A huge congratulations to the team at The Natural Hair Network for putting on the first ever ‘Naturals Do Lunch’ event on Sun 12th Oct in Luton town, to bring together experts in the field of natural hair care and ladies who wanted to meet other natural sisters and learn more about caring for their own natural hair and their family’s too.

Cassandra from The Natural Hair Network & Me

The guests were greeted with a drink and goody bag full of treats, then the afternoon started with an introduction to the day by the amazing host Vinna Best from Natural Hair Week and Officially Natural , followed by the panel of experts including myself introducing ourselves and our work.

From Left to Right – Vinna Best (Host) and Cassandra and Petula from The Natural Hair Network

The experts on the day were

Sal from Root 2 Tip

Klerissa from Curly By Nature (check out my review of her products here)

Helen from Huntress Locs (picture below on the right, next to Dionne Ibel, Mosaic Artist from Qemamu Mosaics)

And Me!!! (Pictured below speaking on my work)

After the introductions, the winner of the early bird ticket competition was announced, who won a complete set of natural hair care products and a copy of Leah’s Raw Food Feast too. Then we went straight into questions from the audience on various areas of natural hair maintenance.

After a great discussion, we took a break for lunch, which allowed everyone (about 40 guest by my rough estimate) to mingle and chat.

Next came the head wrapping workshops from Akua Designs which i took part in and then after a few testimonials from guests on how they found the day, we wrapped up with some sales, pictures and goodbye.

Here’s what I learned on the day:

* New head wrapping styles – This is amazing to me as I thought I was a professional, having wrapped my own hair for the past 15 years, I loved the workshop and now have new styles and techniques to use

* The importance of water – Many of the panel spoke on how important it is to keep your hair very well hydrated with water and avoid the damaging but traditional ‘hair greases’ that many of us have grow up with

* The importance of nourishing the scalp – Sal spoke on how important it is to keep you scalp and blood flow to the scalp and nutrient levels up to maintain healthy strong hair and she spoke on her Root Energiser Scalp Oil which you can find out more about here

* How to protect your hair when you go swimming – Some of the panel all recommended that you wet your hair and cover it before going swimming and then washing it afterwards to prevent any damage that can occur from contact with the chlorine in the pools.

I also answered some questions from the guests on how to keep your hair looking healthy in your later years, massaging the front of your hair with rosemary essential oil in a base oil for receding hair line and the importance of maintaining you scalp hygiene and avoiding highly chemical shampoos and conditioners.

There was a great energy and feeling of sisterhood, bonding and love in the room which you’ll see in the happy smiling faces in the pics below.

Learning and being around experts is such a nourishing experience and one which I encourage you to indulge in on a regular basis, even with over a decade of being natural, learning about natural hair and having 4 girls with natural hair, I still learned a lot from the vast level of knowledge Sal, Klerissa and Helen shared so freely with us all.

I was so happy to be a sponsor of the event and I look forward to their future event, like the Curl Camp they have coming up on Sunday 7th Dec in Luton, focusing of how to look after your children’s natural hair (boys and girls) and I’ll be doing a talk on how a healthy diet can help you maintain your children’s hair.

Definitely head over to www.TheNaturalHairNetwork.co.uk , join their mailing list to receive updates on what they have going on and visit them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheNaturalHairNetworkUK

Here are a few more pics from the day

Klerissa from Curly By Nature & I

I’m the on with the blue scarf on the end, doing the head wrapping workshop!!!

Akua Designs speaking about her work

Take care and stay healthy

Leah

The Naturally You Coach

About the Author: Leah Salmon, The Naturally You Coach, is a bestselling author, speaker, nutritionist, live blood analyst and life coach, focused on womb & pregnancy health and premature birth prevention & on a mission to help 100,000 black women to eat for health, think for happiness and live in harmony by 2020 or what she calls Becoming Naturally You. She does this through her clinic, books, programs, coaching, events, workshops, videos, articles and a free weekly ezine.