my home is trenton but you think that means  i am here with three women wonderful women even williams butterfly and i yawn a mon in the house and they are here to join me on a wonderful few topics of what we're going to discuss today about hair and so before we start with our topics i do want to give things to am a t organics who sponsor the tea today thank you so much judith for sponsoring your t v we appreciate that and as we move on to the topic  we were talking a little bit about hair and for some apparent reason for the past two to three weeks we've had a firestorm of negativity against natural here and  so i wanted to get you guys opinion on a report that came out that was published by double b l s it's an l a based women's group that actually came out with a report and i've been doing the research for five years and what they've come up with is stating that commercial products are part of the reasons of a number of black women fibroids alopecia has just tumors and things that nature and so it is linked to certain products that we're using so i guess my question is i want to get your pinions and are you surprised that this report has come out and it's kind of like finalized and sort of like a stamp of approval for probably many people with natural regardless what is your take on this my take is no i'm not surprised at all because of the amount of chemicals that are being placed in the shampoos and they can be labeled natural they can be labeled for black hair but we all know when you look at the ingredients they're not natural right have  a side aside from having the relaxer there are a lot of products that are out there on the market that a commercial base and they will say you know it's going to make your hair grow and we want those things to  we want healthy hair right but when in fact it's not healthy for us of course although it's not going to produce healthy behavior because our body our hair works from the inside out right so if our bodies are healthy our hair won't be healthy for me i am surprised ok i'm very surprised and i think the lack of knowledge about the chemicals in our here i think we buy these products and we we're like  trust that the world is given us what's healthy for us i think i assume for years if that was an issue for something you know for something for me to worry about my hair has been relaxed since i was eighteen years old i weighed i had to wait till i was eighteen to get a relaxer growth my mother didn't believe in us getting there and so we were seen by so i was well going into my adulthood before i even got relaxer and it was just a whole thing of being able to swing your hair that my hair to be straight and be able to swing it but education always makes a difference even right now listening to you for me that's like wow i think education makes a difference i have that if i know that i relaxing my here at one point when i was fifteen years old and when i turned thirty is when it started flowing out and this is what's interesting i was in new orleans and i met the scientists so i think all scientists rocks well know your rock you know nice nice you know hello i was having a great time with her she goes you know i can tell that you're here is about to go natural you're trying to grow your hair and i'm thinking why and how would you know that well she's a scientist for a but huge company that makes and she says you know that there is an expiration date on relax or else and she says how long have you been doing it she goes let me guess when you were fifteen i says how did you know she says because like fifteen years is the expiration date for relaxer and that is a true story and so as my hair was falling out that's how i knew at the age of thirty that i was going to go natural regardless and so it's again you don't know you don't know what these are leaving in your hair and so that's what scared me  so it doesn't surprise me that this finding came out right or are you going to continue to a lecture here after well you know i don't know i have a lot of things i think about i've been dealing with that question for some time now i've actually attempt three times to go natural and the fight between my natural hair and knocked her hair always sends me back to the salon to get it relaxed however i also battle my husband loves my hair and i know what we call a don't be right and i love my pony tails and over the years the main thing was to have everything slick everything straight and everything you know that was the way we groomed for so many years that but the texture in the feel of my are natural i absolutely love so there's a part of me crave that yes and then there's a part of me that has this stigma of a recent tension and how i want to look so it required of my hair is straight but i still you know as a younger i go back and i reminisce when i touch the texture of my do is it a who is natural i love the still so yes that caused me all the time because i it's been a custom of mine since that was what was considered well groomed ok and the dentist has quite a few here cells in my life and i've been fortunate enough to play with everything so i know a little about every step kind of hairstyle and so i'm not surprised by the findings and when i was younger my mother actually took me to beauty salon and we read the ingredients she told me the first few ingredients are the most important and then she told me what you're not going to put in your hair and so on that i have a daughter to your road i do the same thing we don't buy products that have certain things in it i actually make my own conditioners for me if i can eat it should be able to be used and i hear y basically started making my own products i actually even start washing my hair for a bit and started just using like apple cider vinegar insist and saw a huge difference so from a person who had dreadlocks her entire