From Relaxed to Natural

I have a lot of hair. Like, a LOT of hair. My hair has been thick since I was little. My hair has gone through many changes from my childhood until now. As a Black Woman, my relationship with my hair has always been a complex one, tied to my self-image and confidence. It's still a work in progress, but one that I'm proud to grow in.

When I was 4 years old, I got my first relaxer. For those of you who don't know, relaxers chemically straighten curly hair and make it easier to manage.

Relaxing a girl's hair that young is controversial in the Black community. Some people are against it because long-term relaxer usage can damage hair. Others think that a relaxer is an adult privilege, or at least the privilege of a teenager who takes care of their own hair. My mom told me that her Caribbean relatives warned her that relaxers were "biggish" - grown. But, as my mom rightly pointed out, she was the one doing my hair, not them.

My hair was in braids a lot when I was younger; a typical, low-maintenance hairstyle for little girls. As I got older, Mom taught me to use pink foam rollers to keep my hair - and my tiny bangs - curly when I slept at night, wrapped with a scarf made from spare fabric (she used to sew and make our outfits when we were little). There are countless pictures of little me with my scarf in my mom's photo albums. My new go-to hairstyle was a ponytail or bun with a 90's scrunchie.

While daily maintenance was my job, washing and relaxing were strictly Mom's domain. Gradually she taught me to blow dry, then curl (on my sister's head), but I had to wait for her to have time for sink washes and relaxers. Relaxers have to be redone every 6-8 weeks to straighten the new growth at the root. Washes also are done less frequently when you have a relaxer, because your hair will start to curl up again. When I tell you I avoided water on my head like the plague???

But one time I got impatient and attempted to wash my hair on my own. I did a poor job, and Mom was ticked off to high heaven. But she taught me to do the washing on my own, so eventually, all that was left was relaxing.

Which I refused to learn because putting chemicals on my own hair just wasn't something that I was comfortable doing.

I didn't go to a salon to get my hair done professionally until my eighteenth birthday - my hair care had been solely in the hands of my mother and myself. Even the one time I had put red highlights in my hair (even though my hair is so black that it barely showed), Mom did it. It helped that she had gone to cosmetology school for a time, so she had some skills.

As I got older, I started using ribbons and scarves to keep my hair out of my eyes. This carried on until college when my style began to change. It was in college that I really started experimenting - cutting bangs, getting a weave, getting protective styles.

Getting a weave was really a life-changing experience. I'd always wished that my hair would grow that long, but it never seemed to go past my upper back. So getting my long locks left me feeling like the movie star that I was in my head. I used every opportunity to flip it dramatically over my shoulder or brush it. You couldn't tell me nothing!

Now, the braiding down and the take-down process before and after getting a weave was the stuff of nightmares, but it was worth it.

Once I moved away, a friend pointed me to the hair salon where all of his aunts and cousins got their hair done. My hair was the healthiest it had been since I'd fully been taking care of my own hair, and I loved someone else taking care of my hair again.

I survived the years after that by leaning on friends who did hair to get my relaxers and the occasional braids.

And then came the pandemic.

For a year and a half, leaving the house wasn't a thing. I was only seen online, and I wasn't spending money on relaxers. My roommate put my hair in twists (after previously doing them when we went to Mexico before the pandemic), and I stayed in braids and twists from June to June. It was the longest I'd ever gone without a relaxer, and to say that I was uncomfortable was an understatement.

But I decided to just go for it, letting my hair keep growing naturally. I was absolutely not about to "big chop" and have extremely short hair for months, so I continued to let it grow. I reached out to friends of mine who were natural and asked them for tips on products and methods to care for this new texture. The struggle was less about learning about my natural hair and more about blending my relaxed ends with my natural roots.

After several different methods with varying levels of success, I gave up. I grabbed my hair scissors, called my roommate in, and told him to cut off the relaxed hair. He checked with me several times before hesitantly doing as I asked - he had been the person I allowed to cut my hair into a long bob in college, and I remember being very angry at him for it.

And I was fully a natural girlie. I was a little disconcerted with how short my hair was, especially with my curls and the dreaded shrinkage making it look shorter. But I slowly learned how to take care of it. Twist outs became my style of choice; I could wash, detangle, condition, and two-strand twist on wash day, throw on a headwrap if I needed to leave my house, and take them out the night before work so that my hair had a chance to stretch out. As the week wore on, I could gradually pin more of it back until the last couple of days when I'd gather my hair up into a "poof."

I eventually started learning to do new styles - passion twists, faux locs, soft locs. I never quite got the hang of braiding, so I left that to friends who would occasionally do my braids for me when I was itching for a protective style. On rare occasions, I would blow dry and flat iron my hair - mostly to trim my edges, but also because sometimes I would miss the ability to swing my hair back and forth. I try to avoid it for the most part, since keeping heat off of my hair, with the exception of sitting under a hood dryer, has been one of the things that prevented heat damage. But every now and then I like to relive my relaxer days.

Even though the slightest hint of moisture will send my straight hair back into its natural form.

The past year I learned how to do a wash and go (though let me make it clear, it was poorly named), and it became my new favorite style. A little extra time in the shower detangling and applying gel to define my curls meant less time spent fooling with my hair outside of it, and that was a great goal.

As time passed, different friends asked why I wasn't excited about trying a big afro or dramatic curls. I always complained that I didn't like "big hair" on myself. It wasn't until literally this month that I realized why I didn't like it: it felt wild and uncontrollable for someone who was used to being able to shape her hair exactly how she wanted it.

But after three weeks of mini twists (by the way, my hair definitely grew without me having to do much to it), I took my hair out on a Tuesday night and HAD to wash it because of product buildup and general itchiness. I didn't start until nearly nine, which is extremely late considering the length of time it takes