Nat — The Curly CEO

Since I've entered the "corporate world" it's been pretty hard to stay active. Going from retail to a 9-5 really gets you! I got "fat" and now I'm trying to get back... Ok, I'm not fat. But I definitely gained some more of it! I thought my birth control made me fat, and maybe it added to the weight gain, but I can't blame it all on it. When working retail I was always on my feet, moving around, lifting boxes, etc etc. Now, I sit down 80% of the day so if I'm not getting a workout during work, I need to get up and do something. I used to sit around in the lunchroom, watch TV, but I made a pact with myself (lol) to go to the gym each day on lunch! I wasn't sure if I could pull it off, but I've been consistent since and I plan on continuing! Check out my fitness body composition where I started off before going daily!

**This post is the UPDATED version of my previously popular post on " How to Create a Line Break in your Instagram Caption " which sadly doesn't apply anymore :(** ... As you know things update all the time so you have to switch up your method. I've had to play around with the caption since updating to version 7 of Instagram (due to supporting iPhone 6s and 6s+) This is all you REALLY need to know : YOU NEED TO ADD AN EMOJI IN THE SPACE BETWEEN YOUR PARAGRAPHS IN YOUR INSTAGRAM CAPTION One more  VERY important note : **You have to make sure you have NO SPACES after each paragraph upon removing the punctuation (or else it won't work)  Here are some tips you need to know when creating a linebreak (space) in your Instagram caption:

So as my hair has gotten longer, my washday routine continues to evolve. I've been looking for tips on how to retain curl definition in my washngo and I think I've found a good method.  Tips: - Part hair in sections - Ensure hair is drenched in product - Work in product when wet - Detangle, Detangle, Detangle Okay, so here it is: 1. Part dry hair in 4 and clip away 2. Start with any dry section, water it down and finger detangle  3. Work in shampoo/cowash then take a wide-tooth comb and detangle  4. Take a tangle teaser and smooth section till it is all clumped together 5. Rinse out section and apply conditioner & treatment for deep conditioning  then clip it away in a Bantu knot style 6. Repeat steps 2-5 until all 4 parts done 7. Put a shower cap on and wrap head in a towel to trap heat in, then leave it for atleast 15mins 8. Rinse out hair in sections and keep in the 4 parts 9. Work in your product (ie. Leave-in, hair butter & styler) for each section and d...

So MyLoux reached out to me to check out their site and I was really impressed! The site looks very clean, easy to use and I love the easy drop-down menu at the top so it's easy to find hair care products that you're looking for. Let's dig a little deeper! Web Experience: So like I said, with the easy to navigate menu with drop-downs like "cleanse", "condition" and so on, you could easily find what you're looking for. And each category has a "hair type" so you can narrow it down even more, or more of a suggestion if you don't know what products are good for your hair. Last category on the menu is "Brand" so if you want to check out their selection like that, or have a favourite, you can. Only category that would have been nice to see: ACCESSORIES. I'd also like a FAQ page, but they do have a customer service link at the bottom of their site and seem easily accessible for any questions. The site looks even l...

Working on your computer and randomly, the taskbar goes missing?! What the heck?! Here is an EASY way to get your taskbar back without having to do a restart in JUST 3 STEPS (and yes, it works with Windows 7): Ctrl+Alt+Del Start Task Manager, go to Processes Tab, scroll and find explorer.exe then END PROCESS Without closing the Task Manager, go to Applications tab, go to New Task, then type in explorer and open... You should now see your taskbar re-appear :) For a pictorial if you're more of a visual learner...

What's the daily amount of water an average person should have? They say around 3L of water which may seem like a lot, but if you substitute water for all that sugary pop and juice, I'm sure you'll get there. Trust me, I'm trying to do the same! & yes, you WILL go pee a lot! So I wanted to look up and see what the actual water intake is supposed to be. I've always heard "minimum 8 glasses of water a day" so if your glass is atleast a cup (250mL) then you're at 2L which isn't that bad. When I last checked my Body Composition and Total Body Water, I was at 50% "hydration" and the average for a female is 45-60%.  For my weight of ~150lbs, I should be at 2.92L of water a day (you can check yours here ). I have this cute mason jar mug I bought at Walmart and it's insulated to keep my water cold, because who likes room temperature water? Actually, this girl at work ONLY drinks warm water, so I guess some people do. But I don'...

Okay okay, so I took one of my many strolls into Shoppers Drugmart because, it's like my favourite store. Only because I could totally spend like a gajillion minutes reading labels. I could spend my WHOLE lunch hour in these aisles: Makeup, Lotions/Creams & Vitamins. Before going on my vitamin escapade, I read up on some sites and blogs regarding vitamins that were beneficial for battling acne. In my previous post, I tried to lookup Vitamins to Heal Acne  but only got so far as Vitamin A and Omega 3. Vitamin A I see everywhere and is pretty much the "go to" vitamin for face creams other than Vitamin E and Vitamin C. However I have read to be weary on going over the recommended dosage for Vitamin A and it totally made this girl's butt bleed . I haven't gone to a Dermatologist yet although I plan to, however it seems like Vitamin A cream is what's being prescribed. I'm trying to go for more of a holistic approach like XOJane  instead of medications. ...

