A Natural Hair Story...

I dislike combing my hair.

This year has been one of many changes aside from having a baby. One of the biggest changes has been cutting all my hair off to go "natural." I've loved my hair most of my life, despite the fact that I wish it was a different texture than it is. Being bi-racial has brought many comments from my skin tone, to my body shape, to the fact I speak Spanish (I'm out of practice, sorry Abuela). However, the biggest question has always been about my hair. It's not exactly "bi-racial" looking (beautiful ringlet curls or wavy locks) it's a bit more coarse, yet was quite long before my drastic cut. I've never seen what my actual texture of hair is (until now) since it's been chemically straightened as long as I can remember. So this has been a serious learning process for me despite frustrating. So you can understand where I'm at, here is a brief picture story of my hair:

  (from pre-pregnancy to post-par tum)

As you can see this leap into natural hair is something new for me. Truthfully after having our son, the texture of my hair changed so much that I had a hard time really coping with the coarse and fragile state it had become. My hair is thick and easily managed before having baby, but afterwards I didn't even know what to do with it half of the time... notice the last bottom right picture it's all pinned up (I had at least 20 bobbypins in there). Not to mention with a new baby it took me an additional hour to get ready for work (which resulted in LATE all of the time). I decided that "going natural" might help my hair recover and would cut down on already rushing out of the door with my new routine. So I took the plunge of cutting my hair shorter and shorter. After my husband realized I was just making a mess of my hair, he told me to let it go. Seriously I had my sister shave off the sides of my hair and leave the top of it long (what was I thinking). Here is a decent picture before I ended up getting it cut the following weekend (thank you kind co-workers who didn't say anything knowing I was already sensitive).

 

You can't tell, but I tried so hard to Oprah-fy that top piece. Sorry for the snotty-nosed child

 (it happens).

 I cried. I was angry among other things that my butt was saggy and I was hairy everywhere else, but where I needed hair the most (my mustache went to another level). So my husband sent me to the barber and there the remainder of it went! Can I say I was relieved? Yes, I felt finally like I could get ready on time, but also I was eager to really see what my hair looked like without any chemicals. I had seen pictures of "natural" looking hair and I of course I began to imagine my beautiful locks and gorgeous curls shinning through! Little did I realize that a "Don King" look would follow my nicely shaped up scalp...and a tightly coiled texture at that. 

So what next? My hair was cut off and I needed to re-learn how to manage it. Note to self: THIS IS EXPENSIVE! Whatever money I've saved on going to a barber has gone straight to product. Sure the end result I hope will be what I've seen friends of mine look like as well as other blogs I follow, but little did I realize I really had to LEARN my hair. That meant product testing and hunting. That meant buying a pic and big tooth comb. That meant drowning my hair in water so I can get product to stay in, so it doesn't look like a dry Brillo pad. This is what I'm testing/using now:

Most of all, this has meant that my own insecurities of "looking like a boy" and keeping my eyebrows tamed have surfaced. The biggest thing I've dealt with in this new journey has been being okay with the fact that I have an Afro. That I look a lot more African American now, and when people see my family together they take a second look at me - especially if I say something in Spanish to our son (which I'm already sensitive that I don't have an accent). It's caused me to be a bit more racially aware and even take the comments of "your son must be mixed" as if my tightly coiled hair couldn't have produced his awesome hair genes... But it has been the biggest lesson in my journey of loving who I am and who God created me to be, despite how cliche that sounds. I've learned to enjoy wearing make-up and trying to keep up with my Wolfman Jack eyebrows. I'm learning to look at myself and be please with who looks back at me and even find new and daring ways to bring out other qualities in my face (i.e. red lipstick!). 

This natural hair story is continuously bringing freedom despite the comments I've received at times. It's also bringing out patience in taking care of myself. I'll confess I didn't always comb my hair before I pinned it or combed it well. In college I damaged the crap out of my hair with flat irons trying to keep up with friends who have long straight hair. But now this is what I've got, a puff of tightly coiled moisturized hair that continues to grow little by little. It's a lot of work, but I can't say I regret cutting it one bit.