My Natural Hair Journey

Now where do I begin.....I began my natural hair journey by accident. It all started back in July of 2009, I had received my last relaxer and rocked a nice quick weave style when I decided to travel back home to St. Louis to visit my family. When I came back from my trip I decided to keep my quick weave in a little bit longer and then decided to get a sew-in for my birthday which is in September. Well instead of  applying another perm to my head I decided to just wash and blow dry out my hair, which I have heard is better when getting your hair braided instead of having your hair braided on freshly relaxed hair.

So with my hair freshly washed, blow dried and flat ironed I went to my stylist at the time to have a sew-in installed. I rocked the sew-in for about 2 months and then decided to take it down. I wore my hair out for about a week before I decided to install yet another sew-in. Again not perming my hair because I did not want to experience severe breakage when my hair got braided for the sew-in. Long story short I became obsessed with sew-ins and weaves that I kept them in my head for almost a year straight till I realized that I have not relaxed my hair. At that point I decided I might as well continue with this journey since I never really liked relaxers.

Now mind you during this period where I was wearing a lot of sew-ins you can call this my transitioning period because I refused to get the BC (big chop). I tried to embrace my natural hair texture but was afraid and decided to go to the dominican salon to get my hair professionally straightened. This was a big mistake but I was not knowledgeable at the time what happens when your hair comes in contact with extreme heat. I was just happy that they could straighten my hair so good that it looked like I did have a relaxer and it lasted for at least 2 weeks. But I started to notice after washing my hair my curl pattern, especially at the top was becoming very loose and even bone straight at the very ends. I decided to do a little bit of research to find out why this was happening and thanks to YouTube I was able to look up plenty of videos of heat damaged hair, and how to treat it. Thanks to those natural hair gurus such as Kimmeytube, NinaPruitt, Black Onyx and others I was able to really embrace my natural hair.

After one more full sew-in (meaning I left no hair out) for 4 months I decided to start rocking my natural hair. Now since I still had some straight ends I did not rock a wash and go style but instead wore my hair in a twist/flexi-rod set which turned out pretty good for my first try. I have always loved curly styles such as the flexi-rod set and with my hair being natural it was a great style for me to rock during my transitional period and even here after.

Now that I am fully natural since my stylist Danni clipped the rest of my dead ends I will continue to rock my flexi rod set, and I plan on branching out and trying the twist outs and braid outs and other styles that I see while watching different youtube channels. And hopefully I can come here and share with you all the good and bad of being #natural. I am not going to act as if I know it all but just what works for me. My hair length goal is to get to bra strap length, once I get there the sky is the limit. Stay tuned!!