My Hair Journey Series: Then and Now
Hi guys and welcome back to Lolly’s Secrets. Long post alert!!! Today I looked in the mirror and still couldn’t recognise myself. Why? Well because…I decided to cut almost all my hair off! Yes! I know! Kind of a drastic measure...It was time though….I was finally ready.
In the “natural hair community’ it is called the “big chop”. Basically a decision to commit fully to going natural which means cutting off all the hair that has been chemically straightened from relaxers, leaving the curly or coily hair texture. But for you to understand this radical decision, I’ll need to take you back...all the way back some thirty something years ago.
I had bald patches up until I was about 3 I think. And then by the time I was 5 i had a full head of hair. My mom didn't have a clue what to do with all this hair! She was such a tomboy growing up as she was an only girl in a house of 3 boys. She went to the barbers with her brothers and got a low haircut every week. So she wasn't the most savvy when it came to handling my hair, bless her heart.
Now, some naturalistas have this soft fluffy manageable hair that is just pliable and easy to manipulate. The envy i have for these naturalistas is similar to the envy i have for those skinny girls that eat exactly the same thing i do but never gain weight!!! So of course, you know i wasn't blessed in that way. I had hard extra thick hair with very dry scalp and my mom was just done with it! So she bought a kiddies relaxer kit and decided it was time to tame the beast!
I remember being super excited that i would finally have long straight her like the girl advertised on the relaxer kit and all the girls on tv. I sat uncomplaining and endured the process. I felt my scalp get very hot and itchy with a burning sensation like a couple of wiggly, lava hot, maggots wiggling on my scalp! I don't think i could describe it any other way! It was exactly that! My fantasies of a L’oreal hair swish was what kept me sitting still as long as i could bare it.
When it was all washed out and the process was finally complete, the only thing i was able to look at was long strands of silky straight hair. It was all i wanted for so long. I saw all the hair on the combs and in the bin but shrugged it off as the price to pay for straight hair. After all, i’ve been told by all my female relatives that beauty is pain and thus, must be endured to get the desired outcome. Sage words… but in hindsight… maybe not applied to the right decisions.
So we didn't know about all the little steps required to ensure our natural hair thrived. All my mom knew was that, if the hair looked a bit dry, add pink oil to it...tonnes of it! And if the scalp was itchy, put some sort of grease on it.
Looking back i was perpetually walking around with either dry brittle hair and flaky dry scalp or super greasy, “egg could cook in your hair”, look that still felt dry even with all the oils in it. I just thought i had super stubborn hair and left it at that.
My dad is obsessed with really long hair. Till this day he says to me that “a woman’s hair is her crowning glory”. It was a saying his mother would always tell his sisters and i guess it stuck with him as well.
So he was adamant that we always had to have some cute looking style or the other but also retain as much of our length as possible and so my mom grudgingly complied with his wishes as best she could.
This idea of hair as a crown was so ingrained in me that it slowly developed into a major complex i now have with my hair. I freak out whenever i see a pair of scissors and i have to have an inner conversation with myself that it’s ok… this person know what they are doing…. They won’t get scissors happy!
Ladies!! Am i right? A lot of these hairdressers are itching to cut some hair after all those courses they have paid good money to train to cut some fierce hairstyle only to be told “ just cut the ends please”.
I have an “aunt” (well... one of my mom’s besties) that had a salon in england who would put my hair in cornrows, braids or a weave until the next school break and then relax my hair in the summer months. We had to drive or get the train 3-4 hours to her house or she would come over to see my mom and end up getting my hair done all night long.
The protective style would start to look untidy three to 4 weeks in and have built up dirt and was basically just unmanageable. You would have thought that i would have learnt how to take care of my hair even in protective styles or something, especially from this aunt, but it just didn't occur to any of us to share this information nor do anything about it.
I would take down my protective style in school when i couldn't manage it anymore and wash it with shampoos and conditioners for caucasians. Terrible idea for African hair!!! But i still had a full head of hair and clean dry hair was better than dirty greasy hair in my opinion.
My mom would always make sure I had hair fertiliser if nothing else. So my hair grew quite a bit but it was still unhealthy, with split ends and breakage, and i kept on like that for a while.
I flat ironed my hair almost every day which caused a lot of breakage and could only really take care of my hair during the summer months when I had a job to afford it.
Her name is Carol and i will forever thank God for bringing Carol into my life. I met her when we moved house from London to Bedford during my secondary school years. I only fully understood the gem i had in her when i took the time to ask her more about taking care of my hair myself.
Carol explained how to take care of relaxed hair, oiling my scalp, washing regularly, getting trims, etc. i finally understood that the important thing i had to take with me was that i needed a routine. Something that i can do even when i feel lazy or have a bad week.
