My Design Essentials® Blogger Makeover - Part 1

My Design Essentials® Blogger Makeover – Part 1

Posted on July 8, 2012 by admin

Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to experience the Design Essentials® Natural Hair Care System straight from the source. That’s right! I visited the headquarters here in Atlanta, and received the royal treatment from a Design Essentials® educator.

But let me take you step by step through the process.

If you follow my blog, NHM on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, then you know that I have some THICK hair! I’m talking super thick hair, and I try to give everyone who will be touching my hair the heads-up. That’s why I let Cyntelia Abrahams (whom I interviewed about Design Essentials® for my Inside Scoop Series) know what the educator would be dealing with beforehand. My go-to style is a twist-out, sometimes tightly defined and sometimes the bigger the better. I wanted to switch it up, so I let the team at Design Essentials® come up with a hairstyle for me.

Tiffany “Before”

Part 1: Upon arrival at Design Essentials® headquarters, I was promptly greeted and ushered to the salon area. There, I met Cyntelia, who is energetic and very, very personable. I knew I liked her when we spoke on the phone. Side note: I was really early, so she let me look over some potential styles while I awaited the arrival of the stylist. Brainchild Associates representative Ashley Tanks arrived to document the whole process, and ended up getting a makeover herself! But before we could both experience the makeover, we had to take some pictures. Here is a photo of my hair before the makeover (I’m rocking a twist-out which I took out the day before).

Part 2: The stylist, Deshonica Kerrie, arrived and examined my hair. A hairstyle was selected, and we went into the salon. The first thing to do was detangle my hair. Deshonica used the Design Essentials®

HCO Leave-in Conditioner and let it soften my hair. Why is it called HCO, you wonder? I asked myself the same thing, and found out that HCO stands for Hydrogen, Carbon, and Oxygen. This product is great for detangling, softening, and moisturizing the hair. Once it was softer, she began the detangling process. This took a little while, because my coils were tightly defined and my hair is T-H-I-C-K!

As she’s working on my hair, I’m asking lots of questions. I don’t visit a natural stylist often, and I wanted to make sure that my hair was in good condition. I’m happy to say that she confirmed this, and let me know that I was taking good care of my hair. That’s such a great feeling!

She then shampooed my hair with the sulfate-free Design Essentials® Natural Curl Cleanser, and it smelled great! It left my hair feeling clean, without feeling stripped or dry. Once clean, my hair was conditioned with the Design Essentials® Natural Moisturizing Conditioner. This conditioner is specially formulated with added slip, which makes the detangling process easier. We did a steam treatment while the conditioner was in my hair, to help increase the moisture. Here’s a HOT TIP, ladies and gents: If you don’t own an in-home steamer, place a plastic cap over clean and conditioned hair, microwave a towel soaked in hot water for 1 minute and place it around the plastic cap, and place another plastic cap on top and sit under the dryer.

Part 3: Now for the styling. Deshonica used the quick drying Design Essentials® Natural Twist and Set Setting Lotion on my hair. This left my hair shiny and easy to sculpt. She then separated my hair into parts, and began rolling and pinning it into the fabulous, funky undo that you see here. We did a quick recap of the process for the live Design Essentials® Web-Ex being filmed, and took some after pictures.

Tiffany “After”

Tiffany and Deshonica

Overall, the experience was awesome, and I have so many great tips to share with you. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the makeover, where I share Ashley’s makeover and great tips for achieving a successful wash-n-go.