L'amour NaturELLE

If you haven’t tried the turban headband yet you should! These are great for winter wear.. Customized head wear! -LN

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Read more at http://lamournaturelle.com/home/2012/7/28/repairing-heat-damaged-hair.html

To view this video visit www.lamournaturelle.com

It’s been over a year since I began this NH journey, and more than a year since I’ve applied heat to my hair. I wanted something different, so I decided to go for the straight look. I was hesitant about doing so because heat of course can be damaging to the hair if not used with caution and care.

 Before applying heat to my hair, I made sure to deep condition and moisturize. I also used grape seed oil as a natural heat protector. I was surprised at how long my hair had grown since my NH journey, especially since I trimmed several times during.

 My new temporary straight hair look!

(Repost)

If you plan on using, or are currently using heat in your hair, here are a few important steps you should keep in mind before doing so:

1.)Make sure your hair is conditioned, and in a healthy state. Conditioning your hair before and after applying heat is one of the most important steps to follow. After shampooing, it’s best that you deep condition your hair as well. If your hair is brittle, damaged, or dry, you need to avoid using heat all together. Flat ironing damaged natural hair, will only add more stress and damage to your hair.

2.) Always use a natural heat protecting product! Grapeseed oil has great heat protecting and healing properties. Applying a little before using heat will give your hair needed protection. Keep in mind that though heat protecting products are helpful, it won’t prevent your hair from becoming permanently damaged.

4.) Always begin flat ironing your hair on a low heat setting, just enough to straighten the hair. It’s never a wise idea to flat iron or curl your hair on the highest that it can possibly go. 200 degrees is a good setting to start off with, and then you can gradually increase the temp. if needed.

5.) Try to avoid flat ironing or curling during hot summer months. The humidity levels can tend to be much greater in the summer than they are in the winter, and with high summer temperatures, we sweat more! There’s nothing more irritating than flat ironing your hair then stepping outside for 5 min.’s, and your hair begins to  swell and frizz. By flat ironing your hair in the winter, you won’t have to touch up your hair, or re-flatten as often.

6.)  Dring your next wash, following your heat-style, you should give your hair a deep conditioning or protein treatment. As you know, heat can destroy the natural keratin bonds that our hair produces. Deep conditioning and giving your hair a protein treatment can help with restoring and repairing afterwards.

~Always use your heat styling tools with caution, and try to only use them if necessary!

Jumping rope is one of the most efficient ways to build up your cardiovascular muscles. If you want to increase coordination and reflexes, tone your core as well as upper and lower body, and  increase your endurance, jump roping is exercise to do!

A jump rope exercise is one of the fastest ways you can burn off calories. 10 min’s of jump rope is equivalent  to 30 min’s of jogging.

Here’s a 10 min. boot camp jump rope training vid found on YT.

We are challenging ourselves to a 5 day workout over the course of the next few months, and encouraging you to do the same!! We’re excited, and can’t wait to see our results!!

Here’s our workout challenge (Via C.G.)

(Will be substituting the jumping jacks for jump roping)   

Great News! LN is back up and running!

Due to technical difficulties, L’amour NaturELLE has not been able to post articles on Tumblr, and we are currently working on resolving this issue.

We now have a website where you can find great posts on Natural Hair, Fashion, Art, and healthy living. Please visit www.lamournaturelle.com Thanks !! :)

Although healthy chemical free natural hair may not require trimming as often as when using harmful products or chemicals, it is something that is essential to maintaining healhty beautiful hair. If you would perfer to remove your split ends yourself rather than allowing a professional stylist to trim your hair, you can use the dusting method to do so. Dusting is great way of removing split or damaged ends from yor hair without removing too much or trimming unevenly. If your ends are severly damaged or split, we suggest letting a professional styist remove them.

The dusting method:

* You can dust on wet or dry hair, but damp or wet may work best.* To dust your ends, you would begin by twisting (two strand twisting works well) all of your hair down to the ends. After twisting, take your hair shears and trim the fuzzy or split ends from each twist. Every trim on each end of every twist can be up to about 1/4 of an inch, and the exact amount should be removed from each.

This process is very simple and helpful, especially when you aren’t able to get to a salon right away. After dusting, your ends should feel soft and healthy. Trimming or dusting can be done as little as 3 times a year or as often as needed.

So I henna’d my hair this weekend for the first time .. and can I say the results were AMAZING!

OK, so here’s what I did…

Products used for Henna mixing

• One box of 100 gram Afshan Mehndi Henna powder
• One teaspoon of Organic Honey
• One tablespoon of ACV
• One cup of hot water( After boiling)

**I mixed all my ingredients to create my thick pancake batter-like paste

STEPS 

I applied my Henna paste to my hair and baggy’d (Yes.. I had to improvise lol) and allowed it to penetrate for about 7-8 hours. I placed a warm towel over my hair several times during this process.

Next, I rinsed out the henna with room temp. water several times until the Henna was completely out. After rinsing,  I used Vatika oil which is a blend of many oils as my deep conditioner. I warmed the oil, baggy’d, and allowed it to sit for 30 min. After my deep condition I shampooed, conditioned, rinsed, and cocnut oil to my hair. My hair felt amazing afterwards.

Applying Henna treatments can benefit in many ways. I chose to do my treatment for strengthening and thickening. Amazingly my hair already feels stronger, healthier, and it has definitely helped with adding luster and shine. I am very pleased with my Henna treatment results, and will definitely try and make it a priority to Henna at least once or twice a month!

My next powder treatment will be Brahmi and I can’t wait to see how the results will turn out!

(pic post my Henna treatment and Styling)