When I was quite young, my mom relaxed my hair. I was probably about 8 or 9. Now, my mom was not without her reasons for doing this. I was quite the complainer and my mom used to do cute braid styles that I always ended up hating. I went to a predominantly white school and my hair was different. In hindsight, I probably didn’t dislike the styles, they were just different from the styles, that the girls in my school had. I also want to mention that if you look up the word tender headed in the dictionary, there will be a picture of me. My mom had her reasons and from the age of 8 or 9 to the age of 14, my hair was relaxed about every six months.
I decided at the age of 14 that I wanted to start to go natural. My hair was not growing nearly as fast as it could, and I thought the maintenance and constantly making sure my hair wasn’t wet was just too much to deal with. I started to not like my hair and wanted it to be more versatile and going natural could do that for me. I had decided between the big chop and just letting my hair grow out…but let’s be honest here, my head is not the right shape for the big chop. I just ended up letting my hair grow out.
Now let me tell you something, my hair GREW grew. Like my hair grew inches and inches. My mom did all of these cute styles on me and really helped me love my hair again. I also constantly had box braids, which was my go to style for quite some time. When my mom was doing my hair, I saw NO cons to my hair being natural. That ended quickly when I got to college and had to do it myself. (Yes, my mom did my hair until I was like 18. Don’t judge.) Don’t even get me started on wash day. Washing your hair takes forever and styles you see on YouTube really don’t look the same when you do them. The amount of days I’ve done the same style because nothing else was working can’t be counted. And shrinkage…is…the…worst. But it’s really a process and it is something that isn’t always easy, especially with my hair being 4C. With all of that being said, I have some BOMB hair days where I look in the mirror and I’m like “Wow, I’m a baddie”. I love my hair more when it’s natural. It has been a journey, but I love where I ended up and I can say for certain that I will never relax my hair again.
After talking about my journey, I want to say that by no means is my story the same as yours. Don’t let people tell you what to do with your hair. My story is in no way telling you what you should and should not do, if you want to relax it, relax it and if you want to go natural, do it. Wear a weave, wear a wig, express yourself in whatever way you want. But never do anything to your hair for anyone but yourself. It is really just about how comfortable you are. I have often seen a lot of shaming of women that relax their hair and I think that should stop. It should be about YOU and your comfort.