GlamLush hair - Twapewa

Hi Doves. I've got another hair feature for you.

This lovely natural is Twapewa, I've seen her around on campus and love how she rocks her natural and asked her for a feature. She has some great tips and her hair is gorge! 

1.Tell us a little about yourself

I’m Twapewa Andjamba, studying law at the University of Namibia, and yeah I’m busy with my honours at the moment. I’m second born of two sisters, and we basically live in a sorority house lol!

 2. Have you always been natural? If not why did you decide to stop relaxing?

Growing up I was always natural, until I decided to relax my hair in 2004, after that my hair looked horrible, it was flat and breaking so much I decided to cut it all off and start over again, so I’ve been natural for the most part because I haven’t touched relaxer since. My hair is softer and more fragile than your average natural hair, so relaxing it would result in me having thin, breaking hair.

3.Do you have a regimen? Please share.

Actually I don’t really have a regimen, because I simply do what it is my hair is indicating me to do.  But there are things I will always do, like I always use aloe vera juice in my hair no matter what I’m doing with it, I have a spray bottle were I’ve made an aloe vera juice and water mixture, with a little glycerine, and a few drops of rosemary essential oils. I hardly use measurements when mixing it, but there is always more aloe vera juice than water, and may be two tablespoons of glycerine, my mixture is never past the middle of the 500ml bottle.

I’ve been using olive oil and castor oil for about two years now and it’s the best for my hair, my oil mix is made up of mostly olive oil, castor oil and grape seed oil. And last but not least I’ve been using this really good shea butter and coconut butter cream that my mom somehow got ahold of in Oshakati from one of these beauty stores, and it’s called aloe essentials aloe and cucumber, hand, hair and body lotion from Omagano Beauty Paradise, it contains aloe vera, shea butter, cocoa butter, vitamin E and coconut oil.  I use all of these using the LOC method*

Every time I remember to, I will deep condition with tresemme naturals conditioner, using lots of olive oil and sometimes I will mix it with yoghurt, other times I’ll use it on its own, put a plastic cap on overnight and if I had used yoghurt I will rinse, if not I’ll simply unravel the twists that I deep conditioned my hair in and rock that*

      4. If you were told you would be taken to a secret destination and would only know once you reached there, what must have products would you take?

I would definitely take a lot of conditioner, and olive oil and aloe vera juice. I use aloe vera juice a lot more than I use my conditioner to be honest, and it has made a huge difference, makes hair more manageable and it stretches much better.

   

      5.   What do you love most about your hair?

The versatility of natural hair is amazing! I enjoy and embrace shrinkage, so I can rock that whenever I feel like short hair, deep conditioning for an hour before I rinse, then dry with a t-shirt and I am good to go. Whenever I am too busy, my go to style is twists, and I will do that around exams and so on, or when my hair has taken on too much stress need to put it away. Also, the protective styles are countless, you can google hundreds of protective styles, the updos, the  braids, what I really love is that my hair is generally softer, easy to manage.

  

       6. Do you have a motto for your hair?

Hahaha, uhmmm…if I can eat it, it’s going in my hair! I have tried avocado deep treatments, bananas, I am always doing yogurt treatments, the more natural the better!

 7. Natural hair almost always draws attention. What's the funniest or most memorable reaction you got?

I have a friend who is a white Afrikaans speaking male, and so I was rocking a shrunken ‘fake cut’ for a week when I met him, and after that I decided to roll my hair in and rock a huge fro, so when he saw me he was like ‘yooohhh your hair grows super fast!!! Overnight!!!” It was hilarious*

8. Any advice for newbies?

I would really advice newbies to be patient, and not expect a lot of growth in two months’ time! The other thing is never compare your hair to anyone else’s. It does not help obsessing about someone’s hair and how you want your hair like theirs, it’s essential to appreciate what you have, nurture it, focus on protecting your hair and the overall health of your body. Enjoy the ride, and do not obsess over it.

 Thank you for your time.