Hello my lovely reader!!! Happy Black History Month! The month is just about over, but I still want to celebrate by talking about my favorite black protective style: box braids! Box braids are my all time favorite hairstyle for a variety of reasons. I can wear different bright/pastel colors in my hair without using damaging bleach or dye, I get to experience long hair without the slipping anxiety that comes with wigs and clip in extensions,  and biggest of all the day to day maintenance is dramatically low.

There is still *some* maintenance required for them to keep them looking how I want. The last thing I want is to walk around with frizzy braids. Especially because I do them myself and sometimes it takes me up to two days!!

I have been doing my own box braids for several years now and have found some great products that help keep my hair clean, shiny, moisturized, less itchy, and neat.(人´∀`*) I would love to share them in the hopes my findings will help other box braid enjoyers~♡ 

This post will discuss many different products, but here's a selection of what I consider hands down *thee* most essential products for maintaining box braids after they are already done. Most of these products can be found at a beauty supply store or purchased online ✧*｡

Let's get into more individual products, what they are used for, and why they are important: 

1. A Satin Scarf

Keeping braids neat and tidy is all about keeping them as flat as possible. These scarves are inexpensive and satin material specifically helps prevent breakage. Other materials can be too rough and cause too much friction. Using a satin scarf is how you get your fly aways to lay down in one direction. I like to wear a scarf on my braids after using other products to make sure they are are sealed into my scalp as well. It's convenient to wear over night, while doing chores around the house, while running errands, or while doing makeup before going out. Satin durags work just as well~ 

2. Peppermint oil, Black castor oil, and Mielle oil

One of the most important steps to maintaining braids and protecting your hair underneath is to make sure your hair and scalp are getting moisturized frequently. These are my favorite oils to use! 

Peppermint oil is great because it is very soothing for the scalp and helps to ease itchiness and tension. 

Black castor oil is something I use on my natural hair regardless because it helps my hair grow and makes it very shiny and soft. This bottle specifically by African Pride also includes tea trea oil and soy bean oil which are great for soothing the scalp as well. 

Mielle oil is a very popular oil that makes your hair grow. I really recommend it if your braids end up being tight around the edges or you lay your edges down often. The tension and constant manipulation can cause breakage, but mielle oil can help prevent it or make already broken hair grow back! 

Try not to oil your hair TOO much or else you can create build up and weigh your hair down. This can make your hair look dirty and flaky. I try to moisture my hair with oil at least every 2-3 days

3. Empty Spray Bottles

Empty Spray Bottles are super easy to find for super cheap or you can recycle ones from previously used products. They come in hand for box braids to distribute products like oils, conditioners, or cleansers through out your hair with ease. I like to mix aloe vera gel, different oils, and water all in a spray bottle. I prefer doing this then just buying leave in sprays because the oils last a very long time. It's also more convenient to add shampoo or conditioner in a spray bottle with water to get your hair clean than trying to glob it onto your scalp and rub it in. 

4. Cleansing Conditioner 

Speaking of cleaning braids, these are my favorite cleaning conditioners! The foam from shampoo can actually strip your hair of its natural oils and be way to drying to use either braids. These conditioners will keep your hair moisturized but also remove the build up of products and dead skin on your scalp. I personally try to cowash my braids every 2 weeks. Scrubbing your scalp is important to prevent dandruff, but it can lead to a frizzy scalp! After cowashing it's important to oil your scalp and wear a satin scarf while your hair is drying. 

5. Wrapping Foam

Wrapping foam aka mousse is a must have for wearing any protective style, but especially braids. While using moisture like oil and water can HELP lay your hair down with a scarf, using wrapping foam SETS your hair into place! It's very important to use this right after braids are done, but also great to use after washing braids too. Using mousse on your scalp too often can be drying, so I tend to only use it after washing and prefer to rely more on water or oils for daily maintenance. Mousse can also be great for maintaining curly ends or loose pieces in bohemian or goddess braids! It makes the loose hair way more malleable so you re-curl and re-style when things get loose. 

