When I decided to go back to being natural, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. The process was an intimidating one for me and for many young women who decide to transition, especially if you have worn chemically relaxed hair for a number of years.
There are many of us who found that it’s not an easy decision to make on your own. For people like us we look for inspiration from others such as friends, family, bloggers, vloggers and YouTube channels of people who are openly natural.
We dig into their history to find out what made them return to natural hair, the first steps they took, the difficulties, the setbacks, the comebacks and much more.
It’s exciting and helpful to see the wonderful “before and after” images, the do it yourself mixes, the hairstyles and techniques on that person’s natural hair journey. We want to know how that person got back to their natural hair and became comfortable in wearing it out confidently hoping that it gives us that little push we need to make that step for ourselves.
It often makes us question, “can I do it just like she did?”. What I learned from the natural hair journey of others that I followed helped me to finally decide to go natural myself.
We know that at the end of the day you have to decide for yourself; however, the decision can be greatly affected by the information we learn through those we consult with on our conquest to being natural again. These are the individuals I like to call natural hair ‘influencers’.
They share their journey through a social medium and as such can have a great impact on the people that happen to be enamored with their journey.
My story is unique but not uncommon. I never knew I would be natural and like many others my hair was chemically- relaxed every 4- 6 weeks without missing a beat.
My hair was lifeless and it hardly looked lustrous unless I went to the salon. When I did go to the salon I always walked out feeling like a “boss” and twirled all the way to my “boss” car, which at that time was a Mazda Protégé (don’t laugh, it was a BMW in my head) 😀 .
I never could see myself as natural because it just wasn’t something common in my environment and it had a negative connotation attached to it.
Also, because I am Nigerian, the only way I thought I could go natural was to cut all my relaxed hair off to a TWA. This was not going to work for me.
There was also my attachment to weaves which was another reason for me not to entertain the idea of going natural because weaves gave me an alternative and straight hair was my norm.
nice
Nice