I've been observing the excitement/awe/wonder a new natural feels when she gets to see her coils for the first time, rock her natural hair the first time and show it off in public the first time....
Then I notice as the excitement dwindles down to 'bleh' acceptance as the novelty of her natural hair wear off. She finally finds products that work for her, mastered a style that works for her and then there is almost nothing new.

I also noticed the increase in the number of women going natural.
In a mall where initially, the only natural haired people were children, you now find a lot of grown women sporting natural hair in one style or the other with pride.
In Nigeria, it's like going natural is gradually becoming a fad. I noticed a lot of natural haired teenagers in Shoprite.

The media has even taken notice and 'going natural' has become news that should be reported.
Celebrities worldwide are going natural. On social media, a recurring news or Instagram or blog update is about a celebrity revealing her natural hair for the world to see.

I, as much as the next natural haired person enjoy the newness and freshness of it all.
I enjoy the natural hair meetups, I enjoy the natural hair discussion groups and communities, I enjoy the increasing number of compliments, I enjoy the new products targeted at natural hair cropping up, I enjoy everything!

But then I know like all fads, it may come to an end.

So what happens when almost all women become natural?

It's almost weekend and I thought I'd share a recipe for making fried rice the Nigerian way.
It's one of my favorite meals because it contains fresh crunchy veggies and it's so  colorful!!!

No Nigerian event is complete without Fried Rice.
At weddings, naming ceremonies, birthday parties, graduations, just because celebrations, Fried rice has been invited to all.
Even on Sundays, where it's an unwritten rule in most Nigerian homes to cook rice, fried rice is most likely to be considered after jollof rice and rice with stew.
The bff of fried rice is almost always fried chicken or turkey.....so the complete meal is called FRIED RICE AND CHICKEN........with a side of Nigerian style coleslaw!

I don't know why but when our Nigerian mothers try to teach us how to cook, it almost always looks way more complicated than it really is.....just like those hardcover cookbooks I gave up reading long ago! LOL!!!!
" You better learn oh, before they say I didn't teach you how to cook!!!!" is the most likely thing you'll hear over your shoulders as they monitor you. LOL!!!

My cousin, Chichi is a fabulous cook and I love the fact that she makes cooking really easy! In her words ".....because cooking should be fun and not a daunting task!"
 I hear ya, boo!!!!
She has a blog chichiscuisine.blogspot.com where she shows you how to make the most complicated Nigerian and international dishes the easy way (too easy sometimes) using ingredients available in Nigeria.
 For those "oyibo" a.k.a. foreign recipes, she'll show you good alternatives to some ingredients that are difficult to source locally.

She has generously given me the permission to share her recipes with y'all on this blog....yayyy....
 NNG is not all about natural hair you know!
 I'm thinking of posting one every Thursday so you can try it out on the weekend....any different suggestion?
Also, if you have any recipes you'd like to share, do send it to nappilynigeriangirl@gmail.com with the heading "FOOD INDULGENCE".


Well, before I bore you with my chitchat, LET'S GET COOKING!!!!

Source: chichiscuisine.blogspot.com

Fried Rice

5 standard cups of rice
2 kg chicken/turkey
1 kg  Carrots
2 large Green Peppers
1/2kg Green beans
10 hotdogs
4 Spring Onions
2 Onions
Knorr cubes
Curry
Salt
4 cloves of Garlic
Powdered Ginger
Vegetable Oil


1.) Parboil your rice and set aside.

2.) Spice your meat with Knorr, Curry, Salt, and Ginger.
Cut the onions and garlic and add to the meat.
 Steam the meat on low heat till it brings out its own stock.
 When the meat is almost done, add some water and adjust the spicing to your taste. Let it cook a little more.
 Make sure you have enough stock to finish cooking the rice.

3.) When the meat is done, strain it from the stock and fry or bake.
 Return the stock to the stove and bring to a boil.
Pour in the parboiled rice and cook till the rice is done and water is fully dry.

4.) Cut up the vegetables and hotdogs. Add a little oil to a big pot and stir fry the vegetables. Spice up the veggies to your taste.

5.) Add the cooked rice to the veggies and mix well.

6.) Enjoy with a big piece of chicken or turkey ;)


Easy right????!!!!
For more recipes, go to chichiscuisine.blogspot.com

Natural hair Mother and child

Hi people, what's been on?

Well, I wrote an earlier post about the 'in between' length of natural hair growth and how to style it.
I also posted some photos I thought would inspire y'all stylewise and one statement I got recently was that
'the models in the photos I used weren't Nigerian and that it wasn't easy to make those styles in Nigeria seeing as we don't really have natural hair salons that can work with kinky hair without damaging it'.
While this is true, I think it's still not impossible to achieve some of these styles in a regular salon especially if it involves minitwists, braids and cornrows.

One trick I've learnt while styling my natural hair was to approach hair stylists that make children's hair.
This is because you're more likely to find children with natural hair than grownups and this means that that hair stylist will be at least familiar with natural hair texture.
It's still up to you to prepare your hair properly before going to the hair stylist and best results are gotten the day after your wash day.

Whenever you come across a natural hair resource site, one of the most common words are NATURAL HAIR REGIMEN!
It may seem that to be a good naturalista, one must have a regimen. I'm also guilty of recommending the development of a regimen when trying to help out new naturals but one day, I got thinking....
"Is this natural hair regimen more for us than our hair?"

It's surprising when a natural is interviewed and she says,
 "I don't really have a regimen per se, I just fill the need of my hair. If it's dry, I moisturise. I use gel on some days, nothing at all on others. I twist some days, wear my hair out on others. I don't really have a pattern" .....and when you take a look at her thick, long, healthy mane, the first thought is...
"this chick isn't telling the truth. She's hiding her regimen!"

I mean, we take time to develop a series of steps and products that we can use any given Sunday to care for our hair. Admittedly it may work out and our hair rewards us with fabulousity and health but when it doesn't, we keep spending time trying to fine tune the series of steps - some of which may take a whole day and then some - until we get the result that in "our minds" make for fabulous hair.

We develop routines for wash day...pre poo, deep conditioning, detangling, moisturising and styling etc.
We have routines for styling...wash and gos or twists from Monday through Friday and twist outs on weekends or buns from Monday through Friday and wash and gos on the weekends etc.

My point is, are these routines because we listen to our hair and know when it needs to be washed, moisturised, twisted, bunned etc or is it because the routine fits into our lifestyle so that even if our hair is moisturised, we moisturise anyway because on our "timetable" which we call "natural hair regimen" it has to be moisturised every two days etc.

We've been brought up with the mindset that everything needs rules, a timetable, a schedule, a particular order and what not.
It doesn't matter if it's necessary or not.
Some may argue that without rules, there'll be utter chaos and that's for another day.

Some of us feel the need for total control in all aspects of our lives and when things doesn't go the way we plan, it's utter chaos.
The thing is rules are good but not to the point where they rob us of our ability to really observe stuff around us and act accordingly.... but that's another day's gist!

O.K. back to hair!

Many of us do not really listen to our hair when trying to develop a regimen.
We just browse through natural hair sites, pick up someone else's routine, add one or two products and ta da! ...we've developed our own regimen.
Some of us just get out schedule books/diaries and mark out days convenient for us to wash, deep condition and moisturise.... whether our hair needs it before those days or after doesn't really matter....and when our hair fails to thrive and look as good as that naturalista's with "no regimen ", we feel like our hair is ungrateful. We feel like we've failed.

I'm not trying to say creating a regimen is a bad thing.
If it coincides with your hair's needs at that point in time, you really don't have a problem.
What I'm trying to say is do not be rigid about your regimen if it's not working for you.

Sometimes your hair just needs you to "freestyle"!

- when does it feel dry? What are my quick go to products for combating dryness?

