Most naturalistas have a higher order calling to growing natural hair, some sort of super inspirational reason as their motive, but mine was purely out of a disastrous hair encounter. The story goes.......
I used to relax my hair and if I recall properly, my sister started relaxing my hair when I was 10 years old. Before then my mom had kept my hair in its natural state and for this I would like to say "ke a leboga mama", i.e. thank you mum! I'm glad my mom didn't burn my scalp with relaxers like most moms do to poor little toddlers!
But back to the main point, I had relaxed hair until 2009, in April that year I cut my hair really short and got what we refer to as a bob cut. The decision to cut my hair was purely to try something new, I was bored of my long relaxed hair. However when my hair grew longer I decided to do a blow out as I had noticed I usually braided my hair and only ever wore it out for 2 days to a week when it was relaxed, so there really was no need to keep burning my scalp through relaxers when in reality I kept my hair in braids all the time. FYI a blow out is a form of texlaxing hair, i.e. using chemical to process the hair to become 'straight' while keeping the curly/rough texture of the natural hair coil.
In May 2011 for the entire month I would wash my hair every 2 days and straighten it with a hair straightener. Unknown to me was the damage I was causing my hair through the heat Then in June 2011 I plaited my hair to soft dread and kept it until August. Beginning of August I removed the braids and to my surprise my hair fell off! Initially I thought it was just a portion of the head that was damaged, but no matter how gentle I was in removing the braids my hair was falling off from the roots! It finally hit me once I got done that I had an entirely bald head! I cried and slept my sorrows off, the next day I went to the salon to trim the minute hair shafts that were left to the same length and rocked what we refer to as a brush cut for a month. After a month I got a weave and started growing purely natural hair, no blow out and no excessive heat. Since September 2011 I stayed natural, till today! That is my story!
Team Natural Hair! Team Healthy African Afro!
I used to relax my hair and if I recall properly, my sister started relaxing my hair when I was 10 years old. Before then my mom had kept my hair in its natural state and for this I would like to say "ke a leboga mama", i.e. thank you mum! I'm glad my mom didn't burn my scalp with relaxers like most moms do to poor little toddlers!
But back to the main point, I had relaxed hair until 2009, in April that year I cut my hair really short and got what we refer to as a bob cut. The decision to cut my hair was purely to try something new, I was bored of my long relaxed hair. However when my hair grew longer I decided to do a blow out as I had noticed I usually braided my hair and only ever wore it out for 2 days to a week when it was relaxed, so there really was no need to keep burning my scalp through relaxers when in reality I kept my hair in braids all the time. FYI a blow out is a form of texlaxing hair, i.e. using chemical to process the hair to become 'straight' while keeping the curly/rough texture of the natural hair coil.
In May 2011 for the entire month I would wash my hair every 2 days and straighten it with a hair straightener. Unknown to me was the damage I was causing my hair through the heat Then in June 2011 I plaited my hair to soft dread and kept it until August. Beginning of August I removed the braids and to my surprise my hair fell off! Initially I thought it was just a portion of the head that was damaged, but no matter how gentle I was in removing the braids my hair was falling off from the roots! It finally hit me once I got done that I had an entirely bald head! I cried and slept my sorrows off, the next day I went to the salon to trim the minute hair shafts that were left to the same length and rocked what we refer to as a brush cut for a month. After a month I got a weave and started growing purely natural hair, no blow out and no excessive heat. Since September 2011 I stayed natural, till today! That is my story!
Team Natural Hair! Team Healthy African Afro!
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