

I Switch Up My Hair Color Weekly With No Damage Or Commitment — Here’s How
Change — even the subtlest kind — is welcomed now more than ever these days in my life. Enter hair shadowing, a technique that is exactly what it sounds like: Changing your hair color using (powder or cream!) eyeshadow. It's the cheap, quick, non-committal, and non-damaging way to switch things up with your tresses at your whims. The technique was popularized by the Queen of Temp Hair Colors herself, Naturally Tash, a natural hair enthusiast who was on Instagram influencing long before being an influencer was really even a term.
I'd see her post a different hair color on Instagram so frequently that I thought, "Surely, sis ain't dying her hair like that every other week.What in the brittleness and breakage risk is going on here?" After further investigation, and talking to her myself several years ago, I was put on to "shadowing" (also known as hair chalking or temp coloring). It's as simple as finding a single eyeshadow pot chilling in your makeup bag (or picking up one at the drugstore for mad cheap) and sliding it down your tresses until the color pops — before or after the style. You can literally take your hair from just black to black with pops of blue, pink, or whatever other color splashes on your heart at the time. And it all comes right back out with a single shampoo. Skeptical?
Behold, Natural Tash. The Rainbow-Brite of natural hair.
She now pulls her looks off with her own line of hair shadow products, called Crown Paint Colors. But before launching the brand, she was using regular-degular eyeshadow pots by different drugstore brands. I don't always have her Crown Paint Colors on hand, but I do always have something in my overflowing basket of beauty products at home. When I feel bored with my color and want something different for the day (or the week), I pull one out.
Now, unlike Naturally Tash, I'm not quite a rainbow gal. That said, I have been feeling the urge to try other natural hair colors because I've been mourning the in-person hair appointments with my favorite natural hair stylist and honestly. Plus, I've just been in a funk about my hair in general because that's just how it is sometimes. Sometimes, my lil' puff listens to me. Some days, I gets tired of fussing with it and just want to cut it off. Whenever I'm that over it, I remember my long-term growth goals and try to treat myself to a brief change with hair shadowing.
First, I pull whatever I have in my bathroom at the time. This creamy one looks like a reddish-pink shade but given my super dark hair color, I was already prepared for it to appear more like a rinse on my head, which I was fine with.
Marquaysa Battle
I usually apply it to twists or braids in my hair because it's easier for me to spread the color that way.
Marquaysa Battle
And when I've spread the paint on each twist and then taken down my twist-out like usual, here's the result:
Marquaysa Battle
It's super subtle and the best part is that you can go as loud or as muted as you want with your colors. The other day, I shadowed parts of my hair for a slightly brighter red look in different spots.
Marquaysa Battle
For me, the lower-key shades work. For Naturally Tash, it's the Roy G. Biv. And when either of us get tired of it, we can send the colors right down the drain and start over with a new color — sans the fear of breakage or a texture change due to moody chemicals typically found in some boxes of dye.
This is my small way to switch up my look. Yes, even if I ain't heading anywhere but the grocery store and the mailbox. When I shadow my kinky 'fro, it's about more than just testing new hair colors. For me, it's all about doing one small thing to adorn and celebrate my natural 4C hair even on the days when it's ticking me off the most. Even when my twist-outs fail (as, honestly, they frequently do). Even when shrinkage has gotten in the way of the style I was going for on a particular day. I can always let my kinks and curls fall where they may and spread some color over all of it just to cheer things up and create some temporary change.
So would you try hair shadowing? Or have you already been using the method to color your crown? Let us know in the comments!
Featured image by Shutterstock
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Release Stress & Restore Harmony In Your Body With Shaking Meditation
When we reflect on our own path as women in light of the women who came before us, it’s easy to see that the loads we’ve carried haven’t always been the lightest. From everyday stresses to generational trauma with roots that are difficult to trace, one must ask where all that weight goes if we never release it.
The body holds the score for all the anxieties, worries, and unease that we’ve endured over time. Family and society often tell us to quiet our emotions, maintain a brave face, and keep our emotions bottled up within. But as we know, anything with too much pressure will eventually burst.
And while we are steadily discovering self-care methods like meditation to shed this emotional baggage, it may take a little more than sitting still in the quiet of our mind to let go of our deep-rooted tension. Fortunately, mindful movement could be an unexpected way for you to let go of worry and anxiety while building emotional resiliency, and such is the case with shaking meditation.
What Is Shaking Meditation?
Shaking meditation is a form of tension and trauma-releasing exercises or TRE that “assists the body in releasing deep muscular patterns of stress, tension, and trauma.” This series of exercises of muscular shaking and vibrating activates a natural reflex mechanism that releases muscular tension, thus calming down the nervous system and encouraging your body to return back to a state of balance.
“Shaking meditation can be powerful because it moves your body — and in Eastern medicine, we say that moves your chi,” says Jenelle Kim, DACM, L.Ac, a ninth-generation doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine and author of Myung Sung: The Korean Art of Living Meditation.
According to Dr. Kim, understanding chi helps us understand our bodies and how we're feeling mentally, physically, and spiritually. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), chi is known to represent your life force; it is the energy that flows through you and everything, and in many cultures, plays an essential role in our health.
“We have chi that moves in our blood and throughout our entire body; connecting our organ systems, muscles, and joints,” she tells xoNecole. “It allows everything to function and to be nourished. We know blood travels throughout our body through our circulatory system, but chi also travels through our body — much in the same way — through the meridian system. If you picture chi as vital energy, it moves the blood.”
It’s important for our body’s chi to stay in flow. When we go about our daily life with stress, trauma, or even mental injuries, our energy becomes stagnant. But various movement practices like Qigong or shaking meditation encourage your chi to circulate through your body which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which “is in charge of telling our brain and body to calm down, relax, ultimately, let go,” Dr. Kim says.
As Black women, there are times in life when it feels like we bear the weight of the world on our shoulders, with few spaces to go when we need to lighten the load. But as Dr. Kim explains, because women are “naturally yin beings,” we take on more because we can handle more. “According to the energies of nature that have been passed down for thousands of years, women are more complex. And what that almost always means is that we can think a lot more.” And while that speaks to the resiliency of our being, it can have a negative effect on our bodies when we store more than we release.
“If we don't have ways of releasing this, it will ultimately affect our lives physically, mentally, and spiritually. Then it passes on to our children, and that's where we get generational trauma,” she says.
Although shaking meditation may be a new and unfamiliar practice, it’s one that could prove to be beneficial to those who have experienced trauma on an individual and communal level. The movements are simple to follow and accessible, and in a matter of minutes, you’ll feel more calm and relaxed, while relieving any anxiety, frustration, and tension inside of you.
So if you’re ready to restore harmony within your body, here are the steps to perform shaking meditation on your own.
How To Incorporate Shaking Meditation Into Your Daily Routine:
Step 1: “Stand with your feet hip-width apart. You can do this while sitting or standing — depending on your comfort level. Make sure all of your joints are soft, so nothing's locked.
Step 2: “Begin raising onto your tiptoes and falling back onto your heels. Not so hard to where you're shocking your spine, but enough to just kind of wake up your body. Repeat three to five times, dropping down onto your heels.”
Step 3: “Next, start with your hands first and shake them. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Shake them and go up to your arms, to your elbows, and then up to your shoulders. Now your whole arms should be moving.”
Step 4: “Then you can start your legs, repeating the same shaking movement. You then move your feet moving, go up through your core, and then shake everything out through your head.”
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Featured image by Wavebreakmedia/Getty Images