6. No Foam Cleansing Rinse 

On the topic of foam and dry hair, this braid and scalp rinse from African Pride is one of my holy grail products. It cleanses and moisturizes your hair without suds that strip your hair of its natural oils similarly to the cleansing conditioners I mentioned before. I really like this product in particular, though, because 1. The nozzle makes it sooo easy to use and apply between each row of braids 2. All of the great oils added in it and 3. The inclusion of micellar water which really helps break apart and remove build up caused by using other products. Last time I went to my favorite beauty supply store I couldn't find it anywhere, although it's still available online. Hopefully they were just out of stock and African Pride won't discontinue this amazing cleanser (｀；ω；´) I have used it and loved it for many many years now!! 

7.  No Rinse Cleansing Scalp Treatment 

This cleansing scalp treatment from Creme of Nature is also a great find from the beauty supply! It's meant to be used in between washes to help refresh your scalp and helps with itchiness and tension, as well as dissolve excess build up and oil on your scalp. It's excellent because washing braids can be a big hassle and take a lot of time, but no one wants to walk around with a crusty scalp!!! 

8. Oil Sheen Spray

Another great option for keeping your hair moisturized and shiny! These two are my favorite because they smell amazing and I feel like they actually do soften and nourish my hair when I use them. There is one by shine n jam that is just okay to me. I feel like it doesn't spray out as much and I don't notice as much of a shine! I still have it though, because it also smells amazing and does moisturized my hair, I just don't think it's as great as the Ors Olive Oil or Cantu Shea Butter sprays~ ‧₊˚♡彡

9. Apple Cider Vinegar

This is something that is very important to use every so often with protective styles, especially if you plan on wearing it for a while! ACV can be used to rinse off synthetic braiding hair before it's installed to prevent itchiness. You can also mix a bit of it into an empty Spray bottle with warm water and cleansing conditioner to do a full scalp cleanse and detox and remove as much as possible. ACV helps balance your hair follecule's ph balance, is anti bacterial, and gets rid of/prevent dandruff. I highly recommend it for protective styles, but also for dandruff prone hair in general! 

10. Long Bonnet 

Last but not least you absolutely wanna get an extra long satin bonnet to protect your braids while you sleep. The fastest way to get frizzy braids is to sleep with them loose and unwrapped. Getting a long satin bonnet helps prevent breakage and keep braids neat especially if you double it with a satin scarf underneath. Using a bonnet also makes sleeping with braids way easier and more comfortable. For me, sleeping without it feels like trying to lay on a bunch of rope! Whenever I can't find my bonnet before bed I start to panick because it's an absolute necessity whenever I wear braids!! Now I always keep it in the bathroom. ໒꒰ྀིっ˕ -｡ྀི꒱১

If you wear box braids, locs, twists, or any black protective styles I hope that any of these products I recommended can help you get the most out of your style ꒰ᐢ◍•㉦•◍ᐢ꒱♡

On January 1st, almost as if by divine intervention somehow, I discovered a free hosting site called Neocities. Well...that is kind of a lie to be honest. I had heard of neocities before via the "webcore" and "old internet" tags on tumblr, but at the time I was using carrd co very heavily and assumed neocities was too advanced for me to use (or maybe I was just too lazy to relearn html back then). 

I don't really remember what I was doing when I first started my neocities adventure on the first of the year. Don't remember what the first site I clicked on was, I just know I discovered a few of the sites I clicked on had a "favorite sites" page that lead to other sites. I kept clicking and clicking and clicking and with every new website that I loaded up, the more inspired and filled with awe I become. Each page felt so unique and so personal. Every single thing added to each of these pages was added by an individual person with intent and purpose. On the night of the first of the year it felt like something clicked inside of me.

My Growing Social Media Disdain 

I feel like I've witness 4 different internet paradigm shifts in my life: 

♡ Once during 2011 - Nyan cat, trollface, and rage comic era. Terms like "memes" and "trolling" go mainstream.

♡ Once during 2013 - The birth of vine and the popularity of short form content.

♡ Once during 2016 - Huge internet political divide heavily influenced by the US election. Major rise in online political discourse. Rise in "cringe reaction" and "cringe complication" content. Overall growth in aggressive online behavior 

♡ Once during 2020 - The year of more people being "chronically online" than ever before, and a great increase of people wanting to do "content creation" specifically as a source of income.

