My choice to go Natural

As I've been reading blogs lately, and just doing research in general about natural hair, I've been thinking about my real reason behind going natural.

I decided to go natural at the beginning of this year. I remember just being generally frustrated with my hair. In 2007, my hair had grown out pretty long in the years I had been in college (from the back of my neck to just below the shoulders, hopefully I can put up the pics later.) Anyway, it had grown long, but I had been pressing it far to often, and my hair became very damaged. It began breaking off, and eventually I just had to cut it because it was soo uneven. My shortest hair was to the nape of my neck, so I just got a very short cut in March of 2008, right before I went on spring break.

As it started growing out I reached the awkward stage that I couldn't do anything with it. I pretty much just wore it up in a clip all the time because everything else looked ruff.

I finally decided to try something new, wearing it with krinkles. I was able to achieve this by braiding it to the scalp right after I washed it, and let it dry overnight, and un-braiding it in the morning. This was cute for awhile until it got annoying and too time consuming to braid it all the time. So I once again had no idea what to do with it.

I knew that my hair was curly when it was wet, but never actually tried wearing it that way. I'd been combing it out after I washed it since I was little. So I tried experimenting with that. After getting a few tips, I realized I could wear it curly and natural.

It's been really liberating to just wear my hair and be me. I've been getting my hair permed since I can remember. When I was young, my hair was long and thick. By the time I started doing my own hair, I started damaging it, and it was breaking off all the time. I never could handle my hair without a perm. I hated my natural hair.

But in all honesty, I didn't even KNOW my natural hair. I knew my new growth, i knew what an inch or two of roots looked like. But I did not know my natural hair.

Now that I have embraced it, I love my natural hair. So far I've been in the process of growing out my permed hair. I haven't decided what all I will do next. I want to figure out the best way to manage it when its curly. I want to learn how to straighten it without having to use a perm. I want to learn how to put my hair in kinky twists (i've been experimenting for the past two weeks, it looks ok, and I will put up some pics soon, but I need to do some more tutorials). And eventually, if i get the guts to do it, I might go ahead and get dreads or sisterlocks. Only time will tell.

until next time,
~Lista~