby Z looks fine to me!

Is it weird to quote yourself? Oh well:

“Sometimes when I read posts on gossip blogs about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s children, I’m left feeling lost and alone in the universe.

Small wonder I got a dose of kiddie hair relaxer at age 7 — I didn’t exactly make myself easy to handle.
When I see Baby Z — and the same goes for her sister, Shiloh — I see two happy, loved, very independent-minded little girls, and an indulgent mother who allows them to express their own style.”

“I disagree with the conclusion of that Newsweek article: “…there will come a day when this beautiful little African girl will understand what it means to be an African American woman in this society and realize unlike her younger sister, hers is not a wash-and-go world.” That sentence revealed more about the author than she may have realized. For some African American women, the expectation isn’t that hair needs to be tamed into submission. For many natural hair bloggers and our readers, this world is whatever we want it to be. I’m comfortable and happy with a wash-and-go style, and I dare you to look at a natural-hair Web site like Le Coil and tell me those women look unkempt or “a hot mess.”

So there you have it, and for further reading allow me to recommend Roslyn Holcomb’s take, and Gina of What About Our Daughters, who titles her post Leave Zahara Alone!

Cosign THAT.

I’d love to hear your opinions on this, seeing as any photograph of this four year old child will invariably be torn to shreds by writers, bloggers, and commenters who apparently are all experts on black hair styling. Is Baby Z under a different kind of scrutiny than other celebrity kids her age? What are your feelings on that? And if you have advice for Brad and Angelina about her hair, what would it be?