The Road to El Natural
I guess I should start this post by saying that going natural is a process. It takes time and patience. First you have to decide whether being natural is the right choice for you and if it’s not your thing then you don’t have to pursue it.
In all honesty, I never in a million years thought I’d ever go natural. I was the Relaxer Queen in high school. Every 4-6 weeks I was at the salon getting a touch up. I wanted my hair to be bone straight and long. The latter never happened. Since I was getting it relaxed so much, it was becoming damaged. It would grow and then break off and adding color to the mix didn’t help. It was thinning and kind of brittle so to make it fuller I would get tracks glued or sewn in.
In college however, the frequency of getting my hair done decreased dramatically. I wasn’t able to afford to go to the salon every two weeks like I did at home so I had to resort to styling my hair myself. I only got relaxers when I came home for breaks every three months or so. After a while, doing my hair myself became tiresome so I began wearing braids. Braids were a hassle-free hair style that I enjoyed wearing. I didn’t have to worry about trying to do my hair if I was late for class. I could just get up and go. This is what started my natural process.
I went natural by accident. My last relaxer was in September 2007. I had my hair cut in the “Rhianna” bob that was stylish at the time but wasn’t able to keep it up due to the heat and humidity of Georgia (where I went to school). Around November I decided to get my hair done in kinky twists that lasted for a few months. From then on I rotated between twists and braids giving my hair a few days to rest before putting in new ones. I wore my hair like that until December 2008. By then my new growth was about as long as my hair was before I got the twists so I decided to go with it. I looked at videos on youtube for style inspiration, tried to find as many blogs as I could to learn what type of products to use, and harassed Tiffany for information since she was the only person I knew who had gone natural.
Starting out, things didn’t really go to plan. I didn’t know anything about my hair type and what products would be beneficial so there was a lot of trial and error. Eventually I found what worked (wash and go’s) and what didn’t (flat twists. Can’t get the hang of them) and I learned to love my hair is.
-Britney
