We are 4 women bound by blood, 3 sisters and their mother. Our goal is to help each other become the best we can be. Helping each other we can improve our intelligence, image, health, wealth, talents and abilities. We are each magical and powerful when we stand alone, but we are amazingly powerful when we stand together, and the results are out of this world. We talk about our natural hair, our weight, fashion, food, parties and living well. We make the ultimate Mother Daughter Team.
Why Royal? I am sure many people ask that question when they see this page. I am also sure many other people get it. There is for me a well defined and yet verbally undefinable reason why I call my family royal. For me it is what it is and I consider all of my family not just the 4 as Royal, I always have. In Zen they say that if you try to define something you kill it. So I will do my best to bring you closer to my reasoning as possible without trying to define it.
The word Royal suits me and my family. It just fits. Some people are not comfortable with such a title and that's okay. The title of farmer really mattered to my Grandfather. Yes he was a reverend and a carpenter but the thing that made him smile most was farmer. To me, he was a Royal farmer, because I was lucky enough to know my great grandmother, his mother, but he down played that Royal part a lot. There are all kinds of titles in this world. Titles that are forced upon you and titles you choose.
There are also titles that go beyond choosing and beyond simply what you do. For me and my family there is something that seems written in our very being and the only word I can give it is Royal. It is there when we are at our best and our worst. It is there when we are in a crowd of a thousand other people. Our Royalty is not attached to a crown, a piece of land or a country. Our Royalty transcends all time and space and is recognized across the universe.
The problem is with the way the world works growing up I began to become ashamed. For I was a Royal without a country to rule. I had no knights to protect me. I had no army to command. History of this country forced more than half of my ancestors to carry the title of slave. I could not boldly go out in this world with the title I knew I had/have.
Then it occurred to me, why relinquish my truth, my crown. If I continue to live by what this world (reality) is offering me, I will be living on nothing, as I am a woman and black. I am claiming what is mine! People can try to take it away all they want but I be damned if I am just going to give it away! There are some titles you choose like husband. Other titles are forced upon you like slave. But we each have other titles that have existed with us since the beginning of time. I and frankly the rest of my family was born with a memory of one of ours. It is a Royal title and My Royal Family 4 will serve as a beacon. The 4 will not hide to make the world comfortable. The 4 will shine!
Okay I say it all on the Vlog so go ahead and just watch. I decided to do a different style everyday because I entered a contest (looks included below). Playing with my hair has made me happier. I don't have time to just hate on me because I am spending time enjoying being me. I decided I wanted to enter like 8 styles and then I thought I am I only posting this on someone else's site. So, I decided to post it here, too. I hope to keep adding to this particular post from time to time. I talk about the products I used on the NaturallyCurly.com site. Just look up My Royal Family 4.
May is the month of events. I already had 2 major ones and it is only May 5! If I were the way I want to be I would be celebrating Cinco de Mayo right now. Instead I decided to give myself and body a break. Actually that's not true. I have not reached some very big image goals and I decided that if I "took off" for Derby and for a reunion with my friends I would have to give up Cinco de Mayo. If I looked perfect, felt perfect and was proud of myself I would be out tonight in spite of being a widow. Unfortunately I am not where, what or who I need to be right now and it is easier to focus on the superficial because those results are easier to notice. I like checking things off my list and frankly (although I am working on it) becoming my higher self is going to take a while. Plus, I have more events I have to go to at the end of the month. Whatever outer improvements I can make will at least help me feel better.
You can get this prepackaged organic fruits and vegetables
at Krogers and just put it in you blender. So easy!
Harvest Sensations great for Alkaline Diet
Spicy canned Tuna with Fried Egg
perfect low carb
Spicy canned Tuna with Fried Egg
perfect low carb
In January I had it all planned. I would do the Alkaline Diet for 2 weeks and extreme low carb for 2 weeks alternating between the two. That worked for about a month and I did keep off that weight but then I would have weeks of drinking and eating pizza. I also dropped the low carb part of the weeks when I continued my diet. It is no fun being low carb if no one is doing it with you and the rest of "The 4" have been to stressed and busy to really diet. Of course Faith goes to the gym, Joy always looks great and mom is fabulous whenever she puts in just a little effort, so it really makes this just my problem. Don't get me wrong all of us could stand some improvement but I am the one drowning so I have to do this alone.
I know the me in a good place would rock alternating between the two diets, Alkaline and Low Carb. I like playing with my food. I like all or nothing menus. But right now I am not in the mood to play. My wedding anniversary is on May 14th and being a widow sucks. I have no fight. I don't care one way or another about what comes next in my life. The only thing I do care about is people seeing me. Yes, I am miserable but I don't want people to see me at my worst. I don't want people to see me at all but if I have to be seen can't I at least look good! I like playing with my diet food like I said. I like being creative but not right now. I made a decision late night May 3rd after returning home from meeting with friends I have not seen for years. I decided to fast until my anniversary. Then I don't know what comes next. I think I will fast the entire day of my anniversary May 14th and then I think May 15th I will go out on a date by myself and I will enjoy eating out and I will enjoy my food. I will live in the moment of me. When I was a little girl I would sing Me And My Shadow. I forgot how obsessed I was with that song and my own shadow until a few months ago.
