Its OFFICIAL I have made the decision to grow my natural hair. It has been a dilema that I have struggled with for many years. Just a quick run down on my hair's history... I wore my natural hair basically all of my childhood and my hair was out of control thick and long. I had my godmother braid my hair every saturday faithfully , it was my saturday routine, I woke up washed hair and deep conditioned using either freshly picked aloe from our garden or queen helene cholestorol. I would put on a grocery plastic bag and help my grandma clean, cook and do laundry. Afterwards I go to my godmother's and she would hook me up with stylish do's for the school week. The times when I couldnt go there my grandma would give her best try to be as stylish as my godmommy. I guess after a while my hair got to become more of a project than a chore so they decided to give me a curly perm AKA jerri curl LOL... This was like 91' and I rocked it a loved it, my hair grew longer with the perm and it wasnt even wet its was the dry one! fast forward a year later and i moved to ny with my mom and realized jerris were not in style at all here. so I basically rocked my perm minus the activator gel BTW NOT CUTE.... the results a dried out fro...I have pics but you couldnt pay me to show them!!!
Shortly after my older cousin moved in with us and that was a godsend cause she then started to braid my hair w/ extensions every 2-3 months. I wore it like this for over a year and a half and my hair grew real long. The whole time we were cutting off the permed ends. so now when not in braids my hair was completely natural. I hated it cause my bro's friends would make fun and call me whoppi and aunt jemima...whatevs...SO a week before my first day of HS I relaxed my hair and found it to be APL, boy was I bad.... long thick black hair shoot you couldnt tell me nutttin'... so like any uninformed person I would use a hot curling iron everyday rain or shine and gradually my hair thinned out... shedding and breakage galore. I guess now looking back I would say I am blessed cause my hair never really was damaged, it just wasnt as healthy as it could be. That following summer i decided to cut my APL hair to a Short Nia Long cut WHY oh WHY... but I loved it and you couldnt tell me nuttin again!I kept my hair relatively short for years after that. It would grow to SL and I would cut it to ear or neck length this was a cycle for me. Me thinking at the time "my hair is sooo thick I couldn't manage it if it got long". I never neglected my hair but I didnt have the right information and it resulted in dull hair. Iwas a regular at the salon waiting 4+ hours to only look like ish again in a few days....no clue what to do after i left. i just wrapped with scarf / did this my entire life thankfully/ and spray w/ oil sheen the next morning and curl. I eventually started to get sick or relaxers and needed another alternative so I started to wear braids again and discovered the weave. That began a journey to natural hair while wearing weaves/braids and my hair grew but was thinner than normal/ i never let MY hair breathe just kept re-installing weaves after weaves.
One day I took out my weave and just admired my own hair... as painful as it was to style I started to embrace it more, whenever it would want to relax I just pressed out or flat ironed... this didnt last of course cause I wanted the length I had with weaves, my hair was past SL pressed but I was addicted to the swing of a BSL weave . I went back to weaves, then june 07 I went to get my hair done for Summer Jam and ended up relaxing... partly cause the hair dresser persauded me, mostly because the weave I wanted would cost me $200 w/o the hair ARE U SERIOUS? I ended up getting it relaxed only to get my hair rained on at summer jam. WHAT A WASTE!! This is when I began to deeply consider natural hair/ dreads. I was on the dread kick for months and everyone including my fiance said "dont do it" so I chickened out! At this time I would stretch my touch ups for months apart while wearing a weave. In a one year period I relaxed 3 times only..... I self relaxed Aug 26, 2008 before getting a weave for a concert later that week. Kept my weave in for about 5 weeks then took it out. I started my journey unknowingly, then weeks later while on youtube one day I came across hair and makeup tutorials and found my way to LCHF, KISS and others. I immediately washed dc, flat ironed and took pics that evening this would be the beggining of my hair journey about 6 weeks post relaxed.
Here I am today exactly 13 weeks post relaxer and I cant stop playing with my new growth. its like falling in love all over again but with ME... I never realized what I was doing by relaxing my hair, I was trying to change ME but this is how my hair grows thick, kinky/ nappy whatever you wanna call it, its ME exactly how GOD wanted me to be. Perfect in his eyes, custom fit to ME. Anyone can buy a relaxer and get the same results but no one else but ME can grow what comes out out my scalp. Even though I unknowingly transitioned in the past and i've been natural before this time I feel enlightened, aware, equipped and supported. I have places like TCHD, KISS, Hairlistas and LHCF to learn from and people to share with. I will not try to change me, I will embrace my natural hair and care for it as i would my relaxed hair. I have choosen not to do a Big Chop I rather grow my hair out while trimming every 6 months.I am still reading up on transitioning long term but as i learn and experiment i will update my current regimen. I will stick to what i have been doing since i started since i see results... so the basics for me are co-washing/no poo's, 2x week DC, bunning and sealing ends.Please anyone who has been there/done that i would appreciate any tips or pointers. Thanks in advance. Niki Tasha
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