Natural Hair Journey - The First Blow Out

 So I'm 6 months post 2nd bc and I wanted to do a length check and trim! So I decided to blow out and flat iron my hair! EPIC FAIL! It came out a greasy mess! I of course had no clue what  I was doing and the next day I went out in the rain and it completely frizzed and stuck on end buckwheat style! I was so unhappy and miserable! 3 hours of work down the tubes in 3 minutes time! Oh well, at least I got the opportunity to see my length. I used shea as a heat protectant and used only half power on my flat iron. I was very unhappy with the results and washed it out the following morning!

Natural Hair Journey - Wow I Have Curly Hair!

What? Where this this come from? I have curly Hair? Me the kid that used to break combs? The kid that would cause my family's hands to cramp us from combing it! I can't believe that under all that toxic relaxer I had beautiful curly hair being processed to death!  I can't believe that all of these years I longed to have hair like Cree Summer only to find out that I have curly hair too! I feel so violated, so cheated, all those years that I could have had awesome hair and I only had lack luster dry brittle hair! My 2nd big chop was in July 2009 and it is now November 28th. I am so happy with the texture of my hair. I wet my hair daily in the shower and run some coconut oil through it and a little bit of gel, shake out the excess water and go about my day. I love the freedom this has given me and I love the strange comments I'm getting from my family insisting that I've done "something" to my hair to make it curl up! lol It's not what I'm doing, it's what I'm NOT doing!

Natural Hair Update - The Curly Girl Method

It's really funny I look totally different in the last two pictures and they were all taken the same week. Lighting in really misleading!

I am officially on the curly girl method completely. I stopped by my local Indian and African market and picked up some Shea butter, Vatika Coconut oil, Regular coconut oil, almond oil, and some black african soap.

Now, I had no idea that Shea butter smelled the way it did. I honestly thought it was going to smell sweet like cocoa butter. Silly me. My shea butter smells like tree bark and it's loud so I can't wear that in my hair during the day. I've been using it as a moisturizer at night but it's loosening my curl pattern so I stopped. I guess that's why some people like it but I want my curls tight. It also makes my hair look dull. So i was disappointed. I'll use it for my twists and bantu knots when my hair grows out. For now, I'll just use it on my daughter's twists.

My curls are definitely O shaped and are starting to turn into little cork screws. I had little question marks when I first bc'd but now they are changing. I bc'd in May so I'm on my 3rd month.

My hair is growing very well and I'm actually at 2-4 inches when stretched depending on where you measure on my head.

I like the Vatika oil but I don't care for the smell. It's mediciney. For a lack of a better word. I'm putting it in my hair nightly and it's really making it look great in the morning.

My current regime is Co-washing daily with Suave Naturals Coconut conditioner

My smoothing/leaving conditioner that really defines my curls and get them to pop is Vital Plus Herbal Organics Conditioner. I received this tip from ShidaNatural on youtube and for 3.50 for a 41 oz. bottle you can't beat the curl definition this gives the hair. I was shocked!

I used extra virgin olive oil on my hair daily and was upset to open my new coconut oil I bought only to find it's refined coconut oil with no scent! I only bought it for the scent!!! Oh well it was only $3 so i can't really complain.

The label was in arabic so that's what I get for buying something I can't read lol.

I'm still using the glycerin daily. I just like it for the shine. It's also keeping my hair moisturized.

I'm not using gel any longer because my curls are so tight that they are not frizzing. This is a minor miracle considering that we have been having the worse summer in Texas since I can remember.

I also used the almond oil to whip my Shea butter. The almond oil scent didn't cover up the tree bark scent though. Maybe I should try some essential oils next time.

So that's my little mini update on my hair. I'm very pleased with the results. I'm just feeling along, the blind leading itself. lol

My family is really embracing my hair and are loving the little curlies that i'm developing. They are shocked by my hair texture and so am I. I actually have other naturals asking me for advice on how to define their curls. I'm referring them to Shida though because she is super duper awesome.

On a side note. the lighter almond oil is so much better for my daughter's hair. the olive oil seemed a little too heavy. I'm putting the vatika oil and Shea butter on her hair and i can see a difference in just the first week. Her hair has grown in the 3 months that I've been styling it properly and the little bald spot at her crown has filled in completely and is long enough now to put in a tiny pony tail.

I'm still battling her desire to be a gymnast and do head rolls all day on the carpet and tear her hair up. But she's 2 so she's going to roll around on the carpet and play. That's to be expected.