life from five to seventeen and then i went straight a relaxer it shock to my hair and i remember getting a relax or i remember feeling like my skull was burning and i'm selling my hair just like i don't know what the supposed to feel like i've never had one and i basically was an educated went in there not knowing that you probably shouldn't shock your hair after being bought it long when and when they're got a perm pair's burning it was costly i was a college student i actually cut it back off and went natural another shock to my hair so i had all these different kind of dramatic changes to my hair not realizing that the most important thing was health and that i needed to nurse my hair back to help to health and stead of trying to styles and so people go after style not realizing that it's about health f and so for my own daughter she's not able to blow out her hair yet she's not able to leave braids and too long just because i understand what's just so secret here and as far as chemical use we don't we don't do that in my we don't do it in my house and i've known for a long time that that the war against natural here is all over the place years since the sequence saw a principal a black woman told the girl's parents that her hair is too poofy and unprofessional is put in the media was acceptable you go to school you learned you're going to grow and when you do a business suit you're a business suit you put on sure you groom your hair you know you press out your hair it should be flowing you get this vision  hair is unprofessional i think of hair is power so when i walk in i'm a black woman but you don't see the black when you see my hair it's powerful and so you're immediately attracted to it whether it's a negative or a positive thing that you're thinking and so i personally don't change my hair when i go to interviews because when i'm educated and will travel right and my resume speaks for itself and so i might if i have to like my hair to make you comfortable they are not comfortable with my power either and so because of that i just don't do it  professionally dressed i have my resume i have everything else that you require and so i don't subscribe to your beliefs and that's just me and some people don't believe in that but like i said i didn't grow up would relax or i actually grew up in being people reactions because i was a girl you can do so much with your hair and this is you know i want that i never got to wear barrettes and things like that so i didn't understand it so getting older and getting a relaxer it was a different bill for me i was like well my hair is lip used to be really thick used to be really long i was so accustomed to having long hair  that i wasn't used to having short hair that was unhealthy and so it was actually a learned behavior for me to actually transition back and just learn to nurse my hairline and then going natural and having dreadlocks you don't do as much to you're here then when you go natural you confidence with their natural hair that i had never witnessed in my life like i am so for me now in the past ten years i've been able to embrace it prior to that it was just literally taught and acceptable so i i'm not that i agree because they have become beautiful to me it was not even for me i wanted to get their hair impermanent braided or do something with myself when i first see it but i have learned to embrace it even myself it also was attached to a religious belief at one time for me so literally we were taught that it was wrong to relax your hair to even show your hair so there's been a lot of analysts dealing with air that i have had to overcome  learning but i can't sell you the the to watch our young people embrace their natural hair was a awakening for me one in the most beautiful experience that i and had t of love ourselves for who we are because one thing our that was very powerful was why do we always change who we are when we were made in the fall no one else goes through some of the the changes that african american women go through to be accepted as friends we go through more changes within ourselves in any other race that i've seen and witnessed right so to be able to embrace who we are and love who we are including our hair this is a beautiful chance vision that i see now will everyone take on it and that not everyone because i'm believe that people that are my age are younger still battling and you know and i'm fifty two but i don't believe that it's a  point and that's another thing i notice all of my older cousins are born natural because they really going to have a choice they have their hair isn't falling out you know they're going to a lot of things that make them say i have  but to be able to be educated and never touch it will be even better than i think will be a better because usually shouldn't be doing stuff to hurt ourselves our cause our self or the sick right and so that education is even a more important reason why it's become a phenomenon that there are people with natural hair yes that are having issues because we don't know how to take care of our natural education is king so that a judge this is great for you to come in  world's view of our here should not be this european view we don't come out our hair does not grow down it grows out that is a very it's a very interesting concept but again why is that and i think i've mentioned this to you is that we're the only can you know and from had gone from having a relaxer to going back natural was the best decision i've ever made i went from wary mind that i will wash my hair walk out the house with a way where ever occur like but then i always wanted lux since i was a little kid but you know how it has such a negative connotation ok we're all with it and we're you know people so you have dressing here their baby there's nothing dreadful about my that was a transition for me going