The quarterly Natural Hair Meet Up in Lagos, NITC, held on the 30th of November. This was the 7th edition. It was very well attended...as usual and I loved meeting new people, catching up with my usual folks and ogling hair 'dos. I apologize greatly to those who did not find seats (at a point it was full inside where the hair workshop was taking place AND full in the garden where the vendors were set up). From a numbers perspective, we hit an all time high! Thank you!

I took so many many pictures that it has been tough choosing which will make it to the blog as well as annotating them all. I believe I have over 60 pictures here which is a lot! 

Special thanks to Ebele for taking charge of the Product Swap Segment. Tope Jobi of Chez Moi and Hadassah for leading the discussion after the viewing of the Kickin' It with the Kinks documentary. Cynthia and Mundia of KIWTK for trusting us to do a good job of showing their video. Bunmi Roberts of Tunmise Natural Hair Salon for donating 3 lovely (high quality) T-shirts for the giveaway. Nneka E. for facilitating things. Lolo for helping me out when I was getting pulled in a million different directions! Lanre Kosoko for gifting me with a Rich Coffee Body Scrub and Whipped Cocoa Butter.

Lastly, thank you to all those that literally travelled to be there. Yes, there were people there from Iju, Abeokuta and Ife.  I had a fantastic time and I hope you did too!

To view more pictures. please  ...continue reading →

The 7th edition of the Meet Up is here! This is a P.A.C.K.E.D edition. Phew! Let me attempt to start breaking it down.

The theme of NITC7 is Protective Styling which is very important for retaining length and growing healthy hair. Get ready to learn about protective styles and getting tips for caring for hair while it is protectively styled. 

In our tradition of taking things up a notch, we are pleased to announce that we will be screening Cynthia Bature's much talked about Kickin' It With The Kinks documentary. After the screening we can have a bit of a chin wag about what we have seen. I know that there will be lots of opinions and can't wait to hear them all! Come, watch with an open mind. We present this alongside Tope Jobi of Chez Moi Apartments. 

If you have ever been curious about Ayurvedic treatments for your hair, you definitely attend NITC7 as there will be whole segment dedicated to explaining how to achieve healthier hair using Ayurvedic herbs. These herbs and the Ayurvedic practices have been long used by Indians to grow and maintain their long, shiny hair. The actual herbs will also be on sale at the venue.

Have I ever mentioned that one of my pet peeves having make-up  applied by most professional Make Up Artists (MUA) in Nigeria is the fact that they are not very hygienic about it? I have literally only ever met just one MUA who uses a disposable brush to apply Mascara and disinfects other things as she goes along. The rest just use the very same brush on everyone else *cringeworthy*. I have invited this New-York trained MUA to come over and share a few tips on how to apply make-up hygienically and also what you should expect your professional MUA to do for you. Benefits to you? Seriously reduced risk of infections and skin diseases.

It doesn't end there!  For the first time ever, there will be a Product Swap segment. I am lucky to have Ms Isioma handle it. Inspiration for this segment came from Hadassah. Thank you, ladies! It is easy, if you have a product that you no longer want you can bring it along and if someone else brings something you want to try, exchange it for that. You get a new product with no money involved. 

As always, there is no criteria for entry so your hair can be relaxed, texturized or all chopped off. All are welcome and equally respected. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. We are all about Healthy Hair.

Directions to the NITC7 venue, the amazing Omenka Gallery can be found here. I can't wait to see what exhibition they will have set up that day. 

Entry is free although I feel that it is important to mention that the next NITCs may not be. It costs quite a bit of money, time and other resources to put these meet ups together and if we are to continue to put out good quality meet ups as well as attract the right sort of speakers, we may need to compensate them. I actually think that we are the only long term Natural Hair Meet Up that allows free entry in the entire world. For real. Check on it. If we do decide to charge, it will not be costly at all. Just a token fee.

See you there and don’t forget to bring a friend or 3!  And please, walk up and introduce yourself and say hello - I will have a tag on with Natural Nigerian written on it! I love meeting people at the Meet ups and look forward to meeting you!

NITC6 has come and gone. I had a lot of FUN at this event. I also had to dodge a lot of cameras as there were several bloggers there with cameras making sure that they got a shot of everything that was going on. Of course, as announced earlier via twitter and facebook, there was also an International News Agency there. They got there at the very beginning of the event and stayed till the end. I looked around and there was a local television channel also interviewing people and covering the event. I guess it is safe to say that we are getting a lot of attention now :)!

