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January 12, 2019
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How to Save Money While Shopping for Hair Products

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Hi!  This is Dr. Zakiya Antoine, your favorite fabulous board certified family medicine physician and the Natural Hair Doctor.  I transform women’s lives by encouraging them to grow their own healthy natural hair.  I’m super excited today because I got my braces off. My topic of today’s blog, FYI, is my favorite ways to save money when purchasing a hair products, specifically. Also, this is going to apply to any beauty products that might be sold at the stores that I’m going to mention. So, yeah…I ‘ve been having a pretty good day today, considering I got my  braces off. I cannot talk too well while wearing these retainers. I have noticed that I sound a little “lispy” when I talk while wearing my retainers. Well… anyways, on to my favorite discount beauty hacks for beauty products. I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about where to buy certain products and how much certain products cost, how expensive it can be to buy all these products. If you’re a product junkie like I am, it can get really expensive. I’m going to tell you guys all my secrets on how I try to save money and keep the expenses down and still get the products that I want.Okay, my number one secret would probably be the fact that I actually shop at CVS to buy hair products. I know that sounds kind of crazy because CVS is a drug store, but they have a very good customer rewards program where you can sign up and you get a CVS card. It’s based on your phone number. I get coupons all the time. Right now, I have two 40% off coupons. One is  an anniversary coupon and another one was sent it to me randomly.

I can go buy two products and get 40% off. I think one of the coupons is 40% off my entire purchase. I can go buy a whole bunch of things. For you makeup lovers, if you like drug store makeup, you can go in there and buy all sorts of goodies at 40% off. I mean, who doesn’t like to save money? One thing I will caution you about, if you’re going to like buy your hair products or other beauty products from CVS, sometimes you have to kind of search around. Some CVS’s don’t have the products that you’re looking for so you kind of got to get a little savvy and search. You’ll begin to notice what store has your favorite products. Actually, after I finish this blog,  I’m going to go spend my CVS coupons. 🙂

Okay, another place that’s really good to shop is Target, but you can kind of get into trouble because Target sells a little bit of everything. I’ll go in there to get hair products, and then I most likely will come out with all kind of other stuff that I never intended to buy. But, lots of times they will have this sale where you spend $25,  and you get a $5 gift card for every $25 you spend. At some point, you can accumulate  enough gift cards to get a free full sized product. I’ll kind of strategically buy things in order to save some money on hair products. Target carries a lot of different products in its inventory. I actually have found some very hard to find hair products in my local Target. I think some brands must exclusively have a wholesale retail deal with only Target.

I know it sounds crazy that my top two places to shop are like CVS and Target for hair products because there are not traditionally places where you go to get things for your hair. A third place, and I don’t really save a lot of money there, but if I’m in a pinch and I know I really need to get something and I know it’s sold there, I’ll go to Sally Beauty Supply. That’s the third place. Sally is pretty much a wide chain and it’s a consistent, but the theme, which is the theme with all these stores, you have to know what … especially if you are a curly girl like me and you have curly natural hair, they’re not going to have all of the products that you’re looking for.  Some things just won’t be sold there.

Now, my number four secret would be to actually check with the actual brand. Most of these brands have their own website and they have discount codes because they market their products a lot through influencers on Instagram or other forms of social media, especially YouTube. Sometimes they have these discount codes where you can save 20% and get free shipping, save 35% to 40%. Once you buy from them online, they’ll consistently email you discount codes as well.  I know one brand, in particular, which is a really popular brand, always has like 35% off, 40% off, which is great because some of my favorite products by this brand costs like $26.  Who wouldn’t want to save 40% off $26? This is why I buy directly from the brand website to get my 40% off.

 

My fifth place that you guys probably check to get your products besides CVS, Target, Sally Beauty, and the actual brand itself,  is Amazon.  Amazon has a lot of good deals as well. It’s distributed by Amazon. You can actually save a lot of money. These are better for like the more expensive brands. For example, I can get like 40% off products that are between $20 and $30 a piece. Plus,  I can get the larger size for like a fraction of the price. It’s just unbelievable and it’s distributed by Amazon so I have it shipped by Amazon Prime. I can get my product delivered to my door in two days. It’s awesome!

I wanted to give you guys my to 5 discount beauty hack so you can learn where to get your products for the low low. I just wanted to kind of connect with my audience on saving time and money.Do you guys have any other places where you shop or where you’ve seen things on sale? Let me know so I can get in on these deals with you guys! 🙂

This is Dr. Zakiya Antoine, your favorite fabulous board certified family medicine physician and the natural hair doctor signing off.  I transform women’s lives by encouraging them to grow their own healthy natural hair.  Follow me on all social media at DrZakiyaAntoine.

 

January 12, 2019
0

Dangerous Ingredients in Black Hair Products

By | Uncategorized

Hi! I am Dr Zakiya Antoine, board certified family medicine physician and the Natural Hair Doctor.  I transform women’s lives by encouraging them to grow healthier, longer hair. So… I’m getting ready to catch a flight to New Orleans and go spend some quality time with my family before I head out to my new locums assignment in California. I thought this would be a great time to blog about my thought on a recent news clip that I saw on CNN concerning ingredient in Black hair products. Several of my followers and doctor pals have actually been hitting me up about this news clip all week.  I’ve been so busy that I hadn’t even had a chance to respond. This news clip aired on CNN, on the Michaela Pereira show.  She had a young lady as her guest,  and they were talking about the dangers of chemicals in black hair products that have bought to the forefront by a research study that has tested the levels of dangerous chemical in products marketed to black women.