Everytime one of these changes occurred I felt....strange inside. Strange because I have been on the internet for a really long time. Many of the times I went online as a kid are core memories that I still recall to this day. I remember when I was very young that not many people used the internet or computers super heavily at all. In fact, it was considered very nerdy to like computers and video games and back then being nerdy was something people would make fun of. In those times when you met someone who knew about memes or other internet specific slang or hobbies it was like making instant friends. Not to mention the online friends I met during that time. Websites and forums for personal interests like niche movies and video games were very active, so anything you couldn't talk about with people who were none the wiser in real life you could talk about with people on different websites online.

I couldn't pin point why I felt so strange every time the internet changed at first, but as I grew older it started to become more clear: capitalism. I was slowly starting to get the ick because capitalism was starting to seep its filthy paws into something that felt like a personal hidden treasure to me for years before. I still remember the day I first saw the troll face being sold on t-shirts at the mall. It was being sold along side other internet slang that was catchy at the time like "U Mad Bro?" on t-shirts as well. Something about seeing that made me so irritated, but at the time I couldn't put into words why. My friends and family just brushed it off as me "acting like a hipster", so I thought that's what it was at first too. 

Over time my ick started to grow stronger and stronger with each change. Then in 2020-2023 with the most recent web3 change that brought about the over saturation of content creators, NFTs, AI, broken algorithms, and Andrew Tate it really started to feel like the straw had broke the camel's back. Feels like everywhere I clicked and tapped someone was trying to sell me something whether it be real or fake. You cant even type certain words on twitter without being swarmed with bots. Its hard to even scroll facebook or pinterest without seeing ai art everywhere. 

In addition many of the things that I simply liked to do for fun were things so many people around me were doing for money. I started to feel this peer pressure to make myself into a brand and started to make money and receive free items here and there from the things I just happened to do for fun. Over time, though, making yourself into a brand involves revolving around numbers and feeling like you're constantly working. After a while I found myself start to procrastinate dressing up, doing my makeup, taking photos, making videos, doing graphic design etc because it would give me anxiety. I would always feel this pressure that it had to be good every time or it felt like what I was doing was a waste of time.

In an interview the extremely popular and successful singer SZA talks about how she actually hates going to the studio because it gives her anxiety in a similar way. She talks about how songs she spends a lot of time and energy on aren't nearly as popular as songs she made when she was barely even trying. In this interview she encapsulates a lot of how I feel too.

Finally Leaving Cuckerberg's Cursed  Ass App (one of them anyways...)

Hate to break it to yall but I really don't think I will ever reactivate my facebook ever again. I do not want to partake in community activity on there anymore either. Years ago my therapist taught me how to do something called a "behavioral chain analysis". This is when you identify a problematic behavior pattern that you want to get rid of and reflect deeply on the past events , environment, and vulnerability that lead to this behavior. After several extremely unfortunate circumstances occurred in 2023 that resulted in me no longer associating with people I considered friends for years (but were they really ever actually my friends? Maybe more on this in a different blog post) and a lot of my very heavy trauma resurfacing and being forced to the forefront of my mind I started to ask myself "what are the choices in my life and common denominators that led me to feel this much immense sadness". And so the the behavioral chain analysis began.

I started to ask myself things like "where did I meet all these people?" "what led to me considering us friends?" "what led to me feeling that I could trust this person?" "what led me to these communities that ended up hurting me and betraying me?"

It was the same answer over and over for many different instances and scenarios dating back years:

Facebook Facebook Facebook Facebook.

Of course it's also important for me to acknowledge the part I play in my own down falls. It's important for me to not always "play the victim" and to take responsibility for my actions, my choices, and the environments that I chose to put myself in especially as an adult. A big part of this acknowledgement is what led me to therapy in the first place.

However during my reflection I started to really think about facebook and all the people in my life that I had met through that app/website. Pretty much all the people I've ever met that have traumatized me or done me dirty somehow were all people I met on fb. The way the website encourages interaction with its algorithms lures people into a false sense of friendship and trust. It can trick people into considering people who are merely acquaintances as friends through repeated mutual validation and shared interests. As I have grown up and gained more meaningful real life friendships, I have learned there's a LOT more to friendship than that. There's a surprising amount of people on Facebook (and online in general) who don't realize that, to a point that it kind of scares me.

