I attended the Women In The Jungle Natural Hair & Beauty Show on Saturday 24th August at the Grange Hotel in London – hosted by Wunmi  http://womaninthejungle.com/ . A celebration of naturally textured hair and beauty. The event started at 11:30am but I arrived about 1pm so I missed the opening act by singer Kadija Kamara.

Most of the vendors were situated in the very nice wide spaced hallway.  It was nice to catch up with Akua of Shea Butter Cottange, Trini of Mane Divas, Got to Be Natural team, Sharron of Shea Decandance. Due to chatting and catching up with everyone in the hallway it took me a least 45mins before I entered the main room.

The room was packed with natural sisters with very articulated styles. On stage in the main room were hair & skin care presentations, panel discussion, hair and beauty demos, caring and styling.

Hair 101 by Noir Essence
Eat your way to healthy hair, skin & nails – Danielle Pond of Pure Juice Cleanse
Afro Comb Exhibition – Crystal of United Kinkdom Blog
Secrets of the Afro Comb – Kandace Kimbiri
Problem with Natural Hair – Valley Fontane

There were several Style stations within the hallway arranged at different times throughout the day applying Makeup, natural hair & locs styling

Helen of Huntress Locs.

I was grateful to be asked to be part of the event by demonstrating head wrapping at the style station. I borrowed my Nigerian friends fabric which is called Aso Oke  (pronounced ah-SHAW-okay) and Damask. These materials are woven or made of silk or cotton material and are worn by Nigerians.  Some of the material I was given were very hard as they were new and starchy.

 At the head wrap style station I managed to sculpture a model with a typical Gele style using  a red Aso Oke  and the other model I created something opposite and tall using the gold Aso Oke.

Its not easy if you’re a beginner because of the stiffness and I mainly use batik cotton material which is easy to tie. As people watched all I could hear was WOW you can tie Gele. But I said I’m from Ghana and don’t tie Gele – but luck was on my side and I was happy with the results which hit the finale fashion show.

It rained all day, but we left with smiles on our faces.

Bless – Sister E