The Joys and Pains of transitioning

I have been natural for 2 yrs now or is it 3? My mind goes back to September 2007. I was super stressed from school; was in an abusive relationship (emotional) and I was just fed up. I remember clearly, I was watching TV with little sis then I got up, went into the bathroom, scissors in hand and chopped off a big patch of hair. I waited a few seconds for the tears to flow but nothing so I went on and cut my hair really close to my scalp. I stepped into the shower and for the first time in a long time, felt free, totally free and light and I could feel the pores of my hair open and soak up water (ok maybe I have a vivid imagination :)

Today, I have fulllllll, healthy, JET-black hair and I love every part of its kinkiness. Woohooo! Prior to my drastic cut, I had contemplated going natural, my number 1 reason was because I was in Halifax, NS Canada, which at the time was not as diverse as Toronto, so I couldn’t get my hair braided or professionally retouched. I had done a lot of research, joined a few natural blogs, toyed around with home made products for my hair type and asked the people around me who were natural a lot of questions. So September 2007 did not come as a shock to me, I felt it was coming.

Now transitioning was hard, as I struggled to accept the “new” me while trying to grow out healthy hair and just get used to the criticisms and the questions (trust me I got loads of them). I had long relaxed hair before “ruining” my crown of glory as my mum says.

While transitioning, I felt like retouching my hair. But going on the blogs of some “die-hard” naturals and seeking advice helped a lot. One advice I swear and live by is covering your hair by doing braids, plaits, or weaves (yes I did and still do weaves) . It helps a whole lot because, you don’t see your own hair and the urge to retouch it isn’t there or at least minimized.

I wear braids for 6- 8 weeks at a time with 2 or 3 weeks interval in between. So I kept telling my self, 8 weeks of braids and it will be almost a yr J plus seeing that extra length when I took the braids out sure motivated me. In between my braids and weaves, during my 2-week rest, I moisturize like crazy, coconut oil, Dudu Osun, Shea butter, almond oils, grape seed oil, castor oil, became close friends of my hair. I started adding proteins to my hair- eggs or egg whites. I took loads of vitamins and I swear by Biotin. For me that is, because not everything I use will work for you and vice versa for me.

This is getting long so I will continue it in my next post.

Omozee