Tidbit Tuesday

Did you know.....

That water is good for your hair and skin externally AND internally?????

I am sure you all know that putting water ON your hair and skin is necessary to keep it moisturized, as long as you apply lotion or conditioner while still damp to lock in that moisture.  But did you ever stop to think that drinking plenty of water could help keep your hair and skin moist from the inside?

There are many reasons to make sure you drink plenty of water every day but for people who struggle with dry skin and hair it is a GREAT reason to keep that water bottle in hand.

In our house we try our hardest to teach our children healthy eating habits.  For us, that means limiting drinking sodas and juices.  We really only drink soda if we go out to eat, which is pretty rare.  We also don't drink milk, so the kids drink one glass of O.J. at breakfast and then water the rest of the day.

I actually did some extra research on the internet about this topic because I wanted to link to a good article for you.  As it turns out, many people dispute the idea that drinking water can keep your skin hydrated.  Some say that if you are very dehydrated it will make your skin dry, but if you are decently hydrated then drinking more water will not have any positive effects on the skin.

Well, I don't have any scientific proof, but we are big time water drinkers in our house and I like to think this has played an important role in my kids healthy skin and hair.  Even in the incredibly dry winter months my kids are fine with one application of lotion a day for their skin and a good daily spritz on their hair with our TW spray.  I have heard than many people need more than one application of such things per day and even then can still deal with dryness. Steph also shared with me that she knows when her family is not drinking enough water because her and Gyrlande's lips will be dry and chapped. They also do not keep soda or sugary juices in the house. Gyrlande might get a capri sun frozen in her lunch a few times a week, but that's it.

I feel confident that the healthier our bodies are on the inside the better they will look and perform on the outside.  So, at the very least, if you are putting forth the effort to replace less healthy beverage choices with water then your entire body is bound to benefit from it!

What do you have to lose?  Go on, give it a try!

Katie

Slather it on!

Just the words sound fabulous..."body butter." Butter for your body. Something that is as delicious on your skin as melted butter is on corn. Mmmmm!

When I see G's bare legs after a warm day of play and scooting around on the floor of the multipurpose room at school, rolling on the grass, and digging in the sand, her dry ashy skin just screams out to be buttered! Well, it does to me anyway. :)

Just plain old lotion has never seemed to do it for me. It's too wet and runny. Not fun, not earthy, not nearly as natural and pure as what I put on her hair. Usually one of the first ingredients in lotion is mineral oil. No thanks. Why have all those ingredients that you cannot pronounce when there exist such decadent things as "kokum butter, aloe vera butter, jojoba butter, tucuma butter, mango butter, macadamia nut butter, avocado butter..." and on and on! Jeez I am suddenly craving a fresh loaf of french bread!

I decided to use coconut oil as a base and just try to make my own body butter. I had tried pure shea, the unrefined one from West Africa, but it was a bit too hard to scrape out of the jar when you're in a hurry...you really have to melt it well in your hands. Whereas coconut oil melts almost instantly. Us being a "hurry hurry get out the door Mommy's gonna miss the bus!" kind of family, we needed something faster. So I tried combining coconut oil and shea butter. It worked great because the coconut oil softened up the shea. All I did was melt both of them in a double boiler. But I was dying to give other butters a try. There are fabulous websites such as Mountain Rose Herbs and Essential Wholesale where you can buy these in small or quite large sizes. You can try it yourself at home. Try putting in a couple drops of essential oil! (Make sure it's not a skin irritant first, and that its scent will mesh well with the natural scent of the butters. Refined butters tend to be deodorized, whereas unrefined, or raw, butters retain their original scent, which can sometimes be strong). Mountain Rose Herbs is nice because there is background information on the source and use of all the butters. They have a ton of other cool stuff there, too, like teas and bulk organic herbs and spices.

