Queen Marianne ~ Queen Of Kinks, Curls & Coils® (Neno Natural)

7/4/2015

1. What's your name and where are you from?

My name is Marianne and I am German/Nigerian.

2. What is your hair type?

I am not the biggest fan of “hair typing” for several reasons but also because I do not have one particular curl type throughout. I would say that I have a mix of 3c/4a depending on where you look. The back of my hair is more 3c, the crown 4a while the hair at the front and by my temple is mix between the two.

3. When did you go natural and what made you do it?

I started transitioning at the end of 2009 and would just trim my hair every few months until mid-2010 when I had all my natural hair back. I didn’t know that what I was doing is “going natural” or “transitioning”. I just got sick of relaxing my hair and wanted to stop.

I had severely damaged hair due to chemicals from the relaxers as well as the fact that I was constantly dying my hair. My sister stopped relaxing her hair before I did and when I saw how beautiful her 'fro looked I said enough.

4. What was the most challenging thing about going natural?

My lack of knowledge! I didn’t know what I was doing and didn’t have a plan. I just thought ok I will stop relaxing my hair and I will get my curls back and that’s that. Because I didn’t know what I was doing, I wasn’t blending the two textures together, so I literally walked around with curly roots and stringy nasty looking ends! My hair was breaking because I wasn’t doing anything to help strengthen it. The transition was rough but it was my own fault as well (knowledge is power people :))

5. What is your weekly regimen?

I wash my hair once a week using ACV, every other week I use Shikakai to do a proper cleanse and do a moisturizing deep condition (DC) once a week after cleansing my hair. I also do a protein DC every 5 weeks for strength and apply henna once a month. Whenever I use shikakai I do a hot oil treatment to avoid my hair from feeling stripped. After washing, I moisturize with my DIY cream leave-in conditioner and then seal with my DIY oil and/or my whipped butter.

6. What is your daily morning regimen?

Depending on what style I am wearing I will either just take my hair down, shake my head and use my fingers to arrange my hair and go or I will use a little of my DIY spray leave-in to lightly mist my hair, arrange and go.

7. What is your daily night time regimen?

I tend to remoisturize my hair at night with either my creamy leave-in or spray leave-in depending on how thirsty/dry my hair feels. I will use a little oil to seal or butter and then pineapple or put in chunky twists (no more than 9), cover with a scarf and get some z’s.

8. Do you use heat on your hair at all?

Nope, I am scared of heat damage lol. I have never been good with using heat so I stopped even before I went back natural (it has been about 8 years since I last used a hair dryer!)

9. Do you braid your hair? If so, how often do you do so in a year?

Nope, I had a bit of a mishap the last time so I have not used extensions in over 4 years.

10. Wide-tooth comb or Denman brush?

Wide-tooth comb.

11. Is your hair normally loose or in a protective-do?

It is usually loose about 70% of the time but I am trying to get myself to do more protective styles.

12. Have you ever had a hair tragedy? What was it? How did you recover from it?

I have had a few! I got major breakage when I lasted used extensions because I didn’t properly detangle my hair nor did I prep my hair before putting in the braids. I have not always been gentle on my very, very sensitive and fragile hairline (fragile hairlines run in the family) so I am currently trying to baby it with my castor oil & rose infused almond oil blend by gently massaging my scalp every day.

13. What's your biggest tip for maintaining healthy or long hair?

Be patient, be informed, be gentle and be patient again! Natural hair needs tender loving care. It will not happen overnight, there is no magic “get long healthy hair tomorrow” pill. If you learn what you hair likes/dislikes, listen to your hair needs and understand that your hair is yours and you should love it as that, you are already on the road to success!

14. Where can we find you online? (blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc).