The Natural Me

Change is good. We've all heard that one before. Well, Im gon have to agree. All change ain't good but I say hey give it here. I get tired of dealing with the same old BS all the time. No matter when or how, we will always experience some type of BS. The same BS all the time gets old. Besides that, it means you're going in circles, never solving anything. So I guess in the end, change is good. Anywhoo...change is what I needed about a year ago. My hair was long but it was damaged and uneven and beginning to thin in the front. I knew it was coming from perming my hair (and my famous ponytail wasn't helping much either) so I decided to do something drastic and go natural. I didn't want to continue to damage my hair. One of my worst fears is going bald, thinning or not having a healthy head of hair period. My Gramma always told me that a woman's hair is her crown and glory and to take care of it well. I followed her instructions well until I had my son in 1993 and got tired of caring for it naturally and not to mention I wasn't caring for it right anyway. I was frying it every chance I could with a straightening comb to get the straight look. Back then, that's how we got the permed look without the perm. I had no idea how to care for it so I did what I thought was right and permed it. SMH It provided the convenience I was looking for but it wasn't healthy and started a process of damaging my hair.

My last perm was in June 2010. The first few months wasn't bad of course. About eight months in, I began to get frustrated because it was becoming harder to deal with my hair and I was seeing alot of breakage. It began to scare me. I would call my sister with so many questions about how to deal with my hair. She knew a little about caring for hair. She kept up on that kind of stuff. She did her own hair a lot. Me, I depended on the salon all the time. She gave me lots of tips about how to condition and strengthen. She offered names to lots of products and techniques to care for my hair. It helped alot. I also took advice and tips from youtube videos and blogs, also friends who had gone natural too. I was noticing that my natural hair was growing and looking healthy but the permed hair looked, DEAD. It was falling out all over the place. It became hard to style and my hair looked a mess. All my life I've had a decent length of hair. I wasn't used to a short look and after eighteen years my husband wasn't used to it either. I was afraid to cut it. Some time passed and my natural hair was beginning to grow as long as the permed hair. The permed hair had all basically fallen off. It looked terrible. I couldn't take it anymore. I finally decided to just cut it a year later. Not short, just the permed hair. OMGEEE! I was so happy with the result! It took a day or two for me to get used to it but it was definitely the move to make. It looked awesome! A curly fro! LOL Too funny! I got all good feedback. Of course that made me know that what I did was right. So, now I'm wearing it curly. I haven't straightened it since I cut it two weeks ago and I probably won't for a while. At least the length of the summer. In just the two weeks time, I've noticed that it's grown nicely. I can't wait until the Christmas season! I'm dying to see what it's going to look like! I'm experimenting with different products to see which ones work better for me. I'm open to any suggestions that anybody would like to share. I know there's a lot of woman out there doing the natural challenge. I'm so glad I did. I wish I would have did it sooner. No, scratch that. I wish I never would've permed my hair. SMH @ me.