African Girl with Natural Hair Series:The Journey

I have had natural hair since June, 2006. It has been one of the most interesting journeys I have ever taken. It has come with some surprising discoveries about myself and a whole lots of lessons about hair.

 I decided to cut my hair because I was very curious about my natural hair. My hair was permed since I was 14 years old and I did not remember what my real texture hair felt or looked like. Before I went natural, I did not spend a lot of time thinking about how I would look or how people would react, I just knew it was something I wanted to do. For the first two years I had no idea how to take care of my hair.

Unfortunately I did not document my hair journey very well but I will try to share some pictures though some of them are not very good. Here is my only picture after I did the big chop. It is very blurry because it is a low resolution picture. I loved this look because it was so easy to take care of. I washed my hair everyday and put a leave-in moisturizer from time to time.

This was the next picture I could find. It probably took 6-8 months to grow my hair to this length. I still had no clue on what to do and the products I needed to take care of it. Water was still my best friend partly in part because I enjoy washing my hair and it was such a treat that I could wash and wear it.

These two pictures are my attempts of styling my hair. I had been growing my hair for about two and a half years and had learnt a lot more about taking care of it. One is my version of a banded afro and the other is a twist out.

This style is was my fist attempt to wear a natural style for a formal event. I loved this hair do an it convinced me that I could wear my natural hair for any occasion. It was a flat twist and single double strand twist style done by Tonya at Uncle Funky's daughter. If you are ever in Houston, Texas and need natural hair styling; it is the place to go. They have since created some great natural hair products that can be purchased on their website.

I will write a series of posts about what I have learnt from growing out my natural hair but here are some of the things I have learnt.

• Black hair can definitely grow. You do not have to be mixed to grow long hair. 
• Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize! I cannot say this enough. Our hair is dry and needs moisture to stop it from breaking. I started out by mixing water with cooking oils in my kitchen such as olive oil or coconut oil. 
• As you take care of your hair, you may be surprised by seeing what you may consider a texture change. It is just the way your hair is responding to the care you are giving it. 
• Some products are not good for our hair such as mineral oil and petroleum. They coat the hair and make it hard to moisturize
• Protective styling helps give your hair a break. 

This was my hair in December of 2009. I will post some more recent pictures in the upcoming blog posts. I hope the pictures that I have posted so far will encourage you to take the step if you are thinking about it. The following resources were invaluable to me on my journey
http://www.naturalhairrules.com/
http://www.afrobella.com/
http://bglhonline.com/ which used to be http://blackgirllonghair.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/kimmaytube
http://www.youtube.com/user/Longhairdontcare2011