Rake and Shake on 3C hair!

Now to me that sounds like a new Taylor Swift song or a way to cook chicken!  But alas, its just the latest wash n go method I am trying! And boy do I love it so far!

You may know that for the past two years my hair has been in locs, and a little over a month ago I decided I missed my curls and combed out all but 2 of my lovely locs! I loved watching my locs transform and grow but ultimately they were not the size I would have wanted, ( I did not know very much about how they would mature when I locked my hair) and combing them out has been great!

So ever since I have been searching for wash n go methods that give me defined curls, I really got used to the shake and go styling that locs allowed and I am working to remember but styling natural hair is like! The latest wash n go method I came across was the rake and shake method! I found many many posts detailing how to and results on type 2 and type 3A and 3B hair. Now lets be real I have the hardest time with hair types, mostly because I feel like my hair can be multiple types and you know really why do we need all these labels!

But annnnyyway, I typically say that my hair is mostly 3C type curls and I really wanted to know if this method would work for me.  I was able to find one video that showed someone with some more culr to their hair successfully completing this method.

That video is here:

And I thought well whats the worst that can happen I have a terrible wash and go and do a twist out on dry hair, (one of my favorite styles right now) So I gave it a shot!

I used just water and Cantu Shea butter Curl activator that you can buy for 6 bucks on amazon, here  ! 

I made sure that my hair was still wet when doing this method if it was starting to dry out at all I re-sprayed with a spray bottle.

Then it was as simple as the following steps:

1. Split my hair into 6 small sections.
2. Took one small section down.
3. Put some curl activator on my hands.
4. I then simply ran my fingers through my hair 2-3 times.
5. The last time I made sure to smooth my hair between my fingers and hold onto the ends and not let it drop.
6. Then I simply made like T. Swift and Shook it out! Before letting it fall!

Now I will be honest the first day I felt like my hair looked a little stiff and had lost some of the volume that I love! But by day 2 I was in love! I am on day 4 now and still loving it! The amount of compliments I have gotten is crazy and people asking, ” did you do something different to your hair?”

I pineapple my hair at night to stretch and maintain the curls but other than that I just spray with a little bit of Carol’s Daughter Hair Milk in the morning for moisture and shake and go, just the style I was looking for!

I have no pictures from day 1- but here are a few from day 4! One texture shot and one regular! What do you think? How would you “label” my hair?

Have you tried this method on type 3 or 4 hair? What were your results?

-Rae

 

Take me back to WildWood!

 

I can remember the night I met my now husband. I can remember thinking to myself that a person this good, this moral would never love me because of that one thing in my past. That one thing I tell no one, that my closest friends know and never bring up. The one thing I am more confused about than any other decision I have ever made in my past. The one thing that makes me feel like I am not good enough to have this man love me. As a result of this fear, I reacted in the opposite way that I normally do with this piece of information. Normally, I hide it until someone sees me, loves me enough to love me in spite of that one thing I did when I was 16. This thing that I completely believe is everyone woman’s choice to make, but why when I acknowledge that I used my right to choose does it make my skin crawl. However on that night I didn’t bury that information, when my wonderful now-husband asked me about the significance of my tattoo on my back instead of using any one of the reasons I normally share with people, I told him the truth, I told him about a choice that I made when I was 16 and the ways that it still drives my life today. And guess what. .. he still loved me. He still asked me if I was upset he wasn’t trying to make out with me that night, and still convinces me every day that I am his “have-to-have” in life, that I am his most beautiful woman in the world. And I like to think it is not in spite of my choice to tell him about my past, but maybe just a little bit because of my choice to tell him. ( And look at me even now, not wanting to write the word out)

A wonderful woman named Grace spoke to a group of 16-18-year-old girls this week, she will continue to speak to them every week for the next 10 weeks she will influence the way that they share their lives with people, and she impacted the way I hope to share my life. She spoke about vulnerability but beyond that, she spoke of transparency. Transparency in our lives in our stories is typically reserved for the few closest to us, those we believe, as I did, will love us in spite of the choices that we made and not turn our back on us or run and tell their neighbor the things we choose to share. They will see themselves a little bit in our stories and find our humanity refreshing. But vulnerability is what we chose to share with people who have not earned transparency yet, with the people who ask to hear our testimony, who ask us about our day. We pick and choose little-edited pieces of our life that we feel comfortable sharing, things that may make us look like we have been through something tragic but still paint us in a good light. We don’t talk about all the shitty things WE have done when we are just being vulnerable.

But what could we do, if we were transparent with more people if we shared the struggles the hardest decisions we have made and then let people see the ways we were formed and shaped by those choices. Through the times that we hide away from others, don’t you think we all probably have a little more in common that we think? But we just spend our lives only showing the “instagrammable” moments with each other. We paint our lives to appear beautiful all the time. But I think we could all become a lot closer if we showed the browns and the grays of our lives instead of only the golden, the bright and shiny hues.

First off, I have never been to WildWood, not as a camper, not as a counselor, not as a staff member.  Wildwood is a place where campers spend a week of their lives trying to get closer to God and get closer to each other. It is a place removed from cell phones, social media and a place where you get to work hard and take a week to breathe deeply again. I spent a few nights at Wildwood this summer as a guest and in the moments I start to hide away the moments I forget what it is like to live transparently, I hope someone will Take me Back to Wildwood.

-Rae

P.S. I wrote most of this post back in June, and am just getting around to posting it.

(Wildwood, camp- Hume CA)

When thoughts and prayers are not enough!

This morning I woke up, again, to the news that more people had been killed. More people had to suffer at the hands of a man, who should have never been sold a gun in the first place.

50 people dead, over 400 injured! And that is jus the initial report. . . read that again, 50 people DEAD! Because one man, had the desire to do harm. Now that man is dead, and we will never know the true reasons for that desire, but he is not the point here, he is not important, and if I had anything to say about it, he would never be remembered, forgotten in history because he does not deserve to be remembered.

Now every time I wake up to one of these tragedies my facebook feed is flooded with the same words, “my prayers are with the families.” Or “Pray for London, Pray for Miami, Pray for Denver, Pray for Las Vegas!” Now I am praying, I am praying for peace for the victims, I am praying for their families to find peace and justice, I am praying for the injured and the family of the shooter.

But I have one much larger prayer, a pray that this would be stopped, that we can start to view other people with love, respect and care. That we can find a way to remove the guns from the hands of the violent, that we can find a way to live together and stand up for one another.

I believe in God, and I believe that prays can do miraculous things, they can bring people peace, they can heal you, but they cannot bring people back from the dead.

And I believe that God placed us on this earth to care for one another, to be brothers and sisters, if we are his children how can we justify killing one another? I believe he wants us to step up to the plate, and put things into practice that show that we care for one another. He made us people with the free will to fight for what we believe and fight for one another, so it is time, it is time to step up and put our thoughts and prayers into action, it is time to take the initiative we were given and use it for good!

I cannot allow myself to believe that if we took the time, worked together, we could find the answer to our prayers, to end the senseless violence that has surrounded us.  To make it so no more families wake up to the call the a loved one has been killed in a mass shooting. I cannot believe that in America we are doomed to repeat this grieving over and over again.

We need more love, and we have been told a million times that actions speak louder than words, that love is a verb! It is time to put that verb to work, we need more love, more action!

-Rae