2013 Baton Rouge Natural Hair & Health Extravaganza

Calling all my Naturalistas!!

Men & Women

June 1, 2013 Time: 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Speakers!! Vendors!! Natural Hair Show!! Mix, Mingle, & More!!!

DETAILS COMING SOON!

Current Sponsors: 

Nourique , Blue Magic, Enticing Objects, Legarde Construction,

Urban Rose, Universal Beauty, Darcy’s Botanical, Sposh,

Curly By Nature, Sympli Mi, Hair Crush, Natural Hair Community,

More sponsors will be added soon!!

Vendors: 

Happi 2 B Natural – Natural Hair & Body Care Products

3 Little Robins Tees – Custom Natural Hair Tees

Hair Divinity Virgin Hair Boutique – Accessories & Natural Hair Tees

Sposh – Spa Products

Tukka Naturals – Natural Hair & Body Products

Allie’s Natural Hair Community

Rejuvalize Oasis Spa’tique

For More Information, vist:

www.h2bn.org

PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS AT:
www.br2013expo.eventbrite.com

INTERESTED IN VENDING OR SPONSORING: 

Inboxing H2BN on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/happi2bnatural

Emailing: happi2bnatural@gmail.com

Call: 225.978.0973 – ask for Kiera or Michelle

Coconut Banana Hair Smoothie:

Blend 1 can of Coconut milk, 1 half ripe banana, 1/4 cup olive oil and honey in a blender until smooth.  Apply to wet clean hair. Cover hair with a plastic cap. Leave in for 3o minutes to 1 hour. Rinse.  Style hair as usual.

How to quickly ripen a banana: Set oven temperature to 350 degrees.  Set banana on a cookie sheet and place in the oven. Allow the banana to cook for 3o minutes to and hour until fully blackened. Once blacken it will be ripe. Allow to sit until cool. 

Almond Avocado Dream Smoothie:

Blend 1 cup of Almond milk, 1 rip avocado, 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1 tbsp honey in a blender until smooth. Apply to wet clean hair. Cover hair with a plastic cap. Leave in for 30 minutes to 1 hour.  Rinse. Style hair as usual.

Vegan Ingredients: Almond milk, avocado, olive oil, agave nectar.

How to quickly ripen an avocado for hair care use or guacamole: Place avocado on a microwave safe plate. Place plate in the microwave. Cook avocado in increments of 30 seconds until fully soft and ripen.  Avocado may be very hot. Allow avocado to cool. Use avocado in your favorite recipe! (Note: avocado may taste very bland if eaten alone)

Honey Lime Hair Rinse: This recipe works well as a hair detox, product build up remover, and scalp treatment!  Blend one cup of water, 1/4 cup of lime juice, and 2 tbsp of honey until well blended. Wet hair until fully saturated. Pour honey lemon mixture on hair until fully incorporated focusing on scalp. Give your self a god scalp massage then thoroughly rinse hair. Condition hair using  one the smoothie recipes above. Style hair as usual.

Women like Charlottean Kobi Brinson.

“It doesn’t really make sense for me to not have my natural hair texture,” said Kobi Brinson. “I don’t know what it looks like so we’ll see.”

Kobi has no idea what her real hair looked like. Her mother began relaxing it at the age of 11.

“Because once it’s relaxed you have to keep it relaxed,” said Kobi.

“I don’t want to “have” to have a relaxed look so if I want to be curly then I can be curly. If I want to be straight then I can be straight.”

Like many black women Kobi was hot pressing and chemically relaxing her hair to look more professional.

But the growing natural trend forced Kobi to revisit her concept of beauty. And today she’s decided to get back to basics.

“I am hoping to see amazing curls and spirals that bounce and that shine.”

But she’s not doing the drastic chop. She’s opting for growing out her treated hair.

“So we are in the initial stages of that. Her last chemical relaxer was 9 weeks ago,” said Kobi’s hair stylist Verbina Wilson.

The owner of Verve Spa and Salon says wearing natural styles has also given her clients a sense of liberation.

“For whatever reason the client or the individual has decided to take that leap into the natural realm of her texture we are here to support that we are here to embrace that,” said Wilson.

Kobi likes her transition and hopes to be an inspiration.

“I never want my daughter to think that she has to have chemically straightened hair to be beautiful,” said Kobi.

Source: www.wbtv.com

What do you think about this story?

Nobody, and I mean nobody is more obsessed with our hair, how it looks, how it feels, how others feel about it, and how we feel about it than African-American women (also known as “Sistas”).

I want to get right to what ails us, and it ain’t our hair.

The recent controversy over Olympian Gabby Douglas’ hair and how she wore it in a slicked down ponytail during her gold-winning performance has frankly been dissected and discussed enough. I will not do so here. We as black women in particular should all be proud of her. She represents a fresh new generation of young black women who are comfortable in their own skin, comfortable with whatever hair God gave them, and who are unabashed about their drive to be successful no matter what or who does not like their hair, skin color, or background.