I had the silkiest fullest hair for a while when i followed a routine with Carol’s help. I bought some expensive products too as i did not want to second guess anything when going through the process. I now know that it doesn’t have to be expensive. You really just need to know what works for you. My hair was full, thick, shiny, and moved like the L’oreal ads! yay!!
About three years ago, the natural hair movement really blew up around me. I was curious but I remember saying
“God no! I can never go natural!!! My hair is too hard to go natural”. “ you are lucky because you have soft hair and its manageable”.
I was too scarred by my childhood to really go for it. So i decided to try slowly… I was already taking longer breaks between relaxers anyway. I went from relaxing every 6 weeks to relaxing three times a year.
In 2016 I had gone a year without a relaxer and my natural hair was about twelve inches long, making my total length sixteen inches. I did a lot of protective style like weaves, cornrows and braids to hide the transition.
I was always hedging and would eventually relax my hair when there was a big family function like my sister’s wedding in 2016 or my wedding in 2017.
My last relaxer was beginning of September 2017 and from then on I decided no more relaxers. I will stick with this and see where it takes me. In an ideal world I would love to have waist length natural hair. But first… I have to commit to the process fully. Once I made the decision to commit, my husband helped with the back and I chopped the front myself and presto!!! Big chop success!!!
I probably need to go to the barbers to get it evened out but for now, I'm enjoying it! I have a routine I picked up from numerous youtube videos but the person I love watching the most is my girl, Amber Ansah. Her energy is just brilliant and she doesn't make it complicated! I did some more research and have found out what works for me. I will be sharing my hair care routine with you soon! I want to document my journey while its still fresh and I hope I can help some others who have had trouble with committing to the natural hair movement. It is not easy!! It is definitely an arm workout and it does take consistency but I love it! Its freedom! Not being controlled by the norm, and ultimately living your best life!!
Don't forget to follow me for updates on my Instagram and Facebook page!
Just do it! Commit to it!! Cut it! Remember… hair grows!
Until the next post...Ciao!!
In the “natural hair community’ it is called the “big chop”. Basically a decision to commit fully to going natural which means cutting off all the hair that has been chemically straightened from relaxers, leaving the curly or coily hair texture. But for you to understand this radical decision, I’ll need to take you back...all the way back some thirty something years ago.
The early years
So when I was a baby, I barely had any hair on my head. Like...seriously! My mom, till this day, always goes on and on about how she's so confused as to how I grew up to have all this hair!
Now, some naturalistas have this soft fluffy manageable hair that is just pliable and easy to manipulate. The envy i have for these naturalistas is similar to the envy i have for those skinny girls that eat exactly the same thing i do but never gain weight!!! So of course, you know i wasn't blessed in that way. I had hard extra thick hair with very dry scalp and my mom was just done with it! So she bought a kiddies relaxer kit and decided it was time to tame the beast!
I remember being super excited that i would finally have long straight her like the girl advertised on the relaxer kit and all the girls on tv. I sat uncomplaining and endured the process. I felt my scalp get very hot and itchy with a burning sensation like a couple of wiggly, lava hot, maggots wiggling on my scalp! I don't think i could describe it any other way! It was exactly that! My fantasies of a L’oreal hair swish was what kept me sitting still as long as i could bare it.
When it was all washed out and the process was finally complete, the only thing i was able to look at was long strands of silky straight hair. It was all i wanted for so long. I saw all the hair on the combs and in the bin but shrugged it off as the price to pay for straight hair. After all, i’ve been told by all my female relatives that beauty is pain and thus, must be endured to get the desired outcome. Sage words… but in hindsight… maybe not applied to the right decisions.
Primary School
In primary school my hair was relaxed every 2 months with the kiddies relaxer which eventually stopped working on my hair. I had to change over to the grown up relaxers by the age of ten to get bone straight hair.
Now none of us really had any idea how to take care of our hair. My mom, in her adulthood, always had her hair in some protective style more for convenience than for protection. She would take out a style, wash and only do a treatment if advised by the stylist and then back in another protective style within a few hours.
So we didn't know about all the little steps required to ensure our natural hair thrived. All my mom knew was that, if the hair looked a bit dry, add pink oil to it...tonnes of it! And if the scalp was itchy, put some sort of grease on it.
Looking back i was perpetually walking around with either dry brittle hair and flaky dry scalp or super greasy, “egg could cook in your hair”, look that still felt dry even with all the oils in it. I just thought i had super stubborn hair and left it at that.