- when does it really need a trim?
 Some say you have to trim every 6-8 weeks and we blindly fit it into the regimen.
The truth is, some need to trim less often than that and some more.
Find what works for your hair and get a random weekend to trim.

- what styles are best for my hair?
There are periods in your hair's life when it wants to take a break from twists and be a fro..some days, it just wants to be tucked in tight.
Learning one go to "out" style and one protective style that fits your lifestyle style may help in this instance.

- what products are best for my hair yet fits into my lifestyle with regards to application time,hold, shine etc. Here, you have to experiment but try to keep things simple.
 It may be just olive oil for shine, aloe vera gel for hold,  ACV for cleaning or it may be Dax for shine, Ecostyler gel for hold, Carol's daughter blah blah for cleaning.
 Observe your hair.

-when does it need washing?
 Some may need to wash as often as thrice a week and for others, once a month is fine.
Find out how you can get in a quick wash when you are on the move!

I think a regimen should favour BOTH our hair and our lifestyle to be considered successful....if you even really need one!!!!...... and creating that balance may be by simply observing your hair.

What do you think? 
Is a regimen really necessary?
 Is your regimen really for your hair or just for you?

Hi people, what's been on?

Last weekend I went for my girlfriend's sister's traditional wedding and it was really cool because I hooked up with some friends way back when.

I wore my natural hair to the wedding as usual!
My sister had braided and twisted my hair about 5 days back in a faux Mohawk style in preparation for the twistout I'd use for the wedding.

Since the weather here is humid because it's rainy season in Nigeria and my twistouts were likely to poof up, I decided to leave in the twists until the night before the wedding.
I would have taken it down in the morning but you know how weddings are especially if you slept over....a mad rush to everything!
So I took it down the night before and wrapped it to preserve it the next day.
The resulting twistouts came out fabulous if I should say so myself...hehehe and I managed to nab one fine bobo too...*wink*

After the wedding, I decided to wash my hair because of all the sweat from dancing all night.
I've taken down the style and was about to prepoo for washing when I looked in the mirror and noticed an "Aevin Dugas" like afro and it seems my hair has grown more because I was beginning to feel the weight of it (or is it product buildup?!)
Well, I decided to skip the washday and call it a fro day!
Why is it that my hair becomes gorgeous on the day I decide to wash it????

....and Kay and Toyin (you should see the rest of her styles...fab!) also sent me  pictures of their natural hair...
( I also won't mind sharing your swaggalicious natural hair do too!)
Now who says Nigerian natural hair has no swag?

Toyin's braided mohawk

Kay's beautiful fro!

Hi people, what's been on?
I've been getting messages requesting for versatile natural hair styles one can rock to the office at the same time go for a date, wedding, church....anywhere. For some reason, I can't upload video tutorials for the updos I had in mind.
So, in the meantime, here are pictures of some simple updos I think you can try out at a glance.

One secret for getting the best results is styling on old twistouts to give a bit of stretch.
For volume, I simply spray hair lightly with just water.
To smoothen edges, you can either use water, a scarf or some gel.
To keep your style in place, carefully placed bobby pins prove useful.

Maybe when I get someone to hold up the camera for me, I could do pictorials of some easy hairstyles I love.

Here's the natural hair updo lookbook and happy styling!

This is easy peasy Source: here

This beautiful one is for TWAs Source: here

Source: here

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Hi people! Welcome to the month of August and a fabulous year bolting away!
As in August, already?!
Whew!

Well, today I was working on a product review post.
I have a lot of product reviews waiting to be shared but haven't really gotten round to sorting them out.
I was still trying to organize the PR's when I had a pleasant visit from Cyndy and her lovely sis.

Cyndy is a fab professional MUA (makeup artist) going natural by gradually transitioning.
(I really should get her to spill on makeup secrets...what dy'all say to that...hint hint)
Her natural hair has grown to that 'in between length' I was talking about earlier.
Her hair is healthy and moisturised and her sis (a transitioner by association) had done a fabulous twistout for her but she needed more styling options.