May 16th I'll be back on an Alkaline Diet until the next big event. I would do low carb (we actually say the meat diet in our house, lol) but it can bloat you for the first 3 days and give you a headache so I will have to try my little alternating diet in June. I hope by then I will be playing with my food again because let's be honest why diet without having fun. It is a game. You don't have to take the joy out of food even when trying to make your weight goal.
PS When I am having fun on a diet these are some of the things I eat.
When we were all on a diet and in Atlanta we had this:
Okay, this is a cautionary tale of taking a free sample because it's there. Earlier this week Faith and I decided to get our butts in gear and start being productive human beings. Our work is just piling up because we have many different projects going on at once. We are intending to diet, but we really have not become serious about dieting yet. In fact Faith is not on a diet at all which makes what happened to her extremely awful and funny and terrible and funny again. This is my account.
We'd been working for a while but on different projects and in different areas of the house. I knew that Faith was going to be stuck working on the Vela's Villa website all day, but I also knew she had other stuff on her list as well. I too had a list of things that had to be completed, and I must admit we were both successfully ticking things off our list, but we were both afraid we might lose some steam if we kept working the way we were. Earlier that afternoon Faith reminded me that we had these energy drink-dietary supplement samples. She asked me if I wanted to share a packet. I assumed she thought that if we split it we would get less caffeine. I assumed she thought of killing two birds with one stone by getting the energy to work and maybe burning a few extra calories. To be clear she was not on a diet. I, on the other hand, was attempting to fast that day. I was feeling pretty good and could not risk anything going wrong. So, I told her I wasn't going to try it. I had a very bad feeling.
A few hours pass. Faith forgot to take it. She is getting things done, and then somehow the idea must have popped into her head again. Again she asks me if I want to split the sample. Now let me inform you I rarely, if ever, turn down a chance to experiment with a new diet supplement. I am usually the first in line. If it will help you lose weight, I will take it! So, imagine Faith's surprise when I said, "No, I don't want to." There was a little voice inside my head that said if I drink this stuff I will REGRET it. Maybe it was the packaging that warned me. Maybe it was because I really didn't want to ruin my fast. Little did I know my fast was about to get destroyed because at some point Faith took what she thought was a half portion of that sample.
Our family in general has a problem with side effects, and if there is a side effect it will manifest in Faith's body with a quickness. I was taking a break in Joy's suite because my area is being worked on and Joy's suite is right across from Faith's. Faith calls out to me and ask me if I had any Benadryl. She is attempting to be calm. She is trying not to scream. She is trying not to scratch. She is telling me as calmly as she can that she is having a reaction to that sample (Optimum Nutrition Platinum PRE- Pre-Workout Fruit Punch) she took. Her body movement says volumes. She is acting like her hands, arms and head are on fire. We look throughout the house. I always buy Benadryl but this time there is not one pill in the house. I had taken them all up to our place in the mountains. I give her the topical version instead in hopes that it would help her hands; it doesn't. Later that night we would learn that Benadryl would not have worked to stop this reaction anyway.
Faith kept saying her blood was making her itch uncontrollably. The more upset she got, the faster her blood would move and the worse the itching-tingle would become. She had to stop working and be calm. She began to do research on this diet supplement and if there was a way to reverse the effects (Thread On Beta Alanine Experience). Not only did she learn she would have to ride it out, but also she learned that there was another side effect, an "awful terrible" one. She thanked god that she was being spared this particular one, but was she really being sparred?
We decide to give up on work (because Faith really needed to stay as calm as possible) and watch some episodes of a Korean drama Full House Take 2. I, at this point, was still fasting. Hamburgers were being made, good ones. I was still refusing to eat. Then Faith got the "terrible awful" side effect. One minute she was sitting on the couch, the next she was running to her private bathroom with fear she would not make it up the stairs. Our mother screamed, "Just use the bathroom downstairs," but we all thank God she didn't. That is when Bryan decided that Faith would need to have some extra treats and left the house to get her potato chips and soda. Faith was becoming dehydrated fast. At this point I said "F it," and we all settled in for a long night. The hamburgers were awesome. Watching Faith run back and forth was hilarious! She drank a two liter of ginger ale all to herself! It was a long hard night. By the end it hurt for her legs to stand. By morning she had lost 5 pounds and she had gained the knowledge that she would never ever take anything with Beta-Alanine again! I am just happy I avoided a world of pain. Seriously, I wish I had taped it. It would be so funny to watch now! As for me, I didn't gain or lose weight that night.
