Six Things.

• 1.       It takes a LONG time to outgrow relaxed hair – I say all this to say I can’t believe how pernickety I used to get about relaxing my hair anytime I saw the tiniest bit of regrowth coming back. I haven’t relaxed my hair in half a year and it’s barely noticeable. That being said, it actually wasn’t until last Wednesday night (March 30th), when I was properly feeling my hair, that I was finally beginning to feel significant tightly coiled strands throughout my hair.

it's a crazy mess at the back, and as you can see it's practically all natual

• 2.        Find a hair style – In the beginning I had no idea what to do with my day for every day, and really struggled to find a hair style that would accommodate my short hair. Before, I had been keeping my hair in a bun (RIP), but having trimmed my hair it was no longer able to reach up to the top of my head. However because I didn’t quite know what to do with my hair I divided my hair in half and tied the top half of my hair in a bun and left the bottom free. After a few weeks I found this style didn’t look nice when I left the house and read about keeping your ends tucked away; so I then decided to put the lower half of my hair in a bun. Again I didn’t like this style and felt self-conscious whenever I left the house with my hair in a style I felt was more fitting for someone in nursery. This was definitely the beginning of my hair revolution when I found my trademark style. It started off as two twists (I had no idea how to braid or cornrow my hair), but then after an afternoon watching how to French braid hair, I started practising how to French/Dutch braid my hair. I found that my hair looked neater, I felt more confident and it was more convenient for me – especially after washing my hair. So basically to cut this already long paragraph short, the point was that I learnt more about my hair by finding a style that could work for every day, look nice, keep my ends tucked away, and that meant the growing difference in texture of my hair was not obvious. More than anything, finding your trademark makes everything so much easier, especially when you’re transitioning.

I also used this style to gauge how well my damaged, broken edges were growing out as more growth meant more hair could fit into the braid

• 3.       Moisturise every day! – Up until about a year before I went au natural, I barely did anything to my hair except leave it for weeks on end without proper nourishment and then complain about how dry/ tough/ hard to handle my hair was. These days I’m moisturising every other day if not every day.
• 4.       Treatments are a MUST! – Following on from making sure to keep my hair moisturised, I learnt that doing a treatment once a week helped my hair a lot, especially my badly damaged edges. I love making my own all natural hair masks, as well as using store bought products. Two of my favourite treatments are: the green tea rinse and the Vitale Olive Oil hair mayonnaise.
• 5.        Samples are a girl’s best friend – In the early days of my natural journey (and even to this day) I read a lot about samples, and how it’s best to start out with small product samples as opposed to just going out and buying a full bottle or tub or something, not knowing whether you or your hair like it. Over the months, I’ve shared some reviews for products that were samples I got, and I’m glad I was able to try the various products in small doses because some of them would have felt like a waste if had I bought a full size container but only used the tiniest bit of it. The small samples also helped me compile a list of fuller sized products I want to buy. Additionally, most times samples are free which means you get to save money trying a product, and if it turns out that you don’t particularly like something, it wouldn’t have cost you anything anyway.

• 6.        RESEARCH IS EVERYTHING – If you were to go through my internet search history you’d see I’ve spent the majority of the last six months researching all kinds of different hair products, ingredients to make hair treatments, benefits of said ingredients, reading other naturalista’s hair journeys, tips and tricks for how to handle hair (i.e. not combing it, sleeping in a bonnet or on a silk pillow case, refraining from using hair ties etc.), the list goes on. In this day and age, Google is a girl’s best friend when it comes to looking for effective hair advice, especially when you’re a total novice like me. Research, along with trial and error, is vital to your own journey and it’s important to at least have a rough idea of what you’re doing and seeing if other people have tried it too.

Labels: 2016, afro hair, black girl, black hair, hair, hair journey, hair review, lessons learned, natural hair, post-relaxer, relaxed hair, six months natural, transitioning hair, update