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!
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.
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.