Crackers Phinn
Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
Just do it already!
Sometimes that nagging voice in the back of your mind is your intuition telling you something ain't right for you, and is not, I REPEAT IS NOT 300 years of oppression telling you to conform to a European standard of beauty.
Let me tell ya'll a story fam.
For folks that don't know me, I was relaxed when I came to this board and decided that the best way to achieve my hair goals was to go natural.
During a 14 month transition, where I stumbled from product to product and all kind of hair utensils trying to 'work with my hair'. I thought about relaxing my hair almost every day for the first 6 months and then when I finally got a workable regimen, the thoughts faded a bit.
When I did my BC, I was loving my hair. My regimen was pretty solid and I dug wearing a puff. Easy riding from here on out, right?
Naw son, I learned really quick that my hair was prone to knotting. It didn't matter what kind of protective style it was in, if I trimmed within weeks the knots were back. I went to every hair board looking for solutions and the best advice anybody could give me was - scissors.
Some won't agree but to me scissors are not a solution, they are a symptom of a problem. NOBODY should have to trim their hair every other week. ESPECIALLY if the same person wasn't prone to split ends or knotting when their hair was in a 'weaker' relaxed state. Of course every time I picked up my hair shears, the lil voice in the back of my mind was like 'not this ish again!'
When I got into my third year as a natural, I found my knotting problem changed as my hair got longer. Instead of knotting at the ends of my hair I started getting multiple single strand knots up my hair strands. After a 2 inch cut and then another 4 inch cut six months later I WAS LIVID. I had a lot of internal arguements with myself on how being natural was basically costing me the ability to retain length. My happy medium was that I was going to start heat training my hair.
Pressing my natural hair didn't last long because the combination of returning knots + almost instant reversion made the process futile. So I spent a good 3 months researching relaxing regimens/interviewing potential stylists and finally went to do the deed.
I ended up relaxing (texlaxing) last August and haven't had a second thought about being natural. If anything I know that the only time I'll return to natural hair is if I'm content with keeping a short cropped style since length seems to lead to the knotting problem for me.
The point of my story is that I went natural and was content with my hair but it just wasn't working for me so I made a change. But even more importantly, since I've been relaxed that little nagging voice has faded into the background. Although, it comes back out around 15 weeks post to tell me it's time for a touch up.
I'm putting this out there because I still read natural threads and I see alot of myself in the problems folks are trying to overcome. Maybe 'you' will be able to find the thing that helps your hair woes, but if you don't and your hair becomes a source of inner turmoil sometimes you shouldn't feel shame for seriously considering relaxing.
That's all I got.
Sometimes that nagging voice in the back of your mind is your intuition telling you something ain't right for you, and is not, I REPEAT IS NOT 300 years of oppression telling you to conform to a European standard of beauty.
Let me tell ya'll a story fam.
For folks that don't know me, I was relaxed when I came to this board and decided that the best way to achieve my hair goals was to go natural.
During a 14 month transition, where I stumbled from product to product and all kind of hair utensils trying to 'work with my hair'. I thought about relaxing my hair almost every day for the first 6 months and then when I finally got a workable regimen, the thoughts faded a bit.
When I did my BC, I was loving my hair. My regimen was pretty solid and I dug wearing a puff. Easy riding from here on out, right?
Naw son, I learned really quick that my hair was prone to knotting. It didn't matter what kind of protective style it was in, if I trimmed within weeks the knots were back. I went to every hair board looking for solutions and the best advice anybody could give me was - scissors.
Some won't agree but to me scissors are not a solution, they are a symptom of a problem. NOBODY should have to trim their hair every other week. ESPECIALLY if the same person wasn't prone to split ends or knotting when their hair was in a 'weaker' relaxed state. Of course every time I picked up my hair shears, the lil voice in the back of my mind was like 'not this ish again!'
When I got into my third year as a natural, I found my knotting problem changed as my hair got longer. Instead of knotting at the ends of my hair I started getting multiple single strand knots up my hair strands. After a 2 inch cut and then another 4 inch cut six months later I WAS LIVID. I had a lot of internal arguements with myself on how being natural was basically costing me the ability to retain length. My happy medium was that I was going to start heat training my hair.
Pressing my natural hair didn't last long because the combination of returning knots + almost instant reversion made the process futile. So I spent a good 3 months researching relaxing regimens/interviewing potential stylists and finally went to do the deed.
I ended up relaxing (texlaxing) last August and haven't had a second thought about being natural. If anything I know that the only time I'll return to natural hair is if I'm content with keeping a short cropped style since length seems to lead to the knotting problem for me.
The point of my story is that I went natural and was content with my hair but it just wasn't working for me so I made a change. But even more importantly, since I've been relaxed that little nagging voice has faded into the background. Although, it comes back out around 15 weeks post to tell me it's time for a touch up.
I'm putting this out there because I still read natural threads and I see alot of myself in the problems folks are trying to overcome. Maybe 'you' will be able to find the thing that helps your hair woes, but if you don't and your hair becomes a source of inner turmoil sometimes you shouldn't feel shame for seriously considering relaxing.
That's all I got.