When I got a consultation done at Goodlife Fitness, the trainer had me step on a Tanita scale which gives you a body composition breakdown. It prints a little receipt telling you about your body and I am trying to break it down from a simple perspective. I'll be using myself as an example. But first, tell me which girl would you rather look like? Personally, I want to keep my curves and have a smaller waist like on the right; more muscle, less fat.

Do your bangs ever hang down in your face? Constantly feel like you have to push them away? Want to trim your bangs but don't want to lose length? Same here, but I have a solution.  Position your bangs, most likely hanging in front of your face, and move any "too long" pieces out. Unless you're in the mood to do some trimming, you'll just have to keep these pieces out of the way for now. If you have to, sneak in some bobby pins ! Take strands of your bangs and start to finger coil. This is where you pretty much twirl the hair around your finger (index finger preferably) to form a ringlet . When doing this, the hair springs up and turns into a defined curl .  Downfall: this most likely won't match your natural curl pattern.  If you don't notice from almost all of the " Instagram famous " naturalistas, a lot of curly girls sneak in random finger coils all around their head. Why? Random finger coils add depth, and draw attention. So if you're no...

Went to Cloré to gather some hair products, since you know, that's practically the only store in Toronto that caters to ethnic hair. Needed some weavage, a Cowash, and moisturizers for both my transitioning mother and I. It's always nice to educate someone on taking care of their natural/transitioning hair and letting them know it's not that bad or hard once you get the hang of it!

I’ll be participating in  Capital One Race for Kids ™  in Toronto on  Saturday,June 6th ,  in support of  Boys and Girls Clubs of Toronto .  Capital One Race for Kids™  is an urban-adventure race where we will compete in fun and exciting Challenges in a run to the finish line - all while raising funds on behalf of Boys and Girls Clubs of Toronto. For more information about Capital One Race for Kids™, check out the website at  www.raceforkids.ca . My goal is to raise $100.00 CAD  but I can’t do it without your help so please join me in supporting a great cause by sponsoring me today.  Join me to support the Capital One Race for Kids Toronto - 2015 To highlight the importance of after school programs at Boys and Girls Clubs - and why I am supporting this important cause - take a look at these statistics: 40% of violent crimes against children take place between  3:00 and 7:00pm This year, 200,000 children and youth will atten...

When I first heard of single-strand knots, I didn't know what they were. Of course, it was some kind of knot, but didn't things get "knotted" when tangling? Wouldn't there need to be 2, like at least 2 strands to tangle? The answer is no, knots can happen all on their own.

Excuse the title but lol, a little how I feel! I have been taking YAZ for about 3 years and always had doctor's telling me to switch off of it because of an increased percentage in blood clots. After hearing the YAZ commercials, it started scaring my Mom to the point she told me to switch as well. To be honest, I loved YAZ. Never got pregnant, always had a light period, sex drive wasn't an issue, acne was light (pimple every now and then), and my weight wasn't an issue. I switched in January 2014 to Tri-Cyclin after doing some research on pills that were similar to YAZ, for the benefits I listed above. Tri-Cyclin seemed to have good reviews, but the biggest bummer was the longer periods. However, I wanted to make my Mom happy so I switched "for my health". Didn't notice a change in acne, or weight gain, but I could have sworn I was moodier around my period, and had a heavier flow that I wasn't used to. I decided to stick with it but eventually got fr...

So, almost every day at work I get asked this question: "how do you change your hair so often?". It amazes everyone (mind you, almost all are Caucasian with straight hair) how my natural hair could be so versatile.

I've heard that a Denman brush can do WONDERS for clumping curls. I love using the brush when I need to smooth my hair for a twistout, or braidout, but I decided to try it this time for a WashNGo. Didn't go too well... I started out by doing a Honey-Olive-Coconut prepoo that I kept in for an hour or so. My scalp was feeling itchy so I decided to use a clarifier to wash my hair, then I used a conditioner. Instead of rinsing it all out, I rinsed a bit and squeezed the excess water. I proceeded with my regular regime of smoothing on leave-in conditioner (tried KARILISS for the first time), styling milk ( SheaMoisture ) and an oil to seal. But for extra hold I used gel ( Deva Curl Ultra Defining Gel ) & a butter (again, trying out KARILISS   Pomade ) for double sealing action and extra moisture . After all this prep-work, I used the Denman brush hoping it would make my curls pop like other Naturalistas but no. All it did was brush out the curl pattern and make the en...

