My 2011 Natural Hair Journey

Today marks the day where I'm officially 1 year natural. PTL!!! Some of you may not know what I'm talking about and others of you have been with me since the beginning of my journey.  It all started March 2010.  I started watching Youtube videos where black women were talking about how to care for their natural hair.  I was at awe and wanted to learn more.  I saw many videos of women documenting their hair journey especially all the emotional things they had to go through.  I learned so much I was amazed. I saw the movie "Good Hair" by Chris Rock. Watching the movie was a very emotional experience for me.  Once I was done watching, I thought it would be a great idea for me to stop perming my hair and go natural.

Click on me

I kind of wanted to do this but I was so scared because I haven't worn my hair natural since I was 11 or 12 years old.  I kept trying to put it off because I hadn't yet made a final decision. Finally the first day of April 2010 I decided I would get started on my journey. I figured why not because it had been almost two months since my last touch up on my perm.  I had many days I was in tears when transitioning because I couldn't get my hair to do what I wanted.  After 4 months I started to get the hang of taking care of two textures (permed ends and new growth growing from my scalp).  I figured out how to style my hair to protect that line of demarcation.  Every month I'd cut a little bit of the permed ends off (preparing myself for when I have to finally cut the rest off).  My hair kept growing so at times you couldn't even tell I had cut it. After about 9 months of caring for the two textures I couldn't take it no more so I cut off the rest of my permed ends (sort of a BC-Big Chop).  That was Dec. 31, 2010.  I had around 3.5" of hair.  Click on the picture to see what my year looked like.  

Every few months I would do a length check. In Feb. I had about 5" of hair. I realized I had forgotten to measure my hair in a long while so it wasn't until May when I measured it again.  I had over 6" of hair.  I waited until Sept. to measure again and found that I had nearly 8" of hair. This month after doing my first blowout (blow drying my hair using heat protectant and low heat on the blow dryer) I was amazed at the length and how full it looked.  I started sweating quick so it caused my hair to start reverting back before I took the picture above. My hair hang longer down my shoulders than it really shows. All in all I'm happy with the results and thank God he has strengthen me through this journey and I have a more love for and new confidence in myself.  I'm thankful for all the encouragement from others telling me how beautiful I look too.  It has helped more than they know.  My hair goals for 2012 is to use more natural hair products and learn more about my hair so it can grow more stronger, longer, and mainly be a healthy head of hair.  I also plan to journal more of my experience, do more length checks, and take pictures each month. Be sure to click and see my 2011 hair pics.


*Note: This is a repost from my old blog "Think 0utside the Box".