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Why Natural Hair

25 March 2011
Last week I did a post on natural hair care. I am no authority but I have gone through many trial and error but, spoken to natural hair authorities and those who have been natural longer than I have about my hair.

I went natural seven years ago after returning from a trip to Jerusalem. I had just moved back to Texas from NYC and I was tired of the chemical burns, flaky allergy prone scalp and hair loss.

Growing up in Texas, no self respecting woman of color went natural. If you did it was assumed that you were a lesbian or militant. In fact when I went natural one of my managers at a store I was working at told me that maybe I should reconsider and relax my hair so that I can be more mainstream and non-threatening.

Yes, this was the mentality of people in Texas, home of creamy crack and lace fronts alla Beyoncé. It is not uncommon to not ever see a woman of color and even some white women's natural hair. It is usually covered by a wig, a weave and other crazy things. So bucking the system in 2004 was a big deal for me. But as the story goes, when one domino falls the rest follows. To this day, four of my friends and my mother--the lady who told me I needed to get my hair fixed--has gone completely natural. I am very proud of that. There is something freeing about being natural. I cannot explain but I have to say I have been more confident since the big chop.

I believe going natural is not necessarily a cultural thing, but a health thing. The chemicals we place on our hair seeps into our scalp and then into our blood stream, its deadly. I have recently decided to forego dying my hair with chemical processing tint. Instead, I will use henna or clay colors, they are natural. When I get the time I will do a write up on non-chemical hair dyes.

With my natural hair I have gone through many changes. I started with an afro, then spent three years growing locs and then last year in June I cut all my locs off before moving to Italy and now I have an afro again and I think I will  be sticking with it this time around. Now I must stop being lazy and take care of it because I want it to look like Janelle Monae's huge fro.

 If I can convert more women--not just women of color but all women; would love to see white women stop bleaching their hair blonde (of course this is the extremist in me, but I am not an advocate for this)--to go natural I will. But for now I will leave my natural hair crusade for later. Next week I will do a post on some amazing products that you can use to moisturize and condition your hair, but until then enjoy my hair-o-graphy.

18 months of being natural, 2005

2 years of being natural, Sept 2006

8 months of loc growth, Feb 2008


2 years of loc growth






2 years 5 months of loc growth, Nov 2009

the second big chop, June 2010

Dec. 2010, 6 months after the big chop

My hair now, 9 months after the chop, March 2011


Happy Friday and Weekend






4 comments on "Why Natural Hair"
  1. omg i want to grow dreads next year ... loving your look Fantastic blog

    ..Check out my blog, lets follow each other....

    http://dtrh-stateofmind.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey woman! Welcome to my insane world! :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. i prefer natural hair than other stuffs

    ReplyDelete

Thanks chiclets for your chic comments. I look forward to hearing more from you.

Forever chic,