Yet, if we are honest, we as black women know that we have been defined in ways for centuries that are frankly unflattering, unkind and denigrating. Our hair, along with who is lighter skinned vs. darker skinned, has always been a huge issue in our community

We were always defined as less than human, less than attractive, less than worthy, less than marriageable and plain old less than. Take this mantra and multiply it 100 times, over the course of hundreds of years or more and what do you get?

I’ll tell you what: You get a race of women, who despite their amazing accomplishments in sports, academia, space, education, industry, business, science, politics, entertainment, arts and international affairs still feel less than. We still feel ugly; we still believe our hair is not enough, our bodies are not enough, our very essence is not enough.

We struggle even in this modern time with self-esteem and image, and despite how much we lament fools (yes, I said fools) like Don Imus in 2007 who called us “nappy headed hoes” or Psychology Today which said in 2011 that black women were statistically more unattractive, prime-time network TV shows that ask, “Why Can’t A Successful Black Woman Get a Man,” or black male rappers who call us “bitches” (or worse) with reckless abandon, we often do the most damage to ourselves and to one another. The instance with Gabby Douglas is just the latest example of what I like to call “sister on sister crime”.

Sisters, the discussion we need to have is not about our hair. Our hair obsession is a symptom of a much deeper problem that has plagued black women for centuries. It is time for us to redefine what beauty means in America for ourselves.

Beauty has nothing to do with what is on top of your head or on your body. It has everything to do with what is in your soul and what emanates from your heart. We all know some stunning beautiful women, who are so marred inside, so broken, so angry that their beauty may as well be a curse. Many of us are so wounded and hurt from being told who we are and who we are not that we cannot stand to see another of us smile, be happy, be joy-filled and victorious in life.

But here is the thing sisters: I cannot love, support and uplift another woman if I don’t first like myself. I cannot be a sister to my sister if I think my very image is unpleasant, ugly or marred. I cannot celebrate her success if I don’t feel successful. I cannot celebrate her voice being raised when I feel mine is silenced. Because as Audre Lorde wrote long ago in her powerful essay “Eye to Eye: black women, hatred and anger,” “Every Black woman in America lives her life somewhere along a wide curve of ancient and unexpressed angers.” She is right. Many of us still live there.

Sisters, it ain’t about our hair. It’s about our ability to love, respect and honor ourselves so we can better honor one another.

Sophia A. Nelson is the author of the award-winning non-fiction book “Black Woman Redefined: Dispelling Myths and Discovering Fulfillment in the Age of Michelle Obama.”

Source: www.dailyworld.com

The hair on my head has been permed, bleached, mohawked, braided, fried, dip-dyed and weaved. A look at the so-called “Photos of You” on Facebook is misleading. I’ve had so many different looks you can’t tell it’s the same girl!

It’s not that I love switching up the game. The reality is I grew up despising my hair. While my sisters had fine hair that turned to springy curls when water was applied, mine required frequent “pressing” with the hot comb and regular visits to the salon for taming. When those roots grew back in, baby, there was nothing I could do about it! I hated that my hair was kinkier than my sister’s and I tried every style in the book in rejection of the texture I was given. In 2008, I started dating a young man I’d met in high school. He and I had mutual crushes on each other back then, but didn’t pursue anything until I returned home to Detroit after attending college in Florida. One thing was different about him from the start: he loathed my weave.

To be honest, I did too. It never came out the way the stylist said it would, never looked like the magazine picture I’d cut out or the girls I saw on the street. Before the month was over, I’d be ripping it out in frustration and surprisingly, my boyfriend would help me do that, too. He’d be right in the bathroom with the scissors, cutting out the tracks I couldn’t see and begging me to wear my real hair.

“Babe, I just hate that you spend hundreds of dollars on a hairdo just to take it out in two weeks,” he’d say.

“If my hair did what I wanted it to do, I wouldn’t have to do this,” I’d always yell back. My boyfriend explained that his hair wasn’t always curly either. But he took the time to find products that worked with his texture. He told me I could train my hair if I was just patient.

In 2010, I decided to transition. Managing the two textures was tough and I decided the only way I could see my true texture was to start over. One day I announced, “For my 25th birthday I’m cutting my hair. It’s gonna look just like yours.” My boyfriend wasn’t even fazed. His reply? “I don’t care. I don’t have ‘Long Hair Syndrome.’” That wasn’t the response I was expecting. I stood there confused until he explained, “I love you, not your hair.”

While I pride myself on being independent, the idea of going natural was intimidating. My big chop was a huge adjustment, but his support eased my fears and still helps me hold my head high on those can’t-get-my-hair-right days.

As my teeny weeny afro — and my comfort level — grows, he’s there cheering me on. When I did my first twist-out, he was genuinely impressed and told me how good it looked. Recently, I got in the car on a wash-and-go day and with the biggest smile he said, “Look at those curls! They are banging today! I told you it would happen!” He did, and I’m glad I listened.

Driadonna Roland is a freelance writer about culture, society and entertainment on her personal blog. Follow her on Twitter @DreeTV.

Source: www.essence.com