Okay, I am very bored with trying to make myself look the way I want in my dreams. I am frankly burned out when it comes to diets and my hair can never grow fast enough to satisfy me. Right now the only thing that can excite me is fashion, but all my money is tied up, so I am not all that excited. Unfortunately it seems the rest of the Ladies Of The Round Table are burned out on everything to do with self improvement, too. In other words none of use can stay on a diet, and none of us seem to care!
This started me thinking, "Is there something wrong in the Universe?" Why can't I do what needs to be done? Why can't anyone in my family stay on a diet? I have been looking at adjusting my schedule to coincide with the moon. I was explaining to Faith my little experiment when she asked me if I had ever tried to use the moon to plan my diet. I had not. Wow, I was using the waning and waxing of the moon to plan all sorts of things but not my diet. Now I have heard of using the waxing and waning of the moon to grow your hair longer and loss weight, but I have never actually tried it. This may be the something I needed. Maybe I can breathe new life into my image goals. Timing my diet to the waning and waxing of the moon might be fun. So I looked up how to use the moon to make my hair longer and my waist smaller.
I looked at many sites and books. I found Farmer's Almanac extremely helpful. They have a Best Days Calendar that makes planning beauty ideas easy. Apparently, starting a diet during a waxing moon is harder on your willpower. Cutting your hair during a waning moon is a very bad idea if you want long hair. Oh, and the best time to start a diet is the night of the Full Moon. The full Moon this month is tomorrow, October 18, 2013 (also lunar eclipse). Yes, tomorrow I will start my diet. I will see if starting my dieting during the full Moon really makes things easier. It won't be just me starting my diet by myself, I hope. Mom and my sisters are supposed to start their diets tomorrow. All of us will be doing The 4-Hour Body (Faith and I both read and love this book) and Pat Brown System (a friend recently told us to check this out). In addition I am doing the the Fast Diet for a little extra kick; I really liked the book and I know that the 5:2 schedule will work well for me. So, tomorrow we diet, but today we feast. Joy and Faith made a huge brunch. It was amazing. Later tonight I will have Korean noodles and bourbon.
Tomorrow we diet. Today I have no motivation to diet but maybe tomorrow will be different. We have to diet. We must diet. Our goals are clear. Diet to look even better than we did here:
Mom (Glenda)
Love (me)
Joy
Faith at Perfect.
My goal is to drop weight and grow longer hair using the help of the moon. Heck, when you get bored with dieting you have to change it up. If you need a new formula to help improve your image, start looking at things you haven't tried. At the very least it will add a little excitement to your beauty routine. As for now when the moon is waning I am going to give my hair oil treatments and deep conditioning. Today I am going to feast, drink and be merry. Oh, here is the brunch that Joy and Faith made for today's last hoorah. Food porn anyone? Cheese Grits, Maple Bacon, Eggs, Cut Potatoes (home fries), Buttermilk Pancakes
Buttermilk Pancakes
Weisenberger Flour Mill a Kentucky Proud product
When I was a little girl, my hair was constantly compared to the hair of other women in my family, and to hear other people talk I was born with the least desirable grade of hair. Back story: My grandmother was born with straight hair; not even a wave graced her hair. This made my grandmother and her sisters' lives easier than the lives of other women with varying grades of hair.
My grandmother and her sisters pin-curled their straight hair and went about their days, three sisters with beautiful and easy to work with hair. My Grandmother's daughters would not be so lucky. They were born with mixed grades of hair. My mother had the easiest hair to deal with because it was mostly wavy. Noticed I said mostly. My mother was born with three grades of hair. She has mainly waves, but she has also large curls mixed with extremely kinky, frizzy hair. My mother's hair can look wavy and curly, but it takes a little more care and a lot of moisture. Still, my mother's hair is a breeze compared to mine. Her hair uses very little product. My mother's hair just needs a little love, but because it doesn't take that much effort she really doesn't do anything. Let me say this: neglecting your hair can destroy even the best hair.
My Grandmother and Mother May 5, 2013
My sisters and I have curly-kinky hair. Faith has the perfect spirals when her hair is well cared for, but she also has 3 different grades of hair. Joy is lucky; her hair is very strong and she has only one curl pattern. Her curls are small but perfect. I, like my mother and my younger sister, Faith, happen to have 3 different grades of hair, but that is the only thing that is similar. I have a lot of hair, and every strand is very thin. Even when I take great care with my hair it can snap easily.
My sister's Joy and Faith.
