There is no right or wrong reason for wanting to go natural. Some do it because they want to learn how to care for their own hair. Some want the styling diversity that natural hair provides and some just want to escape their weak chemically treated hair. All reasons are valid.
Going natural can be a wonderful eye opening experience and you may find that you take to this whole big hair thing like a duck to water but for a lot of us, the natural experience can be completely overwhelming to begin with.
A few years after I went natural and my hair grew to that ‘long for a black girl’ length, a lot of my friends decided that they wanted to go natural too, well this natural thing was clearly doing wonders so why not join the gravy train? Of course many of them opted to transition with braids, twists and weaves so they didn’t have to deal with their own hair for a good few months.
Anyway after my friends went through the big chop and the honeymoon period with their natural hair was well and truly over, I started getting phone calls from each one asking what they could do to make it more ‘manageable’. While that in itself is not an unreasonable request, it does show a certain mindset that some of us still have when it comes to our natural hair.
If you are transitioning right now, I will warn you, if you have been relaxed for years, nothing can prepare you for how different your natural texture looks and behaves compared to your relaxed hair particularly if you belong to the 4 hair type group.
Here are a few things I learned about the differences between natural and relaxed hair.
• Prepare to be grabbed by the sheer thickness of your hair. It will feel like you have 3 peoples hair on your head sometimes! My advice: Revel in it.
Most black women need to readjust their thinking, they lack the patience it requires to deal with their natural hair. Personally, I think that females who weren’t taught responsibility at a young age, are the ones who claim they cant “deal” with their natural hair because they don’t take personal responsibility. (My opinion)
don’t judge if you’ve haven’t been natural all your life,i was born in the 60’s were’s being natural was all you could be now women has choices like myself. and hair was taught in my home. it was taught it got you no where, brains do.
I’m in that phase right now. I haven’t had a perm in 5 months so I have a lot of new growth. Learning to manage it takes time and patience but I’m working it. I’m not ready to do the big chop so I do wear wigs often and it doesn’t help that I’m in the military so I really can not do many styles at this time, hence the constant wear of wigs. But I have read plenty of ways to keep my hair moisturized, conditioned, oiled, no heat ect. Once I get out I should be all natural and can experiment more with it.