You are natural now and with this journey you are going to go through trials and errors you can’t even imagine. You are excited that now your hair is creamy crack free then soon you realize that there is a multitude of methods, techniques, tools, products, regimens to making your natural journey work for you and to be successful at it.
If you go into it blindly you can easily become overwhelmed and feel in over your head. Before you start second rethinking your decision to come back natural let me make you aware of some mistakes you want to avoid. Avoiding these bad habits that many new naturals have will make your journey a lot more pleasurable. Trust me.
1. Going back to natural blindly
Would you go to an unfamiliar environment do you walk around with your eyes closed? Probably not. If you did chances are you are not going to make it very far or you will end up hurting yourself.
See coming back to natural as weird as this might sound will be an unfamiliar environment for you starting out. You don’t know your natural nor do you know anything about being natural except the fact, you want to be natural again. Well, educate yourself!
Learn exactly what it means to be natural again. Define for yourself why you want to be natural again and build from there. Use that reason as your foundation for wanting to be you, naturally. Rely on books, articles, blogs or other written media that give you the insights about hair.
Notice I didn’t say go to YouTube, which is sort of self-sabotaging because I have my own YouTube channel (Nappyfu). Don’t get me wrong I recommend YouTube just not in the beginning of your journey because it is a cluster of naturals sharing their experience based on their own hair type.
Chances are it will not be anything like what you will experience with your own hair. Subconsciously you may expect the same outcome as the Youtuber and when it does not materialize you may become discouraged.
Many times I receive emails from my Nappyfu friends saying, “I followed everything I saw her do in the video down to the products and my results were horrible, I don’t get it.” You’re not going to get it because you don’t know “the why” of why it did not work for you.
Each step you do to your hair, every product you place on your hair, and every method you see others do has a DNA to it. If you are not a match for it, then it will fail.
This can all be avoided if you learn about hair from researched data, published articles, facts and concrete evidence.
You learn the what, when, why, and how of hair and all that it is associated with. So if you end up following a method you see on YouTube you will know what to do to make it work for your hair. If it doesn’t you know why. Knowledge is power.
2. Not staying in your texture lane
Not trying to discriminate but this is for my type 4c ladies. Us kinky*, little, coily naturals who know damn well that curling creams are not going to curl a damn thing on our healthy hair.
Tools like the denman brush* are the devil. Be aware that to straighten our hair “without heat” will take several techniques, fasting and a prayer.
We hold a black card membership to the “High Shrinkage Club”. Our hair doesn’t clump and slick edges is a frenemy. Slick these edges? Where they do that at? Lol. Like seriously when I say stay in your texture lane, I mean have realistic expectations about your particular kinky* texture.
Don’t do curly methods thinking you will get curly results. Reality check it doesn’t work like that. We have the most intricate hair shape of all naturals and it’s extremely combated and interconnected. Or kinky hair twists within itself.
You see curly hair bends and changes direction as it grows however, kinky hair also has a torsion twist where the hair strand itself twist on its axis. In other words it twists more with the twist. Which is why we usually get clouded results as opposed to clumps. Have you seen 4c hair under a microscope?
I am definitely the first one to look at other textures and use some of the methods I see used however, I already know what results to expect. If I use rollers my hair will not come out as straight as the girl with type 3c hair it will comes out a bit puffy and still show some of my natural texture.
If I use a gel to slick my edges down I know it’s not going to last all day like the girl with type 4a hair. It’s going to last 2.5 seconds, if that. Knowing your texture lane this way will ensure you have realistic expectations about what your results will be or how your hair will respond.
That was a very insightful article!
I don’t know…YouTube was a godsend for me in my journey. I viewed styling videos of lots of hair types and then followed the ones that looked most like mine.
I don’t know…YouTube was a godsend for me in my journey. I viewed styling videos of lots of hair types and then followed the ones that looked most like mine.
I think the artarticle had some good advice the rest needed to be taken with a grain of salt. To speak in such absolutes as if the writer’s opinions were facts could discourage some new naturals who simply don’t have enough experience to know better. One’s personal truth isn’t always the personal truth of another person.
I think the artarticle had some good advice the rest needed to be taken with a grain of salt. To speak in such absolutes as if the writer’s opinions were facts could discourage some new naturals who simply don’t have enough experience to know better. One’s personal truth isn’t always the personal truth of another person.
I feel like I need a dictionary to understand this. As a mixed black girl who didn’t grow up with my black side of the family I don’t know a lot of terms and things like “4c” confuse me beyond belief. I really feel like I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to be learning
If you Google “hair types” or “curly hair types” that will help you out. There might actually be a chart on this site to be honest with you.
If you Google “hair types” or “curly hair types” that will help you out. There might actually be a chart on this site to be honest with you.
I found this article really hilarious….was laughing whilst reading it! It’s the absolute truth.
I found this article really hilarious….was laughing whilst reading it! It’s the absolute truth.