The perfect blend of body butter scoops up easily in your fingers, yet isn't too wet. And it doesn't sit on the skin too long, it rubs in well. Some people whip their body butter, but I don't. My jar is heavy and a little goes a long way. There is no air blended into it. Some people swear by mine, but I only have it at certain times after I have gathered the ingredients at special prices, and then I usually sell out. I call mine "Mama Snap's Body Buttah" and it contains Kokum (although I may start attempting substitutes for this one), Shea, Coconut, Mango, and a few others. When I do have it, it along with pure 100% Virgin Coconut Oil is available at Snapaholics.com

With so much great, wholesome stuff available for the body, I figure why not stay all-natural, like we do with our kids' hair? Does the body deserve any less? I mean, c'mon....Cyclopentasiloxane or Shea Butter? Propylene Glycol or Jojoba Oil? DMDM hydantoin or Macadamia Nut Butter? Is it any contest?

 Get some small sizes and try melting some of your own! Take a look at natural body butter ingredients and see what some of the popular ones are. Then get your double boiler out and have fun! It also makes a great gift and will keep a long time.

Twist Update, Hair Washing Experiment, and A NEW 'Do!

Hold on to your seats everyone this post is full of a bunch of this, that and the other thing!  I hope you can follow me!

First up:  A few pics of some or the variations we did with V's twist style.  The twists did start getting raggedy looking sooner than I would have liked, but after we threw them up in some ponytails and pigtails they looked plenty good enough to keep for another week or two!

I already showed you this, but the pic up above is of the twists with just a few added barrettes.  The next thing we did was pull everything back into a single ponytail.  Simple. Cute. Summerish.

You can kind of tell in those pictures that V was sporting her twisty bangs on the left side of her forehead again, I don't know why, but the way her hair is growing it just works well to only do the bangs on that one side and I think it is cute!  Anyway, when I switched her hair to pigtails those bangs were looking kinda frumpy and I had already redone them once.  Instead of redoing them again, I just did a twist out, and then cornrowed the little twistes together.  It was super fast, required no comb and looked great!  I didn't even add beads or anything to the end I just grabbed a small barrette and clipped it back.

This is one of those styles that I think looked cuter in person than in the pictures!  I also tried to put the twists into 3 sections, but it just didn't look right.

Next Topic:  We still have another week before the kids go back to school here in Michigan.  So even though it was time to take these twists out I didn't want to do V's back to school hair style just yet.  Since her hair was in these smallish twists and I knew we would be washing it again in a week I decided this was the PERFECT time to try out a new hair washing technique!

I have been reading for a long time about ways that you can wash hair in sections, but I never really looked into it.  More recently it has been popping up for me here and there while exploring the internet and I started to think that maybe there was an easier way than my old method!  If you have ever watched my "Our Hair Routine" video you know that I follow this process:  1) remove current style  2) detangle hair one section at a time and put each section into a big twist before moving on to the next section  3) take out large twists and wash hair  4) separate hair into 4 large sections and detangle again 5) begin new style.  This takes a LONG time!  I have tried to skip steps before but her hair ended up so tangled that it took me just as long to clean up my mess!  I think I have realized that I was skipping the wrong steps!

I believe it was on Happy Girl Hair that I recently read of this quick method:  1) wash hair while still in current style  2) take out style  3) detangle hair  4) begin new style.  That sounded much faster!  But I believe there are two important elements that need to be in place to use this method.  1} The hair should be in a style that allows for a lot of access to the scalp when washing, for instance, the small twists that V just had.  2}  Because I tend to keep styles in for about 4 weeks at a time I wouldn't want to use this method after 4 weeks of no washing followed by another 4 weeks of no washing.  In this case, yes, her twists had been in for 4 weeks, but I knew I would be washing her hair again in a week, so I figured it was ok if we didn't get as deep of a clean this time around.  If you are someone who does hair on a weekly basis than this method could be great for you!  I just wouldn't do it week after week because you can't be sure you are getting the hair and scalp as thoroughly clean this way.

Well, it worked for us and saved us a bunch of time.  I finally bought that new SHOWER HEAD that Steph insisted I needed and she was right!  I was able to get a super good rinsing of V's twists with the new hand held sprayer!  And when I went to take out the twists and detangle her hair it felt clean to me!  I have been experimenting with a few other washing techniques lately in addition to this one, but I will have to share those at another time.