In addition to the promotion of inauthentic friendships, facebook also heavily encourages doomer mentality. So many people, especially in the alternative community, consider it the norm to openly and frequently vent post and overshare extremely tragic/and or personal information. Something I have been guilty of before too. After consuming and partaking in it for years and and years it just.....finally become too much for me to be honest. 

There are many people who think they know my exact motives for the things that I do because of their own conspiracies they make up about me and it's funny and sad to see. These are feelings that I've had and wanted to follow through on for a while, but there are many people in my life who don't use other social media or websites that I'd be afraid to lose contact with. After a lot of consideration and after being under just too much stress I decided my life would be better off if I just personally and privately reached out to them to catch up. Doing that would be a much better choice than staying addicted to a website that harmed my mental health for years, wouldn't you agree? I think it is better for both my mental health and for the mental health of the people in my life as well.

I Made My Own Website and Fell In Love With HTML & CSS Again

The same night that I fell down the neocities and yesterweb rabbit hole I decided to make an account and start making my own website too. At first I meant to just dabble in it for just a few minutes to see what I could do, but next thing I knew hours went by. I had entered a flow state for the first time in a long time. Making an html page felt like speaking a language that hadn't graced my lips in years. I used to spend hours configuring the html of my tumblr blogs as a teenager and doing it on neocities felt just like riding a bike again. Though, this time it felt a little different. This time it feels a little more special because I get to do it with my adult brain. There are so many things on other people's neocities sites that I had no idea how to do and still don't know how to do. Not to mention a new element I have never really dabbled with before: Javascript. There are so many things you can do with and add to websites that I had never really knew about or considered before, and now I feel so inspired to learn and try them.

There are so many things that I didn't realize that I am fully capable of learning how to that I am so excited to study and try now. It is hard not to feel bitter about all the years I spent that on facebook talking to toxic people with the wrong intentions and on tik tok just following trends and doing what I felt other people expected of me. It's not that I don't enjoy making "content". I genuinely do love playing dress up and entertaining people and trying to bring communities together and speaking up about what I believe in. I really really do. I just don't enjoy what making "content" has turned into these days. It feels sooo dystopian and facebook truly feels like the epicenter of all of my bad feelings about social media.

I have been saying for years that I missed people having personal blogs (especially jfashion blogs from the 2010s) and websites, and how I miss the height of tumblr popularity because of how different the culture seemed there (a big part of which I highly attributed to the profile personalization options both with desktop html themes and mobile colors and headers). Neocities is literally like my love of both combined. There is so much uniqueness and creativity. Even though the internet has felt hostile and dead since 2016 I am so happy to discover this community of people that want to keep the original values of the internet alive. The more I learn about the indie web, the small net, and about web development in general the more I feel like I'm starting to see the internet completely different. 

The more I start to use neocities and learn the ins and outs of web development and design, the more I will share my feelings about them on this blog. I feel like this post is already long enough so I will end it here~♡ 

See you next time. Stay cute!! 

P.S. if any of my old fb friends are reading this don't worry I'm still on messenger (っ´ω｀)っ

     Dearest reader, I had the absolutely amazing opportunity to be a guest of honor at Sin City Anime, an anime convention in Las Vegas, at the beginning of November! This was my first time ever having an opportunity like this and it was truly an honor. This experience not only changed my life but also changed my future ambitions and goals for the better.  I'd love to tell you all about it.

📸 Hx Seven Photography

 When Sin City Anime reached out to me at the beginning of 2023 to be a guest the first thing I mentioned was wanting to do something for the Kawaii Black Girls movement. Because of imposter syndrome I didn't really feel like I deserved to have an opportunity like this and didn't really feel like my content was worth promoting by itself. I decided I wanted to do something that could help/encourage others and give back to the community. At the time I hadn't engaged in a lot of community building activity for a while. I was locked out of the Kawaii Black Girls Facebook page for a long time because of losing access to the original account I made it on. However, after having a lovely conversation with a member of my discord community who told me how much the page inspired their journey into alternative fashion I decided to try my best to gain access to the page again and I was successful! Gaining access to the page again and hearing from someone who was genuinely helped by the effort I put into it gave me the courage to try and continue to put effort into helping more people. 

