I am one of the many African American women who wears their hair in its natural state. Since I love reading about other's hair stories, I thought I would share mine.
In this post I will talk about my natural hair journey from the past, present and possible future. I do not have pictures of me from the past so I will try to explain things as best as I can so you can get a mental image.
Before starting my natural journey
I was the typical African American girl when it came to the hairstyles that I wore. Up until I was 12 years old, it was all braided styles. Some with added hair and some with just my hair.
Once I started middle school, my mother started sending me to a hairstylist to get my hair chemically relaxed. I thought I looked good with it. My peers consisted of mainly white kids, so I wanted to fit in with them.
The unfortunate thing is that I never fit in with them regardless of how burnt and laid down my hair was. After a while I started hating my relaxed hair and looked forward to the times when my mother would take me to get box braids put in. That became the only look I liked on myself.
How my natural journey began
I was in 10th grade and my mom took me to an Aveda salon to get my hair relaxed. The hairstylist (she was white) talked to me about her African American boyfriend and his hair texture. She told me that I should consider wearing my true texture out instead of getting it relaxed.
After thinking about it, I agreed. She did not apply the relaxer and twisted my hair instead. The hairstylist was really excited to tell my mother my choice to go natural.
Unfortunately, my mother was not excited about me going natural. Too bad my mind was made up though.
The transitioning process
The hairstylist at the Aveda salon instructed me on how to transition. She told me to twist my hair in sections and then eventually cut off the relaxed ends. My mom did help me with the twisting even though she didn’t like the look.
I began scouring the internet and checking out/buying books about natural hair during the process. I just wanted to understand my hair texture and learn how to take care of it. Falling off the transitioning bandwagon was not going to be an option for me.
For whatever reason, I thought that my hair would come in loosely curled. Looking back on it makes me feel foolish. It was not realistic at all and definitely not what happened!
I still wanted to stay the course because there was no way I was going back to the stinky, burning relaxers. When I clipped off the last pieces of relaxed hair, I felt amazing. A little scared but amazing.
My hair texture
My hair type is 4C (https://www.kinkycurlyyaki.com/blogs/natural-hair-blogs/span-class-s2-b-understanding-your-4c-hair-type-b-span-span-class-s3-br-span). It is super thick, kinky and dry. My front edges are extremely difficult to moisturize and requires some extra love.
It also doesn’t seem to grow very fast. Maybe that has to do with PCOS? Or maybe some people aren’t meant to have fast growing hair?
I honestly didn’t like that I had the kinkiest of hair types at first, but I ended up embracing it after a while. It is uniquely mine!
Hairstyles I did while fully natural (no dreadlocks yet)
When I became fully natural back in 2007, I did not do too much with my hair. Wash n’ gos are considered to be something that 4C hair types can’t do, but I did them anyways. I would get up in the morning, spray my hair with water, do some finger detangling and push a headband over my edges.
This might sound like a hot mess, but it actually looked good and I got a lot of compliments on it. A couple of times a year I would also drive 1.5 hours away to get kinky twists put in (https://therighthairstyles.com/kinky-twists-hairstyles/4/).
During this time, I only used products by Suave. Their juicy green apple scent was my favorite. I washed my hair once a week and did a full detangling with a wide toothed comb.
From wanting dreadlocks to having them for a few years
In 2009, I had been seeing pictures of African American women with gorgeous dreadlocks. The more I looked at these women the more I wanted to have dreadlocks too.
I did more research on getting nice looking dreadlocks. At first, I was interested in Sisterlocks (super, super tiny locs). The price tag was too much of a shocker for me though ($500+). I talked to the lady that had been doing my kinky twists and I decided to go with regular dreadlocks that were just on the small size instead.
She started my dreadlocks off by way of the interlocking method. It took about three hours. I wasn’t crazy about them right away because they were so short. I knew I needed to be patient and eventually I would look like the women in the pictures.
So, patient I was! They grew and grew along with my love for them. I washed them once a week with Hugo’s Naturals products (they don’t sell shampoo and conditioner anymore) and just let them do their thing.
Around the time I started taking Lamictal for evening seizures (2013), my dreadlocks started thinning in the middle. They eventually needed to be pulled off and then I was left with short hair again. This broke my heart because I didn’t know why it was happening and I wanted my long hair back.
One of the side effects that people taking Lamictal report is hair loss. Even though physicians will say that it will not cause that, I believe that it was part of the thinning issue I had. Maybe PCOS was part of it too?
I was desperate to get my length back, so I bought 100% natural human kinky hair. I then made the hair into dreadlocks and had my husband sew them in. They didn’t match my dreadlocks exactly, but I was excited to have longer hair.
After a while the thinning stopped and my hair seemed like it was doing fine again.
The present (2020)
My hair has been healthy. I am happy to say that a month ago, I cut off my last remaining dreadlock extension. It is all my own hair now!
Some of my dreadlocks haven’t grown much at all since my hair loss fiasco but I am okay with that. I still love the way they look. They are completely unique to me and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I guess you can say I am little bit high maintenance with my hair care. I am always worried about PCOS coming to snatch my hair just like it does for a lot of women with the condition. I only get my hair interlocked once every 3-4 months to make sure I am not damaging it.
Here is my hair care routine (usually once a week):
1. Hair mask for 30 minutes- I make a hair mask using two eggs, two tablespoons of full-fat mayonnaise, two tablespoons of honey, two tablespoons of olive oil and usually five drops of peppermint or rosemary essential oil.
2. Shampoo- I use a fragrance-free shampoo from a company called Earth Science Naturals.
3. Condition- I use a fragrance-free conditioner from the Vanicream line of products.
4. Spray- After washing my hair, I get out and spray my hair with a mix of aloe vera juice and pumpkin oil.
5. Almond oil- After smoothing the spray into my hair, I then put almond oil on it. I make sure to get extra on my front edges as that area is super dry.
I like to baby my hair and I also love to have weekly beauty routines. The only style I do is a braidout occasionally. To do this, I braid my hair after washing it and then take the braids out two days later.
The possible future
As of right now, I plan on having dreadlocks for at least a few more years. If I was going to do anything else with my hair, I would have it loose and get one of the many types of twists put in every few months.
When I start losing a bunch of hair, I think I will cut it really short and then rock some nice wigs. Hopefully that won’t happen for a long time though.
So, there you have it!
That is my natural hair story. I know this post was long but I hope you found it interesting.
As always, thanks for reading my post!
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