Basically, I guess Michaela felt this issue spoke to her as being an Afro-Latina with a naturally curly hair, and she wanted to get this information out for people who may not have heard about it. The commentary of the research study was kind of vague because Michaela and her guest kept referring to non-specific terms like endocrine disruptors and didn’t really name specific ingredients that were in these products.  Also, they didn’t really specifically name any products that were tested in this study on the show.

So it kind of left me kind of wondering, well, what were the actual products that were tested? I started doing some digging and found some interesting facts.  So I actually found the published research study and read it in its entirety.   Then.. I got a list of the products that were actually tested during the course of this research study.  In the process of looking further into this matter,  I have found much older research that dates back to 2005. So this news report was not releasing new information.  I also discovered that  a lot of these chemicals that they’re talking about were considered endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and also a drug that caused asthma flare ups.

Another  interesting take home point was the black hair products that were used in this specific research study are mostly products that can be used to straighten curly or coily hair by chemical process (relaxers).  I also found it interesting that the research study was able to determine  that there was a 20 percent decline in people who are buying relaxers over the last 10 years.  I am assuming it is because more women are going natural, and I guess it’s because of some of the hair disorders and scalp disorders you can get from constant  straightening of the hair, use of heavy oils, and use of flat irons causing excessive burning of the scalp.  An excess of these habits can cause scarring and inflammation of the scalp then lead to a very specific form of alopecia.

Other important topics included 5 ingredients to avoid.  This list includes parabens, pthalates, sulfates, synthetic fragrance and propylene glycol.  It was interesting to note that propylene glycol is not toxic but can cause severe allergic reactions in some individuals. It is important to acknowledge ingredients that are considered things that should be avoided. So… if you can look on a product label that you’re  using  right now and it actually says we don’t use sulfates, pthalates, or synthetic fragrance in our product, then you can be sure that they’re safe for you and the rest of your family.  Those of you who have little ones or are expecting may be worried about the effects that these hair products may have on your unborn child or your living children because they’re still developing.  I’m glad that the news clip brought this information to forefront and I’m able to come here and talk about it for you guys.

How do you guys feel about potentially dangerous chemicals being used to create products to chemically straighten the hair of  black women?  I mean, doesn’t it make you feel some type of way? And so this is causing issues all over the country because people are buying these products to straighten their hair and they’re not even safe to be used on humans.  One good thing I’ve noticed is that companies that are putting black hair products out in the market right now hear our frustration, and they do not want to market dangerous or unsafe products to its consumers. These companies want to provide good products that your entire family can use.

The most important thing to remember is to make sure that are not using any products with parabens and phthalates. These chemicals are used as preservatives in hair products that can  give your product an increased shelf life or used as emulsifiers that hold the oil and water based ingredients together in a cream form.   As always, I am definitely trying to save your time and your money.  I would hate to see any of you waste your money on unsafe products that can harm you or your loved ones.

It’s  Dr Zakiya Antoine, board certified family medicine physician and the Natural Hair Doctor signing off.  I transform women’s lives by encouraging them to grow healthier, longer hair.  You can follow me on all social media @ DrZakiyaAntoine

January 12, 2019
2

5 Tips to Keep Your Curls Popping

By | Uncategorized
Hi! I am Dr Zakiya Antoine, board certified family medicine physician and the Natural Hair Doctor.  I transform women’s lives by encouraging them to grow healthier, longer hair. My blog topic today will be my top 5 tips that  keep my curls popping.  My first tip is use water on hair regularly and drink lots of water. I know that’s easy and seems like common sense, right?!?   I wet my hair at least twice a week. You want to drink water, wet your hair as much as you want. Water is good for your hair, as long as you’re not letting your hair dry out, and you’re putting moisture back into it. Water’s always good for your hair.Number two, deep condition your hair. Deep condition it as much as you want. I do it at least twice a week. If you want to just do it once a week, that’s fine. But, twice a week is my thing.  Please be mindful of the directions on your deep conditioner packaging.  Excessive use of deep conditioners over night can cause damage to your hair.

Number three, you want to use great moisturizing stylers that “hold”. Stylers help hold your curls and decrease frizz. As far as leave in conditioners, you want to put those on after you rinse out your deep conditioner.   You must put the leave in conditioner on to keep moisture in your hair before you put the styler on. I know this sounds like simple stuff, but these things are my real secrets. These things are what I do. These are the things I do to reproduce the same results in my hair every time I do my hair.

Now, we’ve already got water, deep conditioners, stylers, and leave in conditioners. The last one, number five, will be hair supplements. It was a tie between hair supplements and decrease the amount of heat that you use on your hair. I’ve used several types of vitamins over the last year. I was taking biotin, I did some gummy vitamins, I’ve done liquid vitamins. I actually prefer the liquid vitamins.  There you have it… secrets from the Natural Hair Doctor! 🙂

It’s Dr Zakiya Antoine, board certified family medicine physician and the Natural Hair Doctor signing off.  I transform women’s lives by encouraging them to grow healthier, longer hair.  You can follow me on all social media @ DrZakiyaAntoine.