Pit Stops on my Natural Hair Journey!l

Sooooo, I’d say I’ve been natural since September 2014. But I haven’t put chemicals in my hair since I was a kid, maybe like 12 or 13. I’m 21 now.

The year before my freshman year...my hair was LONNNNNG — The year before my freshman year…my hair was LONNNNNG, this was also before I started getting my hair done at the salon on the regular, before I started cutting and coloring and all that jazz

I say I’ve been natural since September because that’s when I decided to stop straightening my hair. (it was also my return from Africa! woot woot #studyabroad) It seems like a lot of people do it for really big reasons. I’ve read people want to find themselves, and embrace their culture, or see what their hair really looks like. I really just did it…just because. I think? I was really just tired of straightening it. It’s so much work! Sometimes it would take me 8 hours! My hair is really thick, and I am REALLY tender headed, so I’d have to take my time! I’m not sure what texture I have….maybe a 3c/4a? But I’ve got to do some research. But it’s definitely been a journey!

In the beginning, I ALWAYS wore twist-outs. I was really self-conscious about my curl pattern because it was all over the place. I had one big section of heat damage and the hair would just hang straight in front of my face (from waking up most mornings in high school to master that “feathered bang”) But yea, I’d wear buns and twist-outs/braid-outs and stuff almost religiously.

After about 5 months of that crap, I decided to get my hair cut. I researched a bunch of salons that specialized in curly hair. I ended up not going to a salon and just chopping it myself! I figured I didn’t want to spend my money for someone else to f*ck up my hair, at least if I messed it up, I could blame myself! It went pretty good! I ended up cutting a little bit for a week until I got comfortable.

Ever since, I’ve almost totally stopped doing twist-outs! I do wash-n-go’s all the time! And ppl compliment my hair so much now! I wouldn’t say it was a immediate transformation, but I became a lot more comfortable with my hair.