Im a white mother of a mixed race little boy. I refuse to cut his hair because I love his curls…or what I now think would be called coils? This is all new to me and Im trying hard to learn how to properly care for his hair. It appears I have a long journey ahead of me. Wish me luck ladies 🙂
This is going to be long winded and lengthy, so here we go.
I’m going to say that I’m mostly 4 type and I don’t agree with all of this article. I think that you aren’t going to know what works for your hair until you try that includes using a plethora of products and tools that you see others use whether they are your same type or not. I tried to use products that 4’s raved about. Thank GOD I kept the receipts because my hair HATED those products, so I decided to just try what I saw and amazingly enough though I have 4 type hair there are some products that work great in my hair that 3’s have raved about. To stay specifically in your type of whatever is just plain dumb. Bare in mind that since you have a specific type that some products may work better than others, but don’t take it as gospel (THAT WAS MY MISTAKE). Figure out what works for you and throw specific rules out the window. This is about learning about your hair not conforming to what people tell you that you should be doing with your hair due to your type. I love my Denuman brush especially when I’m defining my curls, it helps distribute the products through my hair (I keep it nice and slow, I don’t just rack it through) I don’t always wet my hair, but if my hair is having a hard time of parting then yeah I wet it, it helps me do my hair without having to fight with it and further adding damage. Yes my hair shrinks a lot, but my hair also gets dry FAST! Which is funny because if I wet it too much then it takes forever to dry. =)
Who is my natural? Well heck my natural is Bipolar. One day it loves cream, next it likes oil. It does the same through all seasons because in CA there isn’t that much of difference when it comes to the weather and the seasons. One day I’ll try this method with my hair next time my hair may not want that method, so I’ll switch it up. I’m flexible. People need to be patient and flexible. I see this article POSSIBLY upsetting and POSSIBLY intimidating newer naturals which really when it comes down to it, you make your own rules, you buy your own products (no matter what brand or what’s in it. If it works then it works). But it is a good thing to follow someone that has close to your type hair because it does give you the realistic idea of what your hair will look like. I follow Naptural85, BUT I have gotten a lot of hairstyles and tricks from girls that are no where near my type, but their styles were doable and sometimes quicker and/or easier to do.
So that’s my 2 cents and my experience.
This is going to be long winded and lengthy, so here we go.
I’m going to say that I’m mostly 4 type and I don’t agree with all of this article. I think that you aren’t going to know what works for your hair until you try that includes using a plethora of products and tools that you see others use whether they are your same type or not. I tried to use products that 4’s raved about. Thank GOD I kept the receipts because my hair HATED those products, so I decided to just try what I saw and amazingly enough though I have 4 type hair there are some products that work great in my hair that 3’s have raved about. To stay specifically in your type of whatever is just plain dumb. Bare in mind that since you have a specific type that some products may work better than others, but don’t take it as gospel (THAT WAS MY MISTAKE). Figure out what works for you and throw specific rules out the window. This is about learning about your hair not conforming to what people tell you that you should be doing with your hair due to your type. I love my Denuman brush especially when I’m defining my curls, it helps distribute the products through my hair (I keep it nice and slow, I don’t just rack it through) I don’t always wet my hair, but if my hair is having a hard time of parting then yeah I wet it, it helps me do my hair without having to fight with it and further adding damage. Yes my hair shrinks a lot, but my hair also gets dry FAST! Which is funny because if I wet it too much then it takes forever to dry. =)
Who is my natural? Well heck my natural is Bipolar. One day it loves cream, next it likes oil. It does the same through all seasons because in CA there isn’t that much of difference when it comes to the weather and the seasons. One day I’ll try this method with my hair next time my hair may not want that method, so I’ll switch it up. I’m flexible. People need to be patient and flexible. I see this article POSSIBLY upsetting and POSSIBLY intimidating newer naturals which really when it comes down to it, you make your own rules, you buy your own products (no matter what brand or what’s in it. If it works then it works). But it is a good thing to follow someone that has close to your type hair because it does give you the realistic idea of what your hair will look like. I follow Naptural85, BUT I have gotten a lot of hairstyles and tricks from girls that are no where near my type, but their styles were doable and sometimes quicker and/or easier to do.
So that’s my 2 cents and my experience.
I think some really good ideas are mentioned here but I rather disagree with #1. To me, that implies that going natural is some scientific intellectual process that you have to fully educate yourself on ahead of time if you want to be successful. Sort of like “make sure first you are smart enough to be the real you.” Hmmm. Not feeling that at all. Plus, tackling all of that pre-research may cause some to become so overwhelmed that they conclude the journey is not worth the effort. And that will so rob them of a wonderful experience. That being said, I do believe it would be helpful to seek advice from someone you know personally who is natural (we probably all know someone among friends, family, workmates, etc.), to get tips and perhaps personal guidance.
This is one of the best no I’ll say the best article I’ve read on natural hair. Thank you