Instead of doing my normal wash and go routine, I decided to spice it up by doing a different part in the front and using the shingling method on my bangs. OH MY GOODNESS I DON'T THINK I'LL EVER LOOK BACK. Usually I'll try to finger coil (see my previous finger coiling method here ) random pieces through-out my whole head, most focusing on the front, but it make the curls shorter than the rest and you definitely notice the difference. With the shingling method, my curls were separated but more natural to my curl pattern. HOW DO YOU SHINGLE? Make sure your hair is soaked with water Saturate hair in leave-in conditioner and apply an oil/butter to seal in moisture Apply a gel for extra hold  Take small pieces of your hair and smooth root to tip with your thumb and index finger & repeat until you've shingled to your desire (either just your bangs, frizzy parts of your hair, or whole head!) For extra shine and hold, use a diffuser to set curls, or sim...

Now that I have developed a sense of taking vitamins for my hair to grow it long and healthy in its natural state, I decided to look more into vitamins and its affect on my acne. I spoke with one of my friends and he said that if taking an excess amount of vitamins that your body needs (more than 100% daily value), then it doesn't absorb it. Your body doesn't actually store vitamins but uses it on a daily basis, hence having to take your vitamins daily. However if you're getting too much, what the excess vitamin(s) does is find some way to get rid of it, thus creating pimples. If you have a good eating regime and your diet consists lots of vegetables, beans, nuts, fruits, and fish, then you are GOLDEN . If not, then you might want to consider taking some vitamins to match your deficiency. Here are my thoughts:

Continuing from my previous post regarding the overuse of vitamins in your body and ways to get them through a healthy diet.. Here are some tips on what vitamins are good to take to battle acne:

**see updated post here ** This has been frustrating me like no other situation! I create a nice, long caption in Instagram, WITH line breaks, and then everything gets smooshed together once posted. I used the edit feature in Instagram to "repair" my caption and re-add the spaces based off apparent solutions I google'd: What did NOT work: Use 2 spaces per line break Write your caption in Facebook, then copy and paste Write your caption in Notes (iOS), then copy and paste Space between punctuation at the end What DID work: REMOVE YOUR PUNCTUATION AT THE END OF EACH PARAGRAPH BEFORE THE LINE BREAK   Other posts I read swore by this as the holy grail approach and I tried it and failed again. So what many DID NOT mention was the fact that -  **You have to make sure you have NO SPACES after each paragraph upon removing the punctuation (or else it won't work)  It finally worked and now I'm grateful to have this tip for all my captions. Not h...

This girl on IG had curly hair but the ends weren't and it reminded me of when I did my Big Chop so I wanted to shed some light.. For the straight bits, it's not your natural hair, it's the "scab hair" meaning it's the transition period... So it hasn't been relaxed, but it was scabbed under the scalp and still damaged. If you want your hair to be curly at the ends, you'll have to continue trimming here and there! But it'll be worth it :) I went through the same thing with my big chop (check my older pics, like below, and you'll see one with me sporting a washngo but I have "wavy" stragglers at the front which I ended up cutting so my hair could form ringlets).  Hope this helps :)

Whenever someone takes a hair supplement or a heavy concentration of Biotin, it usually results in breaking out. I for one, have experienced that same issue with multiple pills and I found a new vitamin to try to help: B Complex. 

Now I LOVE me some brownies. They have to be my favorite dessert, tying for first with cheesecake of course. My mom ripped out this Gluten-Free "Better Brownie" recipe for me out of a Chatelaine mag and the picture looked SO good I just had to try. Not to mention, the recipe is SUPER-EASY! The best part? They didn't taste "healthy", nice and gooey, and the boyfriend didn't even notice! Much better than box brownies I can assure you. Highlights of this recipe: Almonds - Good protein source, better than flour! Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - Traditional chocolate flavor with all the benefits Okay, can't say there's no sugar in it but you can't take ALL the fun out of the brownie! Lol. A healthier alternative to the brownie, a little less guilt. Please try :)

Going through my old clothes and trying to purge, I found all my Bandeaus. A Bandeau by the way is a band that acts as a bra coverup pretty much. My hair was already in a puff and I figured, "hey, why not try these for my curls?!". So I fit my bandeau over my high puff and it worked! I put it over my head, stretched it, twisted it so it doubled, and put it over my puff. For natural hair, this is great! It's a thick, durable headband that will hold your curls in place. It's great for the gym, around the house, or just about anywhere. So the next time you find old clothes, don't throw them away just yet, try and see if there's a hair use for them first! Lol :) See below for the short YouTube vid on this: http://youtu.be/f6pDD3ppPd0

So for quite some while I've been battling with acne. No, my face isn't horrible but the few that linger on my face are pesky so I decided to go organic and I think it's working!

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