And Last but not Least:  We needed a good temporary style to get V through the next week, so I decided to do some quick, big, fat cornrows into a ponytail.  There are 7 cornrows total plus the one across her forehead.  It took me just over an hour to do, and that is really fast in my book!  This was also the perfect style to finally try out our homemade Big Giant Ponies that we cut off of our old worn out ballies!  And they worked GREAT!

Since I hadn't cut up all my ballies I still had some matching ones left to secure around the ponytail!  Doesn't it look great?!  They are very noisy and V has been enjoying them a lot!

Well, that is it for today!  I am looking forward to next weekend when I steal that adorable pigtail style I showed you from one of our readers!  Can't wait to show you the finished look!  And I am SO ready for my kids to go back to school!

How about you?  Did your kids already go back?  Did you do a fun new style to commemorate the event?

Katie

WINNERS! WINNERS!

Thanks to our Random Generator thingy we have TWO lucky winners of our Soft Spike Curlers Giveaway!!!!!


The winning comment numbers are 31 and 16:

Heather said... 

I am a Facebook fan.

August 23, 2010 5:22 PM 

Letty said... 

4everlandj in Katie's youtube channel

August 23, 2010 12:38 PM 

If this is you, please email us at keepmecurly@gmail.com and let us know what your mailing address is as well as what size and color of Soft Spikes you would like!  IF we don't hear from you by Friday, September 3rd we will choose new winners.

CONGRATS and Thanks to everyone for playing!

Katie's Limited Knowledge On Curly Boy's Hair...

I never claimed to be an expert at hair.  I have not gone to cosmetology school or wherever it is that people go to learn how to cut and style hair.  Turns out for my girls hair needs, that hasn't been at all necessary.  Everything I have wanted to do with their hair I have been perfectly capable of figuring out how to do on my own.  And have felt confident enough in my skills and knowledge to share what I have learned with others.

I can't say the same is true for boys hair.  I have had no formal training and I don't feel even slightly qualified to share with others how to care for boys hair.  That being said, I do take care of Young Man C's hair myself.  He hasn't been to a barber shop in several years.  So I will share with you my experiences, and you can take it or leave it!

On our last day in Liberia we went to pick the kids up from the foster home and just like the girls had beautiful new cornrow styles, C had a fresh, new haircut!  I am pretty sure they did it with a razor blade, because there was nothing left!

Also, just like with the girls, I didn't give much thought to C's hair for the first several months that we were home.  But when it came time for the kids baptisim I realized it was probably time for our first trip to the barber shop!  I have to admit I was pretty intimidated by this.  I had never been to a barber shop, I had no idea what to ask them to do with his hair, I didn't know any of the terminology!  We found a place in the phone book and went for it.  C did not want to cut it very short, if I remember correctly he just got a bit of a trim and lined up around the edges.

Those first couple of years we pretty much just kept going through the cycle of going to the barber shop, getting it cut pretty short, letting it grow out until we couldn't take it anymore, and then back to the barber!  As I have mentioned, we have a very limited income, so frequent haircuts just don't fit in our budget.  Although I have to admit that when C's hair would get long it looked pretty bad!  He didn't like to take the time to pic it out and keep it looking nice, so it was often a mess.  This is a pic of it when he was in need of a cut:

I did try to take advantage of that length once and gave C some cool twists.  They looked pretty good and it was a fun style for his soccer game that day, but they didn't last long.  He even wore something on his head to sleep that night, but the twists around the sides of his head all came out. I think I did touch ups on him for a couple days, but we were only able to keep them in for 3 or 4 days.  I am pretty sure I used gel to put them in too.  It took me a couple hours to put in, so I really didn't want to do that again if they weren't going to last more than a few days.

I am pretty sure I made the twists with two strands.  That seems silly to me now, I should have done finger coils it would have been faster.  I also made really straight parts.  They weren't in a perfect grid pattern or anything, but I made the parts with a comb.  I think they would have looked better if they were more random.

