Woo! Hey, y’all! I’m recuperating from Caribana. I had a great time, lots of dancing, eating and spending time with friends and family. Most importantly, I had to figure out what to do with my hair to keep it looking decent although I was going to spend mad time in the sun.

Wednesday night was washing and styling night. I washed my hair with Henna Sooq’s Sweet Honey shampoo bar. Now, this shampoo bar isn’t made for thick, coarse hair (I mis-ordered, I had meant to order the Argan Oil shampoo bar), but it works. Here are the ingredients:

Blended with organic high oleic sunflower oil, castor oil, olive oil, organic (NEW) cassia obovata, honey, apricot kernel oil, lemongrass essential oil, and our infused chamomile, and horsetail in olive oil, in our Sweet Honey shampoo bar is ideal for normal to fine hair.

It doesn’t strip my hair or anything like that… I don’t really know why it’s for normal to fine hair, but whatever. I deep conditioned with QP Elasta’s DPR-11. Love that stuff. It just works for me, so I’m going to continue using it. I’ve been using Kimmaytube’s leave-in conditioner recipe (see the video here) — I’m going to do a review soon — but because I was in a bit of a rush, I didn’t have the time to mix up everything. So, I just used ol’ faithful, Giovanni Direct Leave-in Weightless Moisture. I bought Eco-Styler Olive Oil Styling Gel when I was heading to Miami because a) I wanted to try it out; b) I needed a small jar of gel to travel with just in case I needed to do some hair rescue; and c) I’m truly a product junkie ;). I used that for styling. Check the style below.

You can’t really see the style, but it’s an updo with flat twists around the back and sides and two-strand twists on the top. Perfect for keeping your hair off your neck when it’s hot (it’s not like that’s a super big problem for me unless my hair is straight, but whatever). I didn’t really need to do that because it was pretty cool Friday night when the girls and I went downtown for dinner on the patio and random roaming and on Saturday afternoon at the parade. If you were in the crowd, as we were, it was humid and hot, but walking to the parade and back to the car was extra breezy. It warmed up on Saturday night when we were heading out to a party. I wanted to change up the look a little, so I untwisted my two-strands.

Did you see the leopard print romper? I’m sad that I didn’t get a full picture of myself (if you haven’t guessed, I enjoy taking pictures ;)). Anyhoo, on my way home early Sunday morning (we didn’t get home until after 4), I was corkscrewing my hair, expecting to wear it in a similar style on Sunday night. (For the record, I don’t normally party like that. The last time I went out three nights in a row for Caribana, I was 21. We had family visiting from out of town for Caribana and we wanted to show them a good time. Suffice it to say, it’s been a LONG time since I was 21! I held up pretty well although I did have to soak my feet in Epson Salts on Monday afternoon.)

OK, so Sunday afternoon, we’re hanging out with the family at my house and my sister-in-law and I are talking hair. I was thinking about a picture that I had seen on one of the hair blogs that I frequent, a girl with a gorgeous blown-out ‘fro. All of a sudden, I was inspired. I untwisted everything and brushed it out — surprisingly not losing a whole lot of hair, thanks henna! — and wore my hair in a ‘fro for the first time ever. I moisturized it with Carol’s Daughter Healthy Hair Butter and it came out pretty well… so well, a dude in the party said to me, “I can’t wait for my hair to look like yours!” He had a TWA.

Only complaint about the Healthy Hair Butter is that it left my hair a little greasier than I would have liked. I’m not sure what other product I could have used. I wanted something heavy that would keep it moist, yet not greasy-feeling.

On the way home around 3:15 am, I did about four rudimentary flat twists because I knew if I slept on it it was going to be a nightmare to deal with when I washed it Monday afternoon. Folks, lemme tell you: my blow out is only good for one night. Monday morning, The Hubby’s cousins were heading back home and I rolled, almost incoherently, out of bed at 9:30 am, took a shower, untwisted my hair and was frightened by the crazy that I saw reflected in the mirror. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time, the energy or the inclination to do anything about it. So, I tried tying it back and left the house.

It wasn’t a good look, but sometimes you just have to rock it.

Well, I didn’t get back home until after 5 pm when my cousin and her boyfriend hit the road. I was so busted, but I had to wash my hair because I was recording some footage at work today and I could NOT be captured on camera looking like a mad woman. It turned out pretty darned good — too tired to take pictures today. Maybe tomorrow.

All in all, it was a great Caribana. Some logistically hiccups, but we had good, clean, safe fun. And my hair is no worse for wear. Next up, New York City and BlogHer ’10! I’m so excited 🙂