My dad is obsessed with really long hair. Till this day he says to me that “a woman’s hair is her crowning glory”. It was a saying his mother would always tell his sisters and i guess it stuck with him as well.
This idea of hair as a crown was so ingrained in me that it slowly developed into a major complex i now have with my hair. I freak out whenever i see a pair of scissors and i have to have an inner conversation with myself that it’s ok… this person know what they are doing…. They won’t get scissors happy!
Ladies!! Am i right? A lot of these hairdressers are itching to cut some hair after all those courses they have paid good money to train to cut some fierce hairstyle only to be told “ just cut the ends please”.
Secondary School
In secondary school, i ended up in ireland where it was difficult to find a stylist that knew how to care for african hair, both relaxed and natural. A lot of them in ireland did not have the skill level required and were always charging exorbitant amounts for simple styles.I have an “aunt” (well... one of my mom’s besties) that had a salon in england who would put my hair in cornrows, braids or a weave until the next school break and then relax my hair in the summer months. We had to drive or get the train 3-4 hours to her house or she would come over to see my mom and end up getting my hair done all night long.
The protective style would start to look untidy three to 4 weeks in and have built up dirt and was basically just unmanageable. You would have thought that i would have learnt how to take care of my hair even in protective styles or something, especially from this aunt, but it just didn't occur to any of us to share this information nor do anything about it.
I would take down my protective style in school when i couldn't manage it anymore and wash it with shampoos and conditioners for caucasians. Terrible idea for African hair!!! But i still had a full head of hair and clean dry hair was better than dirty greasy hair in my opinion.
My mom would always make sure I had hair fertiliser if nothing else. So my hair grew quite a bit but it was still unhealthy, with split ends and breakage, and i kept on like that for a while.
University
I went to university in england opening up a world of professional hair stylists which made life a little easier. However, I was a broke student (what student isn't broke right?) and couldn't afford to take care of my hair properly which ended with me having a botched relax job from a friend. But that... is a story for another day!I flat ironed my hair almost every day which caused a lot of breakage and could only really take care of my hair during the summer months when I had a job to afford it.
World of Work
I moved to london and started working in the hospitality industry where i quickly realised that this ad hoc way of taking care of my hair, especially in a big city and in one of the top hotels in london, was not going to work out. I decided to speak to my professional stylist near home.Her name is Carol and i will forever thank God for bringing Carol into my life. I met her when we moved house from London to Bedford during my secondary school years. I only fully understood the gem i had in her when i took the time to ask her more about taking care of my hair myself.
Carol explained how to take care of relaxed hair, oiling my scalp, washing regularly, getting trims, etc. i finally understood that the important thing i had to take with me was that i needed a routine. Something that i can do even when i feel lazy or have a bad week.
Source: African Hair Summit
I had the silkiest fullest hair for a while when i followed a routine with Carol’s help. I bought some expensive products too as i did not want to second guess anything when going through the process. I now know that it doesn’t have to be expensive. You really just need to know what works for you. My hair was full, thick, shiny, and moved like the L’oreal ads! yay!!
About three years ago, the natural hair movement really blew up around me. I was curious but I remember saying
“God no! I can never go natural!!! My hair is too hard to go natural”. “ you are lucky because you have soft hair and its manageable”.
I was too scarred by my childhood to really go for it. So i decided to try slowly… I was already taking longer breaks between relaxers anyway. I went from relaxing every 6 weeks to relaxing three times a year.
In 2016 I had gone a year without a relaxer and my natural hair was about twelve inches long, making my total length sixteen inches. I did a lot of protective style like weaves, cornrows and braids to hide the transition.
I was always hedging and would eventually relax my hair when there was a big family function like my sister’s wedding in 2016 or my wedding in 2017.
My last relaxer was beginning of September 2017 and from then on I decided no more relaxers. I will stick with this and see where it takes me. In an ideal world I would love to have waist length natural hair. But first… I have to commit to the process fully. Once I made the decision to commit, my husband helped with the back and I chopped the front myself and presto!!! Big chop success!!!
I probably need to go to the barbers to get it evened out but for now, I'm enjoying it! I have a routine I picked up from numerous youtube videos but the person I love watching the most is my girl, Amber Ansah. Her energy is just brilliant and she doesn't make it complicated! I did some more research and have found out what works for me. I will be sharing my hair care routine with you soon! I want to document my journey while its still fresh and I hope I can help some others who have had trouble with committing to the natural hair movement. It is not easy!! It is definitely an arm workout and it does take consistency but I love it! Its freedom! Not being controlled by the norm, and ultimately living your best life!!
Don't forget to follow me for updates on my Instagram and Facebook page!
Until the next post...Ciao!!
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