I stopped using rubber bands on her plaits just plastic barrettes but even with them I have to be careful not to snag her hair. This weekend I'm going to twist her hair and put it in a protective style. I hope it will last a full week. We'll see. She's been wearing her little satin bonnet I made her. I call it her nite nite hat and at first she was like, women u crazy! but by the 3rd night she was on board. I still pick her up from the sitter's house with her hair literally all over her head. No matter how neatly I do her hair in the morning by the end of the day she looks like Kizzy!

SO hopefully I can find a protective style that will stay for a full day. Even with the gymnast flips.

Natural Hair Journey - Second Big Chop

Okay, so last week i did another big chop. My natural hair had grown about 2 inches and the tips grew out straight. In my previous blog pictures you can see that my tips are straight in those pics. I took those the week of my first chop in May. I cut off about an inch and now most of my straight ends are gone. SO I'm kinda' back where I started in May. My hair texture is changing and I've changed the products I'm using as well. Through research I discovered that the "natural organic" products I was using had petroleum, silicones, sulfates, and mineral oil. How do these companies get away with this?

How can a container say Jojoba Oil on it and use the words organic in the company name and you look at the ingredients and it's petroleum jelly with a splash of jojoba thrown in. I've had to change my shampoo, conditioner, and styling products.

I'm using the curly girl method and I love the curl definition it gives my hair. The silicone products made my hair look great but after using them for two months straight my hair became very dry. Now I only use products that are water soluable. My hair is thriving and growing about an inch a month. I am so happy. I will never go back to relaxed hair. This is so much easier. I just co-wash and rinse daily in the shower, shake and go!

No more hour and a half to flat iron my hair every morning like when it was relaxed. Going natural has saved me so much time in the morning.

Good Hair vs. Bad Hair

Good hair is defined by a myriad of definitions that seems to vary according to each person's experience. To me Good Hair is hair that is not breaking, shedding and has a healthy sheen. I've never been a texture snob. I've always liked relaxed and natural hair styles.

In my family I was always classified as having Good Hair. Not because it was silky straight, in fact, my hair was extremely course, thick and unmanageable as a child. What they often refer to is the fact that my hair has the ability to grow long. Ironically, I'm the only one in my family that will take a pair of scissors and chop of 4 or 5 inches and not bat an eye.

I have a cousin that has hair identical to me and she is 14. She unfortunately has been having major breakage and shedding due to over processing. When I told her mother I was going natural she said that she didn't think it was a good idea considering my ultra conservative job.

She has been wanting to go natural herself but fears ridicule from her job. I don't think people really give a crap about someone else's hair as long as it's not some crazy pink Mohawk or purple extensions. Most dress codes speaks on grooming habits and wearing hair in a natural color - ie. no blue/green etc.

I've never in my life seen a company dress code say that hair must be worn straight and longer than X number of inches.

I know hispanic women who's hair is coarser and kinkier than mine will ever be. No one's going out of their way to fire them. No one is hunting down hispanic or curly hair white women in the streets and shaming them into straightening their hair.

My reasons for going natural is to get my hair back healthy and hence get my "good hair" back.

Keep in mind that my hair will break a comb and cramp some fingers because of the texture of it. And that was when I was relaxing it. I can only imagine how difficult my hair is going to be to manage once it actually grows some length. I just cut my hair last month and I know It's going to be a long process ahead getting my hair back healthy.

Growing up "bad hair" were those little girls with super short hair that was all broke off from overprocessing, raggedy ends and their mothers' put so much grease in it that their whole face was shining from it.

We women need to understand that perming our daughters' hair that young is only going to make their hair unhealthy, brittle, dry, and unmanageable.

One of my baby cousins had beautiful hair. Hence the word HAD. Her hair was jet black, super thick and had the most beautiful wave pattern in it. It was healthy and growing and against her ebony skin it glowed. Then my aunt's hairdresser suggested putting a "texturizer" on it. At 4 years old. Now her hair is brittle, breaking off, not growing and her hair has lost it's gleam. It's also getting thinner and thinner. And for the first time in her life she has a "kitchen" Why does perming do that???

Of course, I'm the only one that seems to notice this because everyone is saying how cute her new hair is. I don't have a problem with relaxed hair. I've had my hair relaxed since I was 4 too and now that I'm going natural I can't turn my nose up at relaxed girls/women. All I'm saying is don't overprocess your hair! That is our biggest mistake.

Young hair should be natural. There is no reason to be relaxing a 4 year old's hair. In a world were everything is rush rush rush I know that many mothers want to be able to brush their daughter's hair in to a pony tail and run out the door but they deserve our patience and the little extra time it takes to keep their hair healthy.

I love seeing moms talk about the ORGANIC food they buy, and not letting their kids have food with preservatives and such and how they never let their kids eat this or that but I look down and she and her daughter both have relaxed hair. You don't think those chemicals affect you?

