Natural hair vs Relaxed hair

As the natural hair community is gaining massive following and people going natural, I just wanted to write this so that people can know the difference and how to chose which side to belong to.  Oh…

Source: Natural hair vs Relaxed hair


Natural hair vs Relaxed hair

As the natural hair community is gaining massive following and people going natural, I just wanted to write this so that people can know the difference and how to chose which side to belong to.  Oh, also so that my friend, Munchkin, who is relaxed can see the cool side of natural hair. Maybe one day she will easily transition to this glorious side of  the natural hair. So I’m going to talk about the growth rate myth, the thickness fact, how wash days differ, the tangle, the pros and cons for each side and the costs of the products used.


Growth Rate: It is a myth that natural or relaxed hair grows faster than the other. Your hair growth rate depends on two things: your internal health and how you care/maintain your hair. Natural hair is just as susceptible to damage as chemically treated hair. Often, those who go natural feel like their hair is growing faster because they aren’t styling their hair as much, and therefore, aren’t damaging it. What is really happening here is your hair’s retention rate has increased.

Thickness. Natural hair is or tends to be thicker than relaxed hair.Chemically relaxed hair has been altered. The follicles have been broken down so that they don’t curl. This decreases the amount of texture, therefore leaving your head of hair to feel and appear thinner.

Wash days. Wash days for conscious naturals is  literal a wash day. It actually takes a day. This is why, you pre-poo, wash with shampoo, wash with conditioner, do protein treatment, or just treatment, twists. All this takes no less than 6 hours. Because, pre-poo is done the previous night. then wash in the morning, then….we will talk about this soon. As for relaxed hair, it could be the same thing but less hours and mostly done at the hair salons.

Taking care. The only care natural hair needs is leave in treatment, water, the LOC method basically is what I would recommend. As for relaxed hair protein deep conditioning should be done at least once or twice a month because the chemicals in the relaxer would have broken down your hairs natural protein making it weaker.You therefore have to boost our hairs strength by completing a protein deep conditioner regularly.


If we’re being honest, natural hair is a b-tch to untangle! When your coif is processed, it’s easier to maintain a wash-and-go, but when it’s natural, your hair automatically shrivels up into a tangled mess when washed. Dreadful.

 Pros and cons : 

Money. It is cheaper to have natural hair than relaxed hair. Wrong. Natural hair products are so expensive. Let’s take a look at Cantu Products from Shea Butter. The jar goes for 1,999 Kshs.  and that my dear friends is nothing compared to the relaxer that is 550 Kshs. So this one goes to relaxed hair. They save a coin.

Time consuming : Relaxed hair is required to do treatment every two weeks.  Relaxed hair takes less time to style. Natural hair requires a wash every week depending on your regimen. Natural hair needs to be twisted or braided each night, needs to be splitzed each morning and/or evening. Time consuming , you save time with relaxed hair.

 Thicker. If you want a full, nice, thick head of hair, do away with the chemicals.

Length. You have a better chance at healthy hair growth with natural hair because it’s stronger and can retain more hair.


There’s something about seeing a woman with a thick head full of hair that’s all hers. Women try to achieve this by putting in a weave instead of learning their hair and growing it for themselves. Trust me, the men love natural. 😉  I mean it’s healthy.

Products : The naturals out there, it is hard to find products especially made for natural hair, without those harmful parabens, sulfates and more chemicals. Here is a list of products available in the Kenyan market ( although pricey, remember quality. )

Cream of Nature, As I am, Shea Butter, ORS, and our very own Kenyan Marini Naturals.




Let the Pain Flow.


