A Short on Dealing with Breakage

My natural journey spans a fifteen year process with the later half of thirteen years being fully natural.  I have done just about everything you can imagine to my hair and for the most part it has withstood the tests.  And yes, in this more than a decade of returning to natural hair I have experienced breakage.

One thing my hair just could not take was a "temporary" blow dry straightener (that is a later discussion) bleach, color, and heat in combination.  Over time my low porosity, dense, and thick hair simply broke under the weight of it.  I had good habits with the exception of blow drying my hair every wash, but still my hair broke off.  So my journey to health natural hair began in 2011.  I am now four years into my natural hair journey and I am enjoying it.  

I had to take an inventory along these four years of what habits caused the ripe conditions for my long hair to break off.  First, I cut all of the obvious breakage off, simple!  My hair was bra strap length at the time, so I cut off about four inches.  Next, I dealt with the rest of the damage.  I nursed my hair with deep conditioners and protective styles.  I also went through some weird phases like completely shaving a four inch section on the right front side of my hair two years ago.  The rest of the time was rather uneventful.  Three years later (2014), I decided to go on a journey to long hair.

Once again in my four year mark I am dealing with damage again.  My damage this time came from choosing to use the wrong kind of synthetic hair for my twists.  However, this time is different.  I went through the trauma of damaging perfectly long hair after several years of being natural!  Now I know to pace myself and their is no need for me to chop off large sections of my hair.  The short of it is that I just need patience and this too shall pass.  I still will reach my length goals!

Peace ladies!

Awkward Stage

Hello Ladies,

This topic has been on my mind for quite some time... the dreaded "Awkward Stage" aka medium length hair stage.  All of you long hair naturals know what I am talking about.  Short hair naturals be prepared to embark on this stage.  Ladies in this stage, well I feel your pain!  You can get through it.  Just hold on and you will be out of it in no time!  Do not make the awkward stage your make or break stage in your journey to long natural hair!

I believe this stage is when a lot of naturals choose to either remain natural or go back to the perm (yes I said perm and not relaxer).  Why?  Well change can be hard and you already did the difficult thing of becoming natural and the short hair was a breeze.  You also overcame the feelings of not feeling feminine enough with short hair (of course not everyone feels this).  You may have also started to feel comfortable with seeing your real hair curl pattern and density.  Now this?

Your hair is too short to do the styles you see on blogs, TV, or even YouTube, but it also is too short to just get up and go.  So, your mind may wander back to the hair you were accustomed to, relaxed hair.  It is not that relaxed hair was any easier, but you were used to it!   You may reminisce about the first time your mother let you style your hair all by yourself.  It was so easy and liberating.  Of course, your mother still took care of the heavy lifting with relaxing your hair herself or you went to the beautician, but after that you were responsible for styling your hair.  As for me, the first time I was tasked with relaxing my own hair came when I went to college and I rarely did that.

Rarely perming my hair and not having my mother around just made the decision not to perm ever again so much easier.  The mid-length stage in the beginning of your journey, however, brings you back to the throws of your being an eight year old girl tasked with taking care of all of her hair needs, except you had to complete all of it.  However, now you don't perm anymore and you don't have your mother or beautician there to help you!  Maybe you do have a beautician to help you, but you still have to style your hair yourself.  Oh the discomfort, the discomfort.

I am here to tell you that you can make it and be content during this stage.  So ladies, here is what I did.  I protective styled.  I luckily had the natural hair community, which included my close friends to help me.  They kept me in check when I wore those protective styles too much or too long.  I also had my sibling and guy friends who would compliment me to death and ask to see my hair.  They all loved me through it and well it made that awkward stage much easier to fly by.  Right now I am back in the awkward stage again.  I big chopped my hair again (third time) in December 2013, however I only big chopped the front part of my head.  I also had to wean myself from being scissor happy (another discussion for another time), so I am back to the mid-length again.  This time it is easier and I know for sure this too shall pass.  I want to enjoy this mid-length hair--my naturally God given hair.