So FINALLY, one Christmas, Camera Guy got a nice set of clippers as a gift.  I was pretty scared to cut C's hair since I had NO IDEA what I was doing.  I watched a bunch of stuff on youtube and found a few good pointers, but most of the videos weren't helpful at all.  So we went to the barber shop one last time and I watched very closely to how they cut his hair.  I finally got the courage to try it myself and this was the outcome:

I have yet to attempt to give him a fade - so for now we just cut it to all one length with the #1.  Then I take that trimmer tool and clean up the edges.  I think this is the important part that gives it that, fresh from the barber shop look!  It really isn't as hard as I thought.  In the back you make a nice straight line across the neck and then some straight lines up the sides to the ears.  Next I make a straight line across his forehead and then straight lines down the sides of his forehead.  I make curving lines from the temples to the sideburn area.  I cut a straight line across the bottom of his sideburns and then make them taper off a bit.  Ya know, exactly how it looks in the pictures!  

The hardest part is getting the forehead straight.  I just work a little bit at a time.  

The only tips I can give you about cutting boys hair are:  1) make sure the hair is picked out when you start.  2) when shaving off the length all over the head, go at the hair from every direction.  Those curls can be tricky!  3) move slowly and don't be afraid to go over the same spots again and again from different directions.  4) once you think you got it all, run a comb through the hair again and then go back with the clippers and get all the spots that you might have missed!

I actually have mixed feelings about me doing C's hair.  I liked the idea of taking him to the barber shop. As far as I can tell, the barber shop is kind of a big part of African American culture.  Our children are not in as diverse of a community as I would like, so I appreciated those trips to the barber where I was the minority and he was surrounded by people who looked like him.  Unfortunately, on our income, I have to find every little way to save money that I can, and fortunately, I can give him a decent haircut myself for FREE!  

Last summer C decided that he wanted to grow his hair out and have me cornrow it.  This took FOREVER.  I tired at least twice while it was growing out and I just couldn't do it with the short length. I was so frustrated about the way that I do cornrows.  If you have been watching my braiding videos you know that I don't cornrow the traditional way with the fingertips.  I use my whole hand.  This means that a decent length of hair is necessary to get a good grip.  I think C's hair was at least 2 inches or longer when I finally got his whole head into rows.  It was the most finger cramping hair braiding I have ever done trying to get his short hair to cooperate with me!  And I was using lots of gel to make sure they would hold, but this made things very slippery.  Here was the finished product:

You can see they aren't perfect by any means, but they looked good from a distance!  The only thing was that I did this one weekend before he went away with his soccer team to a tournament.  This particular tournament Camera Guy and I didn't go with him.  We have been told that he got to the tournament and went in the bathroom and immediately started taking them out!  WHAT!?!?!?  Remember the finger cramps and hours I spent trying to get those stinkin' things in?  I was not a happy mama!  I guess cornrows are something you have to get used to slowly because he said they were giving him a really bad headache.  The way that I do cornrows doesn't make for super tight cornrows, so I know it isn't because I braided them to tight.  I think he just needed to get used to it.  But, I wasn't about to try them again.  We cut his hair off as soon as he got home!  

That is pretty much it!  I am currently cutting C's hair about once a month, although it probably could be done every 2 or 3 weeks, I just don't get around to doing it that often.  He has been begging me to put designs in the side of his head, but I am not sure I want to go there!  I am so EXCITED to inform you that I have recently received a NUDRED kit and I am now waiting for C's hair to grow out a bit more so I can try it out and make a video review on it!  So stay tuned for that one, it will be coming in a few weeks!

What are your experiences with boy hair?

Katie

All About Yarn Braids

V on her 4th birthday!

We already have a two part video series about Yarn Braids in our video gallery which you can watch here.  (you have to scroll down the page quite a bit)  I made those videos several years ago - although I don't have much new information, I thought I would do a little written rundown for you all!  Let's do this in Question/Answer form...

Q:  Why would I want to put in yarn extensions?

A:  I feel like yarn braids give you a similar experience to locs, without the permanency of locs.  They are SO versatile.  Once you have a whole head of braids you can do whatever you want with them to change up the style daily: ponytail, pigtails, half up, you can even cornrow them!  You could get this same effect from doing a box braid style without adding yarn, but since the yarn braids have a lot of length and thickness to them, I feel like they are more versatile.  Also, if your child still has pretty short hair, it is fun to have the extra length that you can get from yarn braids.  Thirdly, they are a very long lasting style!  I only do yarn braids about once a year, but when I do, I love that I can leave them in for close to two months!

