I haven’t been talking about this at all for fear my natural curly hair didn’t suit my face or life and I didn’t want to be all “Look at me folks” and then completely change my mind like before.
February 2012 was the last time I relaxed my hair. I had thought about it and tried it previously in 2008 and just could not handle it being a poof ball at the roots and straight everywhere else. I had not discovered the sock bun or the twist up I do my hair in now. There were few natural hair vids on youtube and finding where to get stuff for natural hair was like pulling teeth. Fast forward 5 years and those things have been remedied.
I wanted to try it for various reasons. One of them being the chemicals in relaxers. No one knows what that stuff does long term. It’s next to your BRAIN. I trust my FDA somewhat but investigating what relaxers leach into the body is probably not high on their priority list.
I did not want to do a big chop as I have seen many do. I’m chubby with a large face that needs hair to counter balance it. So I would have to wait and deal with the challenge of hair that was two very different beast.
This was my hair in Sept 2011 – Before anything
At first it was ok.I only had an inch of curly hair and I could style it the way I usually do. Then we got to two inches of curly and it was starting to look questionable as it made the straight hair poof at odd angles. I considered hot combing the curly stuff but I thought “leave it alone Gabi, let it be the way it was meant to grow out of your head.”
May 2012 – you can just start to see the curl at the roots even though it’s up.
May 2012 – It’s still behaving itself when it’s down.
June 2012 – Still ok with old hair styles when I have to dress up.
Late June 2012 – It’s getting poofy and now I have to put it up
Then it was 6 months later and August rolled around and I probably had 5 inches of curl vs 6 inches of straight and the old hair styles were out. I just couldn’t get to to look decent anymore.
Sept 2012 – yup can’t wear it down. Poof at roots is making the straight stuff look meh.
I used the same rolled up style most of the winter and come February 2013 it looked like there was 2-3 inches of straight left. I thought if I could hold out a little longer I would get a haircut for my birthday in April.
Now March has come and you know what, I miss having bangs to frame my face but it’s been an interesting experience seeing what my real hair looks like. This is my first twist out a day ago. It looks kinda cool!
March 2013 – twist up on top, twist out on bottom
I’m going to give it a few more months for me to discover hairstyles that work for me and my life. If I can’t make it work, that’s ok. But I am glad I know my real hair now.