back to natural and it allowed the jury to begin to for me to know who i am it was me all the more of who i am who i am to to be as a woman and a woman a black woman in america right and just like it says diana said your hair you become empowered by your hair oftentimes you know they see us they get intimidated because they automatically assume we had this  i want to say today for one i don't think that everyone with with army legs stare looked at it as taken on a caucasian on a white girl blog i think again growing up your parents looked at it as that we should best you representing your best you and we saw straight hair as representing our best guess is not necessarily true and i think again the education helps all of us and definitely knowing when it when it's hurting you the changes i think next and that includes food you know and all the way around i think that that's how we run into being able to make those quality quality changes and i think making a quality change will encourage us to embrace our natural hair but we always want to represent the best us but i think even when we talk we say put on your best outfit you know we got ready for church or sunday you know sundays don't know that everyone wore embrace natural hair because they're not educated not b s they don't feel straight here are they for straight hair is representing another quarter because i don't think we all want to be white knight i know but you're saying education so now the question is if if the education is the main goal how do you know that you're going to a salon that is taking care of your hair what are some of the things that you need to look out for you probably would be better versus the many of us i've actually walked into certain salons and have walked right out in tryna jersey and yeah i will never ever say where you would never ever but i have and if it wasn't for the fact that i grew up with eros affair and dad and kind of had a natural upbringing in the beginning of my life until i wanted to be like salt and pepper and you know get the relaxer in all this and the reason is i wouldn't have i would not have known the right things to do or where to go and so people are using wrong with products they're using the same products that you would use on relax here or on locks here or natural here so how do you know in going to a salon and products and and the history behind the product i think that's where it starts we have to have souths and hair stores that will take the time and educate each sister that walks in the air who  my salon is an incline i'm going to sit you down a much here we're going to go over your hair history how you wear your hair as a child what you are expected to see with you one see see your hair how do you want to see here how do you want to wear your hair we're going to go over your diet are you get enough water in your diet do you take any bottom is a minerals do you do you eat meat you know we're going to go through those things and then we're going to take it from there i'm going to take it from there because oftentimes there are people they don't realize water is key you know hydration hydration hydration hydration is key to hair growth and if you take certain medications like high blood pressure when you're taking blood pressure have blood pressure meds over a period of time unfortunately in an unfortunate side effect is you're going to lose your hair you don't have thinning so we do offer services where you have hair restoration we are you know i have to say that you know in all the police have gone to specifically in new york a lot of women are natural in that i do praise them for and i'm very happy and i think the more we embrace there in the more you see it because just like everything else we get thrown into some time in your life the more you see it in the more you understand it you can learn to appreciate it yeah i think i come from a generation of people even amongst ourselves amongst african americans that are now learning to embrace it in their own learning soon except couldn't even make that identity with our dolls right when we were kids now we have balance with natural hair right now we see it more and we can embrace it more we're playing the jacket there in learning how the texture feels and we love it fight this that's going to be an ongoing question will i can say something for that because what we're talking about doesn't just come from people from other cultures it actually happens in our own culture she says i've been in pro choice by many women at c v s who are loud asked me  and say is this your hair in there african american women they don't realize that it's a respect of my space and personal values voters and i think what happens is that we have to empower one another and important to each other and so just teaching everybody else like we're black you know we identify that same and we can be said as we can the folks however we are not we are not friends where you can ask me certain questions because you feel comfortable doing it because of the color of our skin there has to be something where we just respect one another and instead of competing we work together we work together for this common good of going out there limb people know that we are educated that we are beautiful that we do love our here whether it's a relaxed street or whatever and things from people who are natural just the same as i heard from people who are relaxed is about the enter key and so if you're anywhere is not speaking then i don't see your hair i just see ignorance so i think that's where we have to get to well i think i think on mad note i'm going to say that i actually enjoyed your candidate this and i really did big because this is again this is going to be an ongoing conversation where we're never this is never going to stop now until we continue to to badger women about being beautiful in o