Q: Why use yarn for extensions instead of synthetic hair?

A:  I feel that yarn is much easier to use.  You only need two pieces of yarn per braid and you don't have to separate out a bunch of tiny little hairs.  That can be messy and frustrating!  Also, yarn is inexpensive and you can get it in almost any color you want!

Q:  What kind of yarn do you use?

A:  The important part is that you use ACRYLIC yarn.  The brand doesn't really matter.  It is also up to you what weight you use.  I like to use Medium (4).  For V I also like to use BLACK yarn because it matches her hair color so well.  You can only tell the difference between her hair and the yarn when you are looking up close.  But B has brown hair, so if I did this on her I might choose more of a deep brown color.  I have used red yarn at Christmas time and Pink/Purple yarn for a back to school look.  Both times I only used the colored yarn on some of the braids for fun.  I didn't give her a whole head of red hair!

For this style I only added the pink/purple yarn to the braids coming from the heart cornrows on top.  After 4 weeks, I removed the cornrows and put in more regular box braids with black yarn on top so she no longer had the colored yarn.  We left them in for another 4 weeks!

Sorry these are the best pics of the red yarn braids.  I only did 8 braids with the red yarn along the center part on the top of her head and then a few more along the back.  I also used red and black beads on the ends.  GREAT Christmas hairdo, but she didn't have very many other red things to wear for the next 6 weeks, so it wasn't my favorite!


















Q:  How long does the hair need to be?

A:  That is hard for me to answer personally since the first time I tried them on V her hair was already at least 6 inches long.  I think you could do them on almost any length of hair though!  You would just need about two inches of hair to get a good grip on it to start the braids.  BUT, you should keep in mind that the yarn is a bit heavy, so if you are working with shorter hair, I would stick with shorter braids, the longer the natural hair, the longer you could make the braids.

Q:  How old should my child be?

A:  This kind of goes with the length questions.  For a little one who doesn't have very long hair, I would make much shorter braids and I would start them with bigger sections of hair.  A toddler's hair is going to be a little more fragile so I would recommend using larger sections of hair to give them more of a base with less strain on the hair.  I also might not leave them in as long on a little one.

Q:  How long can you leave them in?

A:  That is totally up to you!  I have left them in up to 8 weeks.  You might find that yours start to come out sooner than that.  Or maybe yours look great, and don't smell so you want to leave them in longer!  I find that around 6 to 8 weeks, they start feeling kind of yucky and the new growth at the scalp is getting obvious so they look a bit messy.  I don't usually get many that start to slip out, but I have had a few do that towards the end.  I know other people keep yarn braids in almost year round.  They will just replace a few at a time so that they get new ones every few weeks.

Q:  What is your daily maintenance with them?

A:  I just spray her scalp with our watered down Taliah Waajid spray like I do with any style, EXCEPT, I really only spray near her scalp, not the whole length of the braid.   I know some people also wash the hair with the yarn in or at least rinse the braids.  The only hard part about this is that it takes FOREVER for the yarn to dry!  I haven't done it because I didn't feel it was necessary.

Q:  How do you take them out?

A:  This is a good question!  Some people have been able to just grab a hold of the knot at the base of the braid and just slide them out!  I wish it were that easy for me!  I normally will cut off the yarn at the bottom right up to the point that her real hair is (no sense wasting time unbraiding yarn!)  Then I unbraid her hair from the tips up to the scalp.  It takes me FOREVER and I hate it!  Although now that I have B to help me....  Last time that V had the braids though, we just happened to go swimming right about the time I was ready to take them out.  Her swim cap would not stay on her head so I just gave up and let her swim without it.  When she got out of the pool her hair was, of course, drenched!  The weight of the soaking yarn caused some of the braids to start slipping out, so I grabbed ahold and to my amazement I was able to slide it out!  YIPPEE!  I quickly set to work on her head and was able to slide most of them out.  There were a few that wouldn't budge, and I didn't want to hurt her hair so I unbraided them my usual way.  I plan on trying this again next time, but the key I think is that they need to be completely, soaking wet!  A spritz with a spray bottle is not going to do the trick.

