So my number one obsession right now is my hair. I've been natural for a little over three years. I first went natural when I was pregnant with my daughter. Then it was all braids and ponytails. I ended my pregnancy with a glorious crown of big thick hair. How would all that hair look straight and "beautiful"? I had to see. So I permed it. I don't know if I lost both the length and the thickness because of the perm or if my mom was right and babies take it all back once they're born. Either way I ended up with the same womp-womp length of sad brittle hair I'd had since high school.
Then I got pregnant again. Being pregnant with my son was...challenging. There are NO pictures. I was a HOUSE and refused to be filmed, photographed or otherwise gazed upon by human and non-human eyes. I don't remember what my hair looked like. The whole pregnancy was pretty much a blur of nausea, fatigue and being so fat I could see my own cheeks just by looking downward. So I'm pretty sure what happened there was that I PULLED my hair out. Thankfully he was a healthy preemie because I couldn't take much more beyond the 26 weeks he was in there.
Fast forward past our lovely and perfect happy family days and on to the divorce that happened a year after my son was born. My husband wasn't a horrible man. He was just very, very, VERY..."unmovable". The day he left I walked into the bathroom and had my very own waiting to exhale moment. I took the clippers he had left, started in the middle of my head (so I couldn't chicken out) and buzzzzzz!
The first few weeks were liberating. My mother recognized my cut as a sign of stress. My sister told me I was "bad ass". Coworkers were neither here nor there about it in the beginning. My hair was small and unoffensive. Then the grow out began and my questions of "what the heck am I supposed to do with the teenie weenie afro?" The
Kinky Curls products I had been using to smooth and tame my small curls started to make it feel gummy and crunchy at the same time. My curls became more difficult to organize and tame. I soon realized that it wasn't that my hair was more difficult, just that the routine and style I used on my brush length hair wasn't effective on my slightly longer hair. After reading a few blogs and moved on to
Garnier Fructis Curl and Shine (my budget option) and
Miss Jessie's products which held and defined my curls.
After the initial grow out I started to get frustrated. My hair wasn't long enough to wear the big curly styles I saw online and in magazines. But it wasn't short enough to wear the cute little curly 'dos I wanted to either. The
Miss Jessie's made my hair too stiff and the
Garnier was making it too puffy. I needed something more creamy than
Garnier but lighter than
Miss Jessie's. Accessories didn't seem to satisfy me. I couldn't get the curls right. I thought to myself that maybe a relaxer or even "just" a texturizer would make things easier. My frustration almost made me give in. After MORE research (you gotta love blogs) I settled happily into the world of
Carol's Daughter. There I found pomades, creams, lotions, oils, all the wonderfully smelling highly effective products I, a product junkie, could hope for. My ambition was renewed and I backed away from the chair and the creamy crack.
Now I'm even MORE natural and very satisfied with my routine of using shea butter and coconut oils. I seldom use anything to wash or even co-wash unless I have product build up. And since trying only ONE henna treatment three weeks ago my routine of buttery twist outs is so effective that I rarely have to use water to style and define my curls. I plan on making henna a regular part of my ritual. First Fridays used to be for clubbing. Now it's for henna. I love love LOVE henna. But that's another post.
There were a few minor set backs and frustrations but I am SO glad I didn't give in to the draw of the creamy crack. I feel more beautiful than ever and I've never been happier with my hair!