Gaffe ya KIamumbi

                I am just from having a conversation with a group of my jamaas; weirdly they claim that when they have issues they talk it out with their friends. I laughed hysterically, because they make it sound as if am not one of them, and I am certain of the fact that they rarely share their issues, also me included. I am convinced of the opinion that people not only men but also ladies are less prone to share what’s burning up in their hearts. I believe that people share only what they are willing to share on, because of what they expect to receive in return maybe; comfort, encouragement, or advice or maybe some assistance in different forms. People rarely share what’s hurting them simply for the plain purpose of speaking it out. However am not writing this to condemn anyone it’s…

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The confusion of missing someone

whenever things change, whenever the one person you talk to before bed is away,far off and you can’t explain why, you curl yourself and hold yourself in a fatal position.  Before we even go there let me share this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I have been in the meadows all the day
And gathered there the nosegay that you see
Singing within myself as bird or bee
When such do field-work on a morn of May.
But, now I look upon my flowers, decay
Has met them in my hands more fatally
Because more warmly clasped,–and sobs are free
To come instead of songs. What do you say,
Sweet counselors, dear friends ? that I should go
Back straightway to the fields and gather more ?
Another, sooth, may do it, but not I !
My heart is very tired, my strength is low,
My hands are full of blossoms plucked before,
Held dead within them till myself shall die.

So as much as we as human being are and can try to be as optimistic as they can, we just find ourselves looking at the flowers, we woke up very early in the morning to pick up, decay in our hands and just seat there and listen to the most depressing love songs in the hope that things will bloom again and life will be okay. Asking ourselves if love is a verb or an noun or even an adjective that no one has ever been able to understand.

So as I am learning that I have not grown it this  area of defining the words in my vocabulary for the last 6 years, bare with me and let’s define the words we use. Yesterday while I was having a chat with an old friend of mine, there was this thing she said that is still haunting me at this moment, why do you want him to text you, chicka you got a crush!?!!!!! there are those things that make one feel manipulable, vulnerable  and such, mine is  being not in control and wanting, needing someone for something, missing someone is very confusing for and to me.

I would like to look at the different way people have defined missing someone.There is this song: parler a mon pere by Celine Dion, where she says that she would like like to go where my heart feels safe.. cross the oceans…but above all I would like to talk to my father. It’s a very nice song but it does not answer my question.

“Henry was learning that time apart has a way of creating distance- more than mountains and time zone separating them. Real distance, the kind that makes you ache and stop wondering. Longing so bad that it begins to hurt to care so much.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

When I read that it made sense because there is that ache that one feels. Then again

“However much you have been wanting and hoping and dreaming of meeting the person of your dreams, it is only when you meet them that you will start missing them. It seems that the presence of an object is required to make its absence felt (or to make the absence of something felt). A kind of longing may have preceded their arrival, but you have to meet in order to feel the full force of your frustration in their absence.”
― Adam Phillips, Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

I don’t know how true that is, but i am sure it could be true. 🙂

― Nikki Schiefelbein

Remember the saying it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I think it applies here.

And then there is the crazy, stalker, psychopathic, creepy and sorrowful that chills you like that big eyed kid in the horror movies, who is too adorable but is the mastermind of the whole demons and killings:

“I’m awful about your name. I still jump when I hear it. I still feel it rattling somewhere in my stomach. I think I’m jealous of anyone that gets to say it because it’s not my right anymore. Years from now I’ll be standing in a supermarket and someone will casually brush past me, your name falling from their mouth like confetti. I’ll drop everything that I’m holding. My knees will wobble in the way they only did when I was with you. Years from now I’ll still remember how your name tasted in my mouth and I’ll have to start missing you all over again.”
― Azra.T

“Have u loved someone so deep in your heart, u wanted to keep them hidden & all to yourself?”
― Dinesh Kumar Biran


Anyway, there is this new one that has surfaced with all this social media phenomena that has creaped in our lives.

“Its been a long time we both talked properly. I guess its because many thing went wrong between us and I know its difficult to get back on the road; road on which we used to travel before. You know every time I open my messenger the first thing that i check is that whether you’re online or not. Let’s begin again and try not to discuss on old shits.. Love you”
― Taimoor Madni

And then above all there is that one you feel, that one that you can’t explain even if you tried. That psssshhhhh one that has no word in the dictionary that could very well say it.There is this kind, my dear friends, that make you want to listen to opera music because that way you can scream and shout and the music accompaniments will still be in rhythm.

I am dealing with mine while listening to Beethoven Symphony Number 7.

Note: to those that have asked about the difference between natural hair and permed/ treated/ chemically treated hair, I will write about it soon.