The Solutions
Okay, so this blog is about making sure that my family and I become the best we can be. Hair is one of those image things that matter. It is easy to point out what is going wrong with your hair but hard to find solutions. I don't know what solutions will work for you, but I can tell you there are a ton of vlogs (video blogs) that you can use to find what is best for you. Best advice I can offer is for you to watch videos on how to use all products. I know you think you know how to use conditioner and gel and hair oil, but really you may not be "doing it" right. Doing your hair is like having sex. Yes, you can have sex by having basic intercourse, but I can tell you awesome sex comes only with knowledge and passion. In other words great hair and great sex may require a video or two.
The following is a list of products I found work for me and the rest of my tribe. My choices I tried off and on for years, but my results were mixed because I never really watched a video on the best way to apply theses products. Now, the way I apply my products are unique to me, but other people's suggestions helped me develop my own technique.
Note: This list is really just to help me. We tend to get overwhelmed by which hair products to use for our natural hair (curly hair, kinky hair and wavy hair) and I want to remember what has worked for me and my family. Below I have listed what hair products work for each of us. These hair products are good for 2b/2c hair types, 3a/3b/3c hair types and yes all the 4 hair types too. So we are four different women with four different types of hair and we each have our own list of natural hair products. You may have your own hair products but this is what works for us.
My Hair Solutions
Natural Hair 3B, 3C, and 4A mix
My Hair is a mix of 3b, 3c and 4a
Okay, this pic is not my worst hair day and it is not my best hair day. There is no real curl definition, but the shrinkage is being managed, so... it is not a bad hair day. I would show you a bad hair day, but my family will kill me. I would show you a good hair day, but good hair days have not accompanied good body days. Plus my curls have yet to read well in a photo. Healthy hair, strong hair, is good hair. My hair requires a lot of moisture. Guess what? Oil is not moisture. Oil is a way to seal moisture, but it does not give your hair moisture and can seal out moisture if it is add first. I never shampoo my hair. I co-wash or use Wen or Rinse with apple cider vinegar. Okay, time for my list of products.
Feb 12 2017 note: There is a lot of controversy about WEN. At the bottom of this page I include a video addressing it. I still stand by co-washing and the WEN product and I am not paid by WEN at all.
Wen Six Thirteen
It is my cleanser, my hair conditioner, my leave in all in one. I get the 32 oz from QVC.
Kinky-Curly Knot Today
This is my leave in and styling product. If I need to look good and care free this is my product.
Kinky-Curly Curling Custard
I must look good. I must be perfect. I wash with the Wen, leave-in Knot Today and lock in my curl with the Curling Custard.
I seal my hair with vitamin E oil or almond/coconut/olive oil or Aloe gel from Trader Joe's. I dry my hair with a T-shirt. I hate twist outs on my hair but may change my opinion when my hair gets longer.
My Baby Sister Faith's Solution
Natural/Curly Hair 3A, 3B, and 3C
Her Hair is a mix of 3A 3B and 3C
Faith uses the exact same Wen I use Six Thirteen
Rituals It's A Wrap
Faith loves the product. Wishes she could use it everyday.
ELLiN Lavar PenetratingBalm
This is Faith's perfect finisher but it is always out of stock. So...we need to test some other balms. But the two above products give her the look she wants.
My Mother's Solution
Natural/Curly/Wavy Hair 2A, 2B, and 3B mix
Mom has 2A 2B 3B
It is hard to get a good hair and body pic cause my mom doesn't do anything to her hair. When she does her hair for pictures many times she has a roller set or blow out. This pic is one of the few with her hair down and curly.
Mom can use any Wen original or Six Thirteen. She uses Sweet Almond Mint because it is slightly cheaper than the Six Thirteen and does exactly what she needs. For styling mom is a Carol's Daughter girl. It is the first styling product she really loves.
Carols Daughter Hair Milk Original Leave-in Moisturizer
She loves this and needs very little to get results. When she uses it she looks perfect.
Carols Daughter Hair Milk Pudding Style
This allows mom to get through the day with a finished look. Her products last longer than most women with natural hair because her hair responds quickly to this product so she uses less of it. It is exactly what her hair needs.
Joy is the Middle Sister
Born with perfect 3C Hair
She has 3C only and her hair is strong
Joy can do anything to her hair and does. WEN keeps her hair in good condition.
She also uses Aveda. Joy's hair can take just about anything, so she plays with it a lot and rarely suffers consequences. The truth is I am not confidant that Joy is a 3C because her hair is super hair and completely bulletproof.
Family Event
At a family event last Saturday I realized more than 60% of the family has gone natural. We compared notes and there was one product that stuck out, Kiss My Face. Now I love Kiss My Face body wash but I have never tried their product in my hair. I must give it a try.
Focus
I feel that we all would have better hair days if we could remember and focus on what works. I know that my follow through could and should be improved in all areas of my life. If I can make my hair life easier I might have an easier time at other things. Image, talent, health and wealth are not easy to come by, but like momma always says,"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Hair is image and my first bite.
Wen vs Ren; Wen vs Balding; Co-Washing vs Clarifying Shampoo
