My Natural Hair Journey

I have always loved experimenting with my hair for as long as I can remember and think I have a natural knack for styling hair as well. I particularly like coloring my hair as I found black hair to be “boring”. In one of my experimenting sessions at university I decided to relax and box color my hair on the same day (yes I know, what was I thinking?) all in effort to return home during Christmas break not looking like the hell that I had been through during that semester.  Let me tell you, my hair was FABULOUS honey and you could not tell me otherwise.

As time went on, I started to notice that my hair was thinning out and breaking off no matter how many trims I took. I tried both homemade and store-bought deep conditioning and protein treatments – nothing worked! My relaxed hair had decided that it had enough and was done. I felt like the only thing left to do was to cut off all my relaxed hair and start from scratch! I was petrified at the thought of this, my mane was my glory, my random conversation starter, my license to give unsolicited advice on how to care for your hair. I pride myself on my shiny bouncy layered cut hair which was always well-groomed. So much of my self-presentation was linked to my hair and for me to now have to cut it all off, I would have failed!

I was mortified at the idea of having to wear my natural hair because for starters, I had no idea how my natural hair looked (I had it relaxed at a very young age). I hated the look of natural hair on women as it seemed unattractive, dull, and boring to me (in retrospect that was just ignorance and societal brainwash). The worse part was that I would have to wear my hair short.

After consultation with my mom to inquire what my natural hair looked like, harassing my roommates constantly on whether or not I should cut my hair and the constant viewing of youtube videos I was empowered to cut off my relaxed hair and grow out my natural hair for a while. Initially, I planned to relax it again once it started growing back because there was no way sis was going to walk around looking unattractive, dull, and boring.  Call it self-fulfilling prophesy but I felt very unattractive with my TWA (teeny weeny afro). At that time I could not identify with all the youtube vid of girls saying how they felt liberated, beautiful, and loved their natural hair (to be honest I felt like they were all frauds). I constantly felt that I had to over feminize myself so I never wore pants – only dresses that gave off the girly-girl vibe because I had to prove that ‘hey my hair is short now but am a still a girl’. Looking back I realized that I only needed to prove that to myself because no one else cared.

I tried to cover my hair by wearing braids that barely hung on to my hair because it was that short. At some point, and really because it was taking up all my money as a student, I decided to own my look and rock my hair because this was only a temporary situation until it was long enough for me to relax all over again.

Somewhere along the way between falling in love my curls, the numerous compliments I received, and countless hours spent on youtube vid (yes more youtube vids) I began to love my hair, by extension love myself. Slowly but surely, I became the biggest advocate for woman rocking their natural hair. This led me to create a natural hair page on Facebook called HairMeOut where we celebrated, encouraged, and showcased women just loving and caring for their natural curl, coils, and kinks.

Amidst the shedding, sometimes dryness, and just downright stubbornness of my hair I think embracing my natural hair has been one of the best decisions that I have made and in so doing, I somehow managed to empower others to do the same. No matter the texture, length, or thickness of your natural hair it is beautiful, unique, and perfect just for you because it’s your God-given hair. Learn to love your hair so that the onlooking generation of young girls can know that they too can rock their own unapologetically. To some, it might just be hair but for us, it is our crowning jewel.