 The Preparation 

Now that I had been given the opportunity to bring Kawaii Black Girls to the real world I decided to start putting in the work to make it more a more established movement. I spent a lot of time creating a website, creating new social media pages, and creating graphics for the movement entirely by myself. It felt extremely amazing to dedicate my time and energy to doing these things for KBG entirely of my own free will and making the choice to do so made me feel very proud of myself. There were so many different things I could've chosen to do events for and so much negativity that exists online but *I* made the choice to use my time and energy to help Black people who enjoy cuteness. Sometimes just this thinking about this would make me start to tear up, especially when I was making the website or writing down ideas for my panel. There's so many people out there who choose to be rude, gross, mean, and weird. It felt so good to take part in something that I felt could really help my community for the better. 

Putting together the KBG website took some time, but it was so much fun. The layout and color palette of it is inspired by the websites that are created for magical girl anime. Finding and watching different videos and sources to add to the front page and about section also helped motivate me and reaffirm my motives to. Over time KBG no longer felt like something I just wanted to do, but something I needed to do. Not only to heal my inner child, but I saw it as something that could help the younger generation too.

My First Merch Table and Meet and Greet

Definitely not something to brag or write home about (´･ω･｀) but take it easy on me, okay, it was my first time and I didn't wanna bring a bunch of fancy set up stuff to travel with! Definitely trial and error type of thing that was a huge learning experience. It was an incredibly fun time getting to sell my merch and meet with people who enjoy my content and who were enjoying the convention, though. 

This was my first time making and selling merch! My first ever makeup palette and buttons! I ordered some of the buttons online, but got nervous they wouldn't come in time so I got a button maker and started making my own (spoiler alert the other buttons still came in time, phew)! I really love making buttons and can't wait to make more in the future.

 

Having this opportunity at Sin City Anime helped me discover how much I love making and crafting things and how I want to try to continue to make and sell my own creations in the future. I am doing the final touches to my online store and just took some better product photos, so my merch will finally be available online soon! I appreciate patience and understanding for the delays, but I'm so excited to sell more cute crafts and makeup products in 2024.

I literally spend time day dreaming about all the amazing interactions I got the privilege of having and all the incredible people I got to meet and talk to. There were so many sweet cosplayers, adorable fashion enthusiasts, and just straight up lovely and charming people who enjoy my social media content and community efforts and wanted to chat with me.

 

I got to talk to people about the need for intersectionality in our communities, about jfashion both old and new styles we love, and had several very lengthy conversations about vocaloid which I was more than willing to participate in because I have loved it for a long time and have a lot to say about it. After having to indulge in a lot of extremely boring small talk at my previous job that involved a lot of customer service it felt extremely good to be able to have passionate conversations about things I really enjoy and care about with people who were genuinely receptive and considerate of my feelings and opinions. It just felt......sooo good for my soul. 

This experience was the epitome of why I love the idea of anime conventions as a whole and I feel like I can't even fully express how grateful I am to have had it.

My Panel and Events 

 

Part of being a guest of honor was agreeing to hosting multiple events throughout the weekend of the convention! I decided to host two for the Kawaii Black Girls Movement and one centered around my favorite game of all time Animal Crossing! So happy I got to me the flyers for the events and I really love how they turned out. 

Getting to host the KBG panel literally meant the world to me. I spent a lot of time writing down and planning different things I wanted to say in a cute notebook and took it around everywhere with me for months so I could write down a new idea as soon as I had it.

It was also incredible getting to host a Kawaii Black Girls meet up! The theme was "pink cosplay" but I said in my promo video and announcement during the opening ceremonies that any black girls who want to stop by and hangout, take pics/videos, and meet new people are more than welcome to come regardless of what they were wearing. I will admit that when I got on stage at the opening ceremonies I could tell the turn out for my KBG events would probably small because I did not see many Black people in that crowd. It was interesting to see in comparison to what the population of conventions look like back in Michigan. This was my first time ever being in Vegas so I didn't really know what to expect or know much about the size of the black population there (and still don't know much tbh). However I hope that these events I hosted will inspire more black people in Nevada who love anime, jfashion, and cuteness to see that Sin City Anime is a welcoming and safe place for them to have fun and be themselves. ♡

I got some great video testimonials from some of the girls who came to the meet up as well as a cute tik tok we made together! So sorry for taking so long to edit and post everything.

