My Journey to Natural Hair

As with many black women, my hair has been a constant struggle in my life. I didn't have many of the issues many sisters have had as my mother was a gifted stylist.  My long, thick nappy hair was always carefully beaten into submission with perms and dryers and of course, my mamas trusty grease. Being as I was blessed with constant hair care when I was younger, High school rolled around and I realized I had no idea how to do my own hair. So I took the braid route.

I wore braids most of my high school career. It was easier as I was very active in dance and HATED getting up in the morning to fuss with my hair in its relaxed state. It was way too easy to toss my long locks in a pony tail than to make sure it looked nice and presentable. 

Well, then came college, with my mother hundreds of miles away and a limited income, I found myself stumped for fresh hair styles. I was lucky enough to find a black cosmetologist that was gifted in hair weaving that would service my hair as long as I hair modeled and promoted her as the black hair dresser in our black lite Northern California town. 

I had the bombest weaves being as Ms Roz had no idea how to straighten my thick long mane with out breaking off my hair and having it still look like a bunch of SOS pads. So weaves it was.

After 9 years of hiding my natural hair, I decided to get locked. I had 5 years of perm free natural hair and figured this was as good of time as any to get "locked down." Unfortunately my loctitian flaked on me the day before I was to start a new job, so off to Walgreens for two boxes of creamy crack and the cycle began again.

Then, my perm laziness kicked in once again, I didn't feel like wrapping my hair up at night sometimes, wouldn't want to wake up early to flat iron it, so after two weeks, up in a tired ponytail it would go. 

I kept thinking, I need to just go back to wearing braids. But my hair grows crazy fast (a blessing and a curse.) It is also naturally thick so I would be charged an arm and a leg for small braids and then have to take them down after 6 weeks because I had an inch or so of bushy new growth. 

I finally found an affordable braider, a college student yippie. Well after the 2nd takedown, I realized why she was so cheap. She got tired of braiding the entire length of my hair so she only braided it half way down the shaft and then superglued my hair to the extension hair to prevent it from unravelling. Something I didn't notice until I was upbraiding my hair and half of it was broken. 

So I said screw it and stuck to getting my hair deep conditioned and cornrowed and then wearing wigs. The lady that cornrows my hair would always comment on the length and thickness and asked why I never wore it natural and uncovered. I really couldn't give her a straight answer but I suppose it was because as long as I could remember, I had a perm, my hair was never in its natural state. I was so tenderheaded that my mom used to joke I came out of the womb with a jar of TCB slapped on my head. My long straight hair was always so praised that I realized that I was embarrassed to let my hair admirers down by letting my hair kick it in its natural state. 

She offered, for the same price as my typical cornrow, to give me a natural style just to see if I liked it. Well who am I to turn down a free style, I took it, nervously and went to show it to my mother, who actually loved it. It got great reviews. 

It also encouraged me to look into other natural styles. I still loved locks, but was nervous about the everchanging female mind. Kept wondering "What if I don't like it after a while." While researching on the net I came across Sisterlocks. They looked so pretty I couldn't wait to get them installed.