Listen Live
93.9 WKYS Featured Video
CLOSE
Crown Paint Colors Natasha

Source: @NaturallyTash / @CrownPaint_Colors

Around this time two years ago, my hair was an electric blue. It was blue and down to my mid-back until I shaved the sides to create a mohawk with a dope design on the sides to look like an AFROPUNK poster child. I was absolutely in love with my hair and it goes down in history as one of my favorite hairstyles to date. 

I love experimenting with different protective styles, hair colors, pixie cuts and everything in between because my hair is a reflection of how I feel. I feel the most confident when my hair is in a bomb ass hair style and slayed to the nines. Prior to the quarantine, I had plans to dye my hair a copper-ish orange similar to SZA’s voluminous, firey tresses – it’s a color I had never tried before so I was excited to see what it would look like. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic and social distancing, I could’t go to a salon to get it professionally done and I’m not confident in my abilities at all to do it myself.

I began to look into semi-permanent dye for my hair, but I still wasn’t comfortable with doing any sort of bleaching or lifting process to my hair without the assistance of my beauty school graduate sister or my friend who regularly does my hair. Then, I came across the idea of hair paint wax – a 2-5 day solution to my coloring problems with easy application. While going through YouTube and binge watching reviews of paint wax on natural hair, I discovered Whitney White (@Naptural85) posted a video about a Black-owned hair paint wax brand called Crown Paint Colors. After seeing how easily the color took to her long, thick 4B hair and how pleased she was with the results, I knew I had to have it.

When HelloBeautiful asked founder Natasha (@NaturallyTash) about her rising Crown Paint Colors empire about her passion and purpose, she shared that she began blogging nearly seven years ago with her main focus being temporary hair coloring techniques on her natural curly hair. “Using hair chalks, temporary color sprays, colored mousses and colored gels, if it was temporary hair color, I not only tried it but documented doing so on my YouTube channel and Instagram page.”

“I was the first to began using eye shadows in my hair and even coined the phrase ‘hair shadowing,’ and soon I became known as ‘The Queen Of Hair Shadowing’,” Natasha continues. “After growing tired of using the same colors over and over, and wanting a product that did not change the texture of the hair once applied and was natural hair friendly, I decided it was time to create my own brand of hair shadows. Thus, Crown Paint Colors was born.”

After receiving my package in the mail, I was excited at the thought of having color in my hair again. When I opened the box, I saw a cute animation of a Black girl with full curls and coils atop her head to reveal a rainbow of colors – I even got a matching keychain to parade around with!

The next day, I knew I was going to brunch at my in-laws house so I did a three-strand twistout with my natural hair using my refrigerated rice water regimen and Aunt Jackie’s Curls and Curls Curl La La Curling Custard the night before to lock moisture into my hair. I began to untangle my hair and finger comb my hair to have a big afrocentric look. My first color was “Powersuit,” a deep fine navy that was just a few shades away from blue black. I dipped my fingers into the hair wax with my middle finger to feel a lightweight water-based substance that felt similar to a twist and loc creme for twistouts. I rubbed the substance between my middle finger and thumb and separated a strand of my hair from my fro to create a navy blue streak. It blended into my natural off-black hair color, and didn’t pop enough to notice from afar. Not a good thing, not a bad thing – I just expected a more noticeable difference. However, it’s not such a bad thing because the color was still beautiful up close and reminded me of a blue black box dye color that I used once before. My boyfriend said you can faintly notice it in the light, but it wasn’t too harsh.

“My hair shadows are cream based and contain zero wax. A lot of people refer to our product as wax because of some of our competitors, but none of our products contain wax and our hair shadows can be used on straight hair,” Natasha enlightens HelloBeautiful about the contents of her products.

Next came my favorite, Stormy – a metallic grey violet with a fitting name. When I first put this onto my hair, I felt like Halle Berry when she played Storm in the X-Men series. It was beautiful and very “in your face,” but I didn’t want to get too excited so I switched colors. Lastly, I tried Denim, a favorite of my best friend’s when she was watching me apply the wax via FaceTime. It was a pretty, metal light blue that was easy to identify but only on thick layers. Because of my time crunch and knowing that I had to get ready for brunch, I didn’t have all of the time in the world to commit to doing so with my boyfriend and his sister being other occupants in the house.

When applying the hair shadow to my hair, the product was thick enough to feel the application, but not too water-based. Almost as thought it was just a glimmer moisturizer customized just for natural hair queens like myself.  “My vision for Crown Paint Colors is to be the first black woman owned and friendly temporary hair color company supplying different ways to experiment with hair colors without harming your hair in anyway and only temporarily,” Natasha shared with HelloBeautiful. “You shouldn’t have to harm your hair in anyway to play around with color. So far, we have cream based hair shadows, hair shadow sealant gel, semi-permanent deep conditioning colors and much more soon to come!”

I love the subtle colors, especially on with my natural hair color. If you want to experiment with color in quarantine, Crown Paint Colors is right up your alley. This was a fun weekend experiment and I know for sure that I’ll be using CPC to test the waters of my hair before committing to one solid color.

RELATED STORIES:

TRIED IT: Urban Hydration’s Honey Style Cream Is Perfect For Overnight Styling Routines

TRIED IT: Mizani True Textures Collection Is A Spa Day For Your Hair

So Crown Paint Colors Is The Perfect Natural Hair Alternative To Permanent Hair Dye  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com