How to Get Long Natural 4c hair – Priscilla Shirer

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