So that's my opinion on good hair bad hair.

Good hair = healthy

Bad hair = broke off hot mess

My Natural Hair Journey - The Big Chop

I love my new hair!!!!!

Well, let me go back and start from the beginning. Last July I decided that I wanted to color my hair a soft cinnamon like how Tyra Banks used to have her hair. My hair was just below the shoulders and relaxed. That weekend I went out to the local store and bought a home coloring kit (permanent dye). Which I applied incorrectly since I had never really colored my hair before and I applied it like you would a perm. I sectioned my hair into four sections and applied root to tip. Problem is that the four sections ended up being 4 different colors because of the application time. (My hair is super super thick) SO needless to say I didn't know what the hell I was doing and had no business coloring my own hair. But I was like "how hard can it be?" Well apparently it was really hard! SO I got the dumb butt award that day.

Well I can't go to work with parts of my hair blonde, orange, apple red, and brown. I looked a HOT MESS!!!!

SO I went to Sally's and asked the lady what to do. This genius said to put a toner and a darker red rinse on my hair to even out the color.

BIG MISTAKE.

Now all of my hair was orange and blonde (but not a good blonde a ghetto mess color blonde)

SO I went to my cousin who does hair on the side but never went to school for it and she told me to buy this Chinese black-brown natural hair rinse and just cover it all up and stop trying to fix the unfixable.

That was the next step...

Keep in mind this all happened over one weekend.

That was my next mistake!!! I should have just thrown a wig on it and called it a day and let my hair recondition before continuing to process it. (I must have been off my game that weekend because duh! I know that)

So the following week my hair was falling out in clumps... I wonder why???

I trimmed and trimmed and trimmed and trimmed but nothing worked.

My hair was dry, brittle and completely unmanageable. Needless to say when I did relax it again the relaxers didn't take. You can't relax damaged hair and expect good results.

So now almost a year later my hair has still not recovered. It won't take a relaxer My hair was literally in shock. My new growth was damaged because my hair was splitting up the shaft. I was having to flat iron and use a curling iron at the highest heat setting and it was just making matters worse. I started wearing weaves to let it just calm down and stop freaking out.

3 months ago I stopped relaxing it. And just wore weaves. (glued in)

Through the help of many YouTube friends I have decided to just go natural.

When i took my hair down and washed and conditioned it 2 weeks ago I noticed my new growth actually had shine and looked healthy. So I decided to cut off the relaxed part and just start over. I knew that there was no sense in trying to transition because my relaxed hair was really really damaged. My hair was only like 6 inches long on top anyway. So my big chop wasn't that tramatizing.

What I have found very strange is that my hair texture has become extremely curly.

I've been getting my hair relaxed since I was 4 so I've never seen my own hair texture. So now I have a TWA. And I'm so happy with how soft, and manageable my hair is. Many of the YouTube videos have shown me how to care for my hair and even though this is only my first week I think that I have the advantage of starting out on a good foot with a lot of great advice.

I haven't bought any natural products yet I'm still using the products I already had. I'm just using less of them. I've also been able to stop using grease in my hair. This is really strange to me because grease was my relaxed hair's best friend. But it just sits on top of my natural hair. I'm using the co-wash method because my hair loves water and it's not too happy with shampoo. My conditioner doesn't have any silicones in it or protein so it's just making my hair softer and softer. I'm co-washing my hair every other day. In between I'm just rewetting it and putting in a creamy leave-in lotion by organics that's meant for children's hair.

I also use a very very tiny bit of gel and my hair is soft and curly and not frizzy at all! My relaxed hair was always a ball of frizz with even the slightest bit of moisture.

This week I've had a few negative comments about me going natural and how natural hair isn't professional but I just shake that off. If a company fires me over my hair, I'll be living in a mansion by the end of the year so it's a win win. ha ha.

I don't think my boss gives two craps about my hair as long as my work is done. That's the beauty of a man boss. He probably hasn't even noticed that I cut it.

So that's my story of why I'm going natural. Contrary to popular belief I'm not a political activist, I'm not a vegatarian tree hugger, I'm not Jamaican (someone asked me that today, idiot!) I just want healthy hair. I'm sick of waking up and having hair all over my pillow.

Originally I was just going to let it stay natural to let it rest and then go back to relaxing it after I got a little bit of length. But after seeing the other women on youtube I don't think I'm going to go back to relaxed hair. All of my person misconceptions about what natural hair looks like has been changed. I didn't even know that my hair was curly!!! I was always told that I had unruly, unmanageable, dry, thick hair and the only way to tame it was to chemically process it to death.

Shame on my grandma for relaxing my hair in the first place!!!