Hello! WARNING THIS IS VERY WORDY!! First off, this post is in homage to Mocolace, who blazed the trail in texturizing hair for me. I know I couldn't be the only person looking at women with corn silk straight weaves thinking "BUT THAT'S NOT HOW OUR HAIR LOOKS!!!" No disrespect by that, I know some people feel, "Well if I'm weaving, it's going to be ***". I have spent years and thousands of dollars looking for hair that mimics mine. I can tell you that here is what I have found:
1)Bohyme, at least the 2 separate batches that I got, were NOT high quality
2)Senghori Shells had a beautiful high quality yaki that I still have to this DAY... I just don't use it. It's wefted. Never tangled. It was sealed so didn't shed.
3) His & Her-Yaki was still silky. It just didn't have that coarseness or bite that I wanted.
4) AAMH had a great yaki texture lacefront. But I can't do lfs. I work out too much and have a gross scalp so I take them off ever 5 days. Too much maintenance.
5)HC God, remember Halley's Curls? Beautiful, but silky
NOW I'm sure that EP has what I'm am looking for, but not at $200 a bundle. I make my hair into micro-links, which I self install, so it doesn't make sense for me to spend that kind of money with the inability to reuse for years.
SOOOOOOOOOOO I purchased 4 bundles of hair from ALL VIRGIN HAIR, a local Atlanta business that claims to offer raw virgin hair from either Peru, Brazil, China or India (your choice). I purchased 2 bundles of 24" at $80 each and 2 bundles of 26" at $85 in Brazilian Virgin Natural Body Wave.
I prepped it per their recommendations: wash then deep condition. Used Nubian Heritage EVOO & Moringa Repair & Extend Shampoo, then Shea Butter Deep Treatment Masque. All purchased at Walgreens. Once they were completely dry (the next day), I transformed them to a texture I ABSOLUTELY CAN'T KEEP MY HANDS OFF!! THIS IS WHATA MY HAIR LOOKS LIKE!! YAAY!!
I followed the instructions on the perm box, which basically says "saturate with waving lotion, let sit 20 minutes, rinse well, blot dry. Saturate with neutralizer. Let sit 10 minutes. Take out braids. Let sit 10 more minute. Rinse well. NO SHAMPOOS OR CONDITIONERS!!
I also recommend doing no more than 2 bundles at a time so it doesn't over process or anything, besides, taking all those braids out was a b&&(
With no further ado here's the photo album...
http://public.fotki.com/toronamichele/belle-noir!/all-virgin-hair-atl/
no password required. I'm an idiot so I saved it in an old folder. Just ignore the Belle Noir stuff.