Q:  Do you think the yarn is damaging to the hair:

A:  I have not found that yarn braids cause ANY damage to V's hair.  On the contrary, after I have taken out the braids in the past, I can see that she has had substantial hair growth while they were in and that her hair looks beautiful and healthy!

Q:  How do you put them in?

A:  That is where the videos come in handy!  The two videos makeup about 15 minutes worth of info and demonstrations so PLEASE watch them to learn how to put them in OR if you have any other questions after reading this little Q and A!  Yarn Braid Extensions Part 1 and  Yarn Braid Extensions Part 2

V really loves yarn braids and I feel like they are a great addition to her versatile choices of hairstyles.  I am not really interested in doing them that often, because we have plenty of other fun things we can do with her beautiful hair, and I don't want her to think that she needs to have extensions(or additions) to her  natural hair in order for her to be beautiful.  I am so glad that we have started doing more "free" hairstyles on her too.  I think that between, cornrows, free hair, yarn braids and the many other fun styles we do, V has learned that her hair texture has AWESOME and ENDLESS possibilities!

Here are some more pictures for you to enjoy!

These were her first ever yarn braids!  She looks so little!

Here the braids are in half pigtails.

This one shows how you can add snaps for extra decoration - This was on Valentines Day.

This was her second set of yarn braids, just held back with a headband.

You can add yarn to locs too!  We did this style on B for the first day of school last year.  I think the yarn was nice because other wise her ponytail would have been really short which would have looked funny with the big thick cornrows!

You can see that I didn't add the yarn into the cornrows, only the hanging part of the braids.  You can also see that the black yarn isn't a very good match for B's hair, but I didn't have any brown, so I just used what I had.  It still looked cute.

One of our readers sent in some AWESOME yarn braid pics which have got my fingers itching to put more yarn braids in V!  I think I will do them in October.  So you will have to wait until then to see them!

Have you tried yarn braids yet???  Have I inspired you to give them a try???

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Did you know....
That you can make a racerback tank from a regular tank top with Sidewinders?!?!

I loved Sheila's idea from last week so much that I had to try it. I used the smallest size sidewinders but I only have them in clear and red. If i had had all the colors I would have matched her top. But I LOVE how this worked!!! We have this problem with a lot of tank tops!

This stayed put all day with no problems! Love it!

As for other uses for hair bling, up till now we have always used barrettes to racerback tanks and swimsuits. This can be very adorable especially if you have barrettes in the same shape as designs on the shirt! Here are two I might have used with the above shirt if I hadn't tried the Sidewinders.

Additionally, hair ballies make great miniature bungee cords (I have way more hair ballies of various types lying around than I do office rubberbands!)

One fun thing we have done with them is if we are giving a birthday present and G has handmade the card, we will pick out a pair of real cute girlie ballies and bungee the rolled up card with the ballies as part of the gift.

Yet another idea for worn out snaps...snap them all onto an elastic, glue them closed (if they have no mojo left at all), and you've just made a new homemade ballie!

And here's one I just thought of, but wish I had thought of a LONG time ago! Get yourself some BGP and thread them onto the strings in your favorite pair of sweats (you know, the kind where if you are not careful the string gets pulled back into the hole in the washing machine!). Tie a knot in the tip of the string, and BAM! There you go....never have to fish the end of your sweatpants string out through the hole again!

Have YOU found any fun or different uses for hair bling? What are they?

GIVEAWAY!! - Soft Spikes!

If you loved the way B's Beautiful Braidlocs looked after we curled them with the Soft Spikes in yesterdays post, than this is your lucky day!!!!!  (If you didn't see the review - go back to yesterday's post!  There was a bit of a mixup, so the correct post wasn't on the blog until late last night.)


The lovely people at Soft Spikes are giving away one set of Soft Spikes to TWO of our wonderful readers!


