Holiday Time

Hi Guys

So I'm on holiday in the beautiful (But ridiculously windy city of Cape Town) and I realized a couple of things about my hair journey.

Firstly, when packing, I didn't want to take ALL my hair products and Bobby pins etc with me. Especially since I'm a new-bee which means I have so many products and I have not chosen my signature style yet. So i decided to pack what I considered to be essentials which was some shampoo, hair oils and naturally Bobby pins and hair ties.

Now that I'm here, I'm finding it harder and harder to stick to my regimen. (See my Regimen page). Firstly, since I'm not in my space, its hard to hog the bathroom to play with your hair and determine what hair style your gonna roll with for the next three days. Also, since I'm not home all day, deep conditioning is hard. All in all what I'm trying to say is I've lost my plot in this whole hair journey!

Since I'm gonna be here for the next 2 weeks, I need to find a way to keep my hair as clean as I can or at least conditioned so I can retain hair length.

I now need to find a "holiday regimen" that is easy enough to stick to, is super quick and does not annoy everyone I'm living with or rule my life.

I currently have micro braids in as a protective style and as we all know braids are even harder to wash and condition then natural hair!

What do you guys do during your holiday?

My ALMOST Big Chop

So last friday I was studying in the library and I got super bored! I started thinking about my hair (my new obsession since I decided to go natural) and I had an epiphany!

I had become so obsessed with my hair I began over manipulationg it and I was making such uneducated decisions.

In the last week, I had rolled my hair on sunday, Bantu knoted it on monday, flat twisted it on wedneseday and wanted to wash treat and roll on friday. Now, if the whole point of going natural was to ensure a low maintaince style, there is no way this could be healthy for my hair!

My crazy, Irrational decision then? I decided to go and do the big chop! I mean if I have no hair then I guess I can't fiddle with it right?

I walked to the salon, so confident playing "I am not my hair" by India Arie in my earphones jamming and thinking, this is it! this is gonna be awesome!

When I got to the salon, I confidently said "I wanna cut all my hair off! Just leave all the new growth!". The ladies looked at me astonished and said "But you have no new growth!" LOL. Thats when I realised that I had a problem.

I became so obsessed with my hair that I was not giving it a chance to just be and grow! What I was doing may have been worse than the relaxer itself!

So I decided to get Nubian twists, yup I decided in that moment to get braids! This way, I could keep my hands of my braids for a good long while and they were light enough for me to keep up with my Regimne!

We will soon see the results of my decision in 2 months when I take them out :)

Why I decided to go Natural

Ever since I was a toddler, I had relaxed hair.

My mother said my hair was too thick and too hard for her to manage. She used to say "Don't you want nice hair" and I would get excited and think "YES". So, I would sit in a perm for as long as I could. I would feel my scalp burning and I would still sit there thinking, "the longer it stays in the nicer my hair".

Now I cannot blame my mother, she was brainwashed- Just like half of the black women in this world to believe that beautiful hair is straight, silky, white-looking hair. That was beauty.

So for my entire Childhood, I got my hair relaxed and I had SUPER long hair. It was thick, healthy and gorgeous! My mom took amazing care of my hair (and I just have fabulous genes lol) I will forever be grateful for that.

One day, I got so tired of my mother dictating what I must do to my hair, I told myself, I wanted to take care of my own hair. I must've been about 11 at the time. I didn't ask for any advice I just took over. My hair DIED instantly. It became uneven, dry, with split ends and super short. It was far from healthy. Yet instead of figuring out what I did wrong to it, I just kept fooling around with it hoping it would grow. It never did.

Fast forward to December 2012. I just turned 20, and by now my hair had been all kinds of lengths and colors but it was a lot healthier than before because I was starting to learn how to take care of it.

I was at school, and I went to the salon to get my hair relaxed. I had been to this salon before and my hair come out great so I was not anxious or anything. I relaxed it, and it looked amazing, it was bouncy, shiny I was thrilled. Later on that night, I noticed puss forming at the back of my left ear. I dismissed it as a burn from over-processing (which I now considered the price of beauty) and ignored it. The puss kept on forming for a few days and I became concerned. As I examined it further it hit me.... BITCH BURNED MY EAR. The skin on my ear was literally pealing off! 

On my way to the pharmacy to get burning cream I thought about how intense the relaxer chemical actually is. And from that day on wards I decided to Never Ever relax my hair again!

I decided I was going to find a way to make my natural hair texture (which I have never ever seen before) work because I was going to embrace it.

I decided to research and make my hair the healthiest it could be at all costs! Even if it meant months of bad hair (which is totally fine cuz I have no one to impress cuz I was not looking to date- But that's a whole other blog!). I was prepared to go through it because I wanted to fall in love with my mane. And now as I am starting this blog. In March of 2013, exactly 3 months since my last relaxer, I am super excited to see where my hair Journey will take me and hope all of you will enjoy the ups and downs with me!