It just seems like yesterday when my husband´s cousin raved about the importance of having natural hair, in my mind I was like, is she serious? "There is no way on earth this girl was gonna leave out her natural hair", I thought. You see, I had never even imagined having my hair like that because to me, only primary school kids left their "virgin hair" out to be seen by everyone, as an adult however, I knew I had gone wayyy past that.
Well, since hubby´s cousin was so passionate about her new experience with natural hair, I also decided to give it a shot, and I did! I cut all my permed hair on December the 26th of 2012. It was such a breather!! I could literally hear my hair thank me, I felt air touch my hair and scalp for the very first time, it was a marvelous experience. However, little did I know that the challenges were getting ready to welcome me, they did sooner than I expected. Sooner or later, I started looking for ways to care for this stranger I was getting to know for the very first time, it was so hard, but thank God for Youtube. I watched tons and tons of natural hair videos and got to try some styles. While I succeeded in some, I failed woefully in others. This December marks my 4 year journey as a natural and I must admit that through the highs and lows, I have come to learn a lot.
Here are some of the lessons being a natural hair wearer has taught me, the list is not exhaustive, but one could use some advice here:
- Different hair: It took me a long time to realize that everybody´s hair is different. When I first went natural, I would look at people´s hair and how it behaved and then expect my hair to behave the exact same way. This made me very miserable. I tried wash and go´s severally and thought there was something I wasn´t doing right, when in reality my hair isn´t cut out for them. I have learned during the course of this journey that everyone´s hair is different and unique in its own way. If you´re a new natural, please save yourself the stress and just learn your own hair, forget about what you see on social media and learn your hair and do your hair!
- Regimen: Having a hair regimen is the best thing we naturals can do to our hair, our hair tends to have a mind of its own, therefore it adapts and even thrives better when there is a fixed schedule for washing, deep conditioning and styling it. If we start by washing weekly, our hair gets used to that and therefore, will react differently when we change from weekly to say, monthly.
- Journalling: As simple as journalling may sound, this is something I struggle with in this journey, it is highly important to keep record and track of our journey because this way, we can easily notice any progression or retrogression in our hair and if need be, take action to improve its state. I have suffered a lot of retrogression as a result of not keeping track of my growth, I have found myself moving from 16 inches of hair to 13 inches, because since there was no journalling of any kind, I couldn´t really say how my hair had changed due to split ends, well I ended up trimming 3 inches, which leads to my next point.
- Don´t ignore split ends: These little monsters called split ends should never be ignored. I had heard that severally from very famous naturals but somehow, we tend to learn better from our own mistakes. Split ends have dealt with my hair and have drawn me back a lot in my journey. When my hair reached my shoulders, I was so excited that I thought trimming my ends to get rid of these split ends would just draw me back, little did I know that the decision I made was a setback for me. A natural who wants to see major hair growth will trim at least once every two months or once every six weeks.
- Moisture: I know this point always comes first, but I decided to make it the last point because it´s not as hard or difficult a task like the others earlier mentioned, but it is equally important. Moisture leads to growth, period. There´s no way around this, if our hair dries, it snaps at the slightest pull. The other day, I was looking at my hair and I suddenly remembered how in Nigeria, women tend to lose so much hair in the winter. The secret to maintaining long and healthy hair is simply moisture. Other things like deep conditioning, oiling, steaming and what not are all important, but the simplest thing we can do is to keep that moisture in by spritzing with water and just sealing in that moisture with an oil.
I hope these tips will help someone out there and encourage them on their hair journey. Please leave your comments below and share with us what you have learned since going natural, I could use some tips too ;)