I can't even truly put into words how much it means to me to be able to speak out about Colorism, Texturism, and Cyber Bullying SPECIFICALLY at an anime convention with many jfashion booths and events. These are things that have plagued communities for years and years and I've seen it happen over and over since I was a child. These are important conversations that black people in the anime community and in the jfashion/alt fashion communities DESERVE to have. I really appreciate all the Sin City Anime staff who were there to help get the panel up and running, HX Seven Productions for taking great pictures of me speaking during the panel, Afrococoapuffs for letting me use her laptop and for giving me amazing support and encouragement the whole weekend, and everyone who attended and listened to what I had to say including the non black people too. It's hard to even type this without tearing up and thinking about it. This was such an amazing opportunity to me and I'm so glad to been able to do it. I really really hope I can do more panels like this in the future. Maybe some day.

Shout out to all the super cute girls who were able to stick around towards the end of the meetup to take cute pictures and videos with me!!! And to all the girls who came even if they didn't want their picture taken. Thank you so much for helping me make history with the first ever Kawaii Black Girls Meetup hosted and sponsored by an anime convention. Thank you so much to Sin City Anime for helping provide a safe environment for black girls who love anime and cute aesthetics to gather, meet, and have fun together. I truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

 I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self all about this amazing day. I hope that this event can inspire other people to start more events at other conventions too. Thanks to social media it has become much easier for black people with similar aesthetics and interests to find community online and make friends. Unfortunately, though, it is still hard for some to find community and friends irl. I think having more healthy and safe real life community engagement is a very important part of growing and making these communities better. I really hope I can see more of that in my life time and I can't wait to do my part to make it more wide spread. 

I am soooo sorry I didn't get to take photos or videos during my animal crossing event, but to be honest there was a lot of technical difficulties and some scheduling errors so it didn't really go over as planned.  (´；ω；`) 

Hey, sometimes it do be like that though. I'm still glad I got to meet other cute animal crossing enjoyers and play with them a bit. I also got to give away a bunch of animal crossing stickers I bought that were originally gonna be prizes for the design challenge, but since there were so many technical issues I just gave them to anyone who wanted them and said take as many as you want!! It felt good to be able to do that at least. I will practice doing more animal crossing design challenges on my twitch live streams before I try doing it irl again. I really appreciate all the cuties who came to cross animals with me!!! 

Also there were a few people in the audience that didn't have a switch to play with, so they drew cute animal crossing characters on their phones which I absolutely loved. There were even some people who drew ME which made me so happy and delighted I wanted to cry. I wish I would've taken a picture of their phones or something to show but I think my phone was about to die at that point 😭

Amazing Cosplays That I Saw

I wish I could've taken even more pictures because there were just so many amazing cosplays at this convention. As you can see most of these pictures were taken in front of my booth because that's where I was most of the time. There were some great ones I saw from far away that I wasn't able to capture but still glad I got to see them. 

 Amazing Outfits That I Saw

There was also an incredible jfashion fashion show and it was.......just everything to me. It made me so emotional to be honest. I've never seen so many different body types, skin tones, and hair types represented and celebrated in Japanese fashion all in one place in real life. 

Huge shout out to all the amazing designers and models who were part of this fashion show. I actually want to do a separate blog post about the fashion show soon, so I can go more in depth with my personal feelings about different looks that I loved.

Until then, though, I wanna highlight some the incredible black models I saw in the fashion show.

 I have never seen black people celebrated in jfashion in person in this way before, so it was truly an emotional event for me. Especially as someone who has faced as well as and consoled other people who have faced anti black discrimination in the jfashion community.

So sorry if I missed anyone. There was a point where I had to run across the hall to grab my selfie stick because my arm was getting tired from holding my for so long! I am grateful that I got to observe this absolutely awe inspiring event. Everyone, and I mean everyone, looked so great.

In Conclusion

Thank you so much again to Sin City Anime for giving me this amazing opportunity, to everyone who bought merch from my booth, everyone who let me take pictures of their incredible cosplays and outfits, to all the staff who helped me with my events, and to everyone who was super kind and respectful to me and my boundaries during this experience. This opportunity truly changed my future goals, ambitions, and hobbies. I feel so inspired by so many amazing people I got to meet and buy art from as well. I can't wait to keep creating and keep putting positivity out into this world in some form or another.