Now if your little girl does not have locs that doesn't mean you can't use Soft Spikes!  You could use Soft Spikes to curl box braids OR it would be really cute to curl the braids that come out of a ponytail or pigtails like this:

Just picture it....Remove the beads and curl all those braids and have the cutest curly pigtails!  OOOooooo....Now I want to try it!

It is possible that you could flat iron your child's hair and then put sections of hair into the Soft Spikes for some big curls.  Kind of a weird idea, taking out the natural curls to put in different curls????  But I bet it would be cute.

And of course, like with any of our giveaways, you can also use them on yourself!  Moms like to do fun things with their hair too, so if you are a mom with locs, slightly curly hair, super kinky hair, or hair as straight as mine, I am sure ANY of you could find something fun to do with the Soft Spikes.  We would LOVE to see what you come up with!

I also look forward to trying the Soft Spikes on little E one of these days, I just haven't gotten around to it yet!  I do believe the Soft Spikes were originally made for curling straight hair, so if you have any children with straight hair in your home, these would also be perfect for you!

So what are you waiting for?  Go get those entries!

But PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE remember to write a SEPARATE comment for EACH thing you do on the list.  If you put all of your entries in ONE comment you are selling yourself short!  Each comment gets a number for our random generator, so you want to get as many comments as possible.  

You have until 12:00pm EST on Friday, August 27th to enter the drawing.  We will be choosing the winners from the comments left on THIS post!

To enter this giveaway please leave a comment on THIS blog and answer THIS question:
We're curious...Do you or your daughter have Locs???  If not, what would you do with the Soft Spikes?

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If you would like to earn EXTRA entries do one or all of these things:

1)  Go to the Soft Spikes website and tell us what color of Soft Spikes you would order!  

2) Head on over to our Keep Me Curly! Facebook fan page and become a fan. Leave a comment stating that you are a fan. (or that you already were a fan)

3) "Share" our Keep Me Curly! Facebook page with your friends and come back and leave a comment letting us know what day you "shared" us THIS week.

4) Follow @keepmecurly on twitter Come back and post a comment that you are a follower and leave your Twitter ID. (or that you were already following)

5) Tweet any unique tweet announcing our blog or the giveaway with @keepmecurly in it! Cut and paste your tweet (not tweet id status) and post as a comment. You can get 1 entry for EVERY new and unique tweet!

6) Become a follower of our blog or subscribe to our blog through an RSS feed. Simply post a comment saying that you are a follower. (or that you were already following)

7) Subscribe to Katie's youtube channel and come back and leave a comment stating that you are a subscriber. (or that you were already a subscriber)

8) Leave a comment on one of Katie's youtube videos. Leave a comment HERE letting us know the title of the video you commented on.

9) Go to Steph's Snapaholics website and leave a note in her guestbook. Come back and leave a comment HERE letting us know that you signed the guestbook.

10) Place an order at Snapaholics between 8/22 and 8/26 Noon EST. Leave a comment including your order number and order date.

11) Grab our badge! If you add our badge to your blog leave us a comment saying that you are using it with a link to your blog.

12) Advertise our site or this giveaway in a forum or other blog! We would really love it if you wrote about our site or this giveaway on your blog. If you are passionate about natural hair care, or Katie's youtube videos have been really helpful to you, or if you love cute hair things, talk it up on your blog! Earn TWO entries for doing this one! Simply post a comment saying that you are talking about us with a link to the forum or blog, then put (first entry) then comment again and write (second entry).

13) Get a friend to talk about us or our giveaway on THEIR blog, earn two MORE entries! Just leave us a comment with a link to THEIR blog and tell us that you encouraged them to participate. Then make sure they enter the giveaway for themselves too!

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The winners will be announced on Saturday, August 28th. It is the responsibility of the winners to contact us at keepmecurly@gmail.com to let us know their mailing address. IF the winners do not contact us by Friday, September 3rd, we will choose new winners.

Who can participate? 

*** If you have any questions or if you have comments that are not related to the giveaway please feel free to email us at keepmecurly@gmail.com or leave your comment on yesterdays post. In order for this giveaway to work we have to ask that you do not leave any other comments on this post if they do not follow the guidelines of the contest.***