The natural way

I am liking natural more and more as the days go by. Who knew I would be someone with chemical-free hair! If someone had told me three years ago that I would go natural I would have laughed myself silly.

Ok, here it goes. This first picture I'm not sure of the date, probably sometime in April 2009, is a braid out day. This was probably my third day so things had gone a bit crazy and you see that there is still quite a bit of relaxed hair on the ends.

This is a better picture of a fresh braid out, probably day one in August 2008. I always roll it up for a neater look. During this period I was still at the 'You must be crazy to go natural' stage. Combing my hair after washing was a beast!

But now!!! I hear music! The hair gods have smiled on me and transformed my hair. I read so much about the 'Big Chop' and decided to go for it. I put my hair in small braids and cut diagonally at the puff. Then I followed the advise on the Nappaturality site that says not to shampoo so much. Instead, I spritzed my hair with water and used organic hair mayonaise. I twisted in small sections and then rolled my hair that night.

I am loving this! I have gotten so many compliments, who can I think about chemical fires again.

NEVER

Ok, so today I took the twist out after 5 days and this is my result. I didn't roll last night so it's not curly but the twist out should last at least three to four days! The hair mayonaise helped give me nice tight twist so I am expecting a nice twist out. Chopping off about 3" of my hair wasn't such a bad idea after all but I still need to do another chop, at least one to two more inches. Then even if I don't roll my hair the twist out will look so much better.

Keeping it real

In February 2008 I decided to go natural. My thick head of hair was out of control, I wish I had some pictures! I used to tell people that you could hide a small child in the back of my hair between touch-up. Combing my hair after a good shampoo took me back to age 6 when I would get brushes broken over my shoulder for not putting my head down. Hey, that kitchen was a mess! During this transition it easily took up to two hours just to comb through my hair and then another couple to braid it up to air dry. It's been about 15 months now and I couldn't be happier with the way my hair has turned out. I can comb my hair and braid it to air dry in about one hour, maybe two depending on the syle.
I was turned on to a site called nappturality and found out that a lot of the things I was doing to my hair was the right thing to do. I decided on my own that natural meant no hot combs, hot curling or flat ironing. I decided that I would go a step further and not blow dry either. It seems that these are the things this site promotes! Who knew?
Pictures will be added later