I would like to start off by thanking everyone that made this event a success. Let's begin with Omenka Gallery. This was the 4th NITC event we were holding there.  They are very gracious about helping us to set things up and providing any support we need while the event is on.

Before the Gallery was re-arranged for NITC6, I walked into the Omenka Gallery and into an exhibition that was running called Soundspiration. I loved all of the art work, especially the sculptures - they were made with mixed media - tyres, fiber glass and more. If you are an art lover and want to be alerted when Omenka holds an exhibition or you want to rent the space for your event, go here.

You can also go there to enjoy the peaceful garden that overlooks the water and have some food or drinks.

My friend and compere extraordinaire, Chigo, was there to compere the event. I always breathe a sigh of relief when she is available to do this because I know that the various elements of the meet up will run smoothly. All she needs is an Agenda and she moves things along.  She has a blog, so please check her out - here. Thank you, Chigo. You teach me the meaning of the word: support. Bisous, mon cherie!

Omozo (who I met at the very first meet up and who has remained a friend) spoke about Choosing The Right Hairstyle. She also announced that she will be opening a Natural Hair Salon by end of the month. I imagine that she will let us know exactly when on her blog (here).

Wondrous is a Hair Stylist with a Salon in V/I. She spoke on several things, including managing one's expectation when you go to the salon to get a style done. Your hair texture may not allow you to achieve a style someone with a different hair texture has. You can reach Wondrous on 0808.845.2485. Please let her know that you got her number from us!

The very bubbly and knowledgeable, Nory! I practically ambushed her. She was so kind to give this talk because she had such short notice. I literally told her about it when she got there and she jumped right in and gave a spectacular presentation on using Make-up. Tip: If you do up your eyes, you can get away with minimal/barely there make-up on other parts of your face. To give you a bit of a background on Nory, she does make-up on photo shoots for magazines,  music videos and more. She has a colorful website here.

As usual, we had a few vendors there. Here are the two new ones.

Aweni Organics

YM Couture

And naturally, a shameless plug for the Ahia Natural Nigerian :)

Now, on to hair styles and accessories. You will notice a trend with the accessories. Lagos is currently quite humid so not all twist outs and other styles made it to the event safely :).

There were some transitioners in our midst. I feel that some of them came by to see things for themselves before making up their minds. There was no better place to come to assurance that it can be done.

Now for a full view of hair styles

During Omozo's talk, she asked everyone to get up and talk to at least two people about their hair. I thought it was a fantastic idea! Broke the ice, got people to know about each other and also got them to glean knowledge from other participants.

And then they all settled into their seats to listen.

You can view more pictures here and here and here

The 6th edition of the Meet Up is here! We have really come a loooong way. This will be the last one until until after summer so make sure you attend to stock up on hair goodies,  learn lots and meet others just like you! As always, there is no criteria for entry so your hair can be relaxed, texturized or all chopped off. All are welcome. Guys as well as girls!

Directions to Omenka Gallery can be found here.

See you there and don't forget to bring a friend!  

Click to enlarge

I apologize that this is coming so late - I have had a lot on my plate and bad internet connection did not help either.

We had an amazing outing on the 1st of June in Abuja and luckily we were able to capture some of the moments. These are just a few pictures. Chioma Momah of Bibi Naturals took so much more and I will provide a link once she puts up the others.

Just a few words before the pictures - I absolutely loved the ladies at this meet up. We had quite a number of people show up and stay till the very end. They took notes, they bore the heat and the delays. You girls were just amazing!

I did not like the venue very much and I am hoping that we can move it to Baytown in Apo (I hear Abuja folks have something against a place that is not in "town").  Let me know what you think if you live in Abuja.

Last thing: I would like to thank all of those that volunteered their time and resources to ensure that we pulled this off. Number one on my list being Chizy (check out her blog) - I cannot say enough good things about you. My fellow organizers - Nat. Mane and Chioma of Bibi Naturals made this easy to pull off. I couldn't have asked for more....

Enjoy the pictures. I start with faces and styles and lead you through some of the vendors (I don't have pictures of all but my co-organizers will put up those pictures soon. I'll update with a link when they do.

UPDATE: A post about the event from a fellow blogger. http://tamikoadyms.blogspot.com/2013/06/capital-naturals-2-natural-hair-meetup.html