Hi Kia
This is a very interesting topic. My mother always had long hair past her shoulders. It was quite curly, but it was very soft. I however had very spongy, coily hair from my father, which it very difficult to see the growth. From a long time, I was told that only certain people can have long hair, black women can't unless they were mixed with Asian, European, etc. Even my cousin said so. But my mother said that is not true. My hair did grow past my shoulders when I had a curly perm. When I had my hair relaxed it grow to the bottom of my chin. I am 41. I started to research everything on black hair, what vitamins to take etc. Then I started reading books by Lonnice Brittenum Bonner, Pam Ferrell, Lisa Akbari and Cathy Howse, and I started to look at how I looked after my hair. I started to use European perms and straighteners for my hair and after a while I stopped. I cut my hair off and I stopped perming my hair. I took up swimmming and I noticed the more often I had to wash my hair, my hair seemed to be getting thicker. I use to lightly blow dry my hair, then I started to style my hair in twists when it was wet and the next day, I started to rinse my hair with bottled water adding glycerine and Infusium 23. In July my hair stretched reached past half my earlobe. On the 29 July I started to rinse on a regular basis. It is now late October and my hair reaches past my earlobes to the bottom of my chin, I still swim every week. I have stopped blow drying my hair altogether. I comb and style it when it is wet, which takes about 10-15 minutes. While still in some black hair magazines, they suggest people who swim on a regular basis, should consider having their hair short, even my other cousin who lives in Liverpool throught I have my hair cut short because I swim. I have a friend who believes that I must have my hair in a weave or braids, to get successful growth, I say no, I want my own hair. She keep on saying how short my hair is. After a couple of months, she was surprised how much length I have, it's so thick etc, it's grown so much. I am amazed myself. I think Kia that we need a lot of education on looking after our hair. We need people who know, how to look after our hair. Also sites like long natural hair, and nappturality and this one and others are to be congratulated in educating we Ladies in growing our hair long, looking after it and keeping it healthy and I have to say Praise God for the internet, because a lot of us who still be in the dark. I don't go to the hairdresser, all I use is water, glycerine, Aloe vera gel and my hair vitamins, I comb my hair every two days. Now I can see how some of us Ladies have been conned, when people talk about we don't have the right genes etc. I colour my hair and it is still growing, we are all success stories, we have achieved what others say we could not. /images/graemlins/grin.gif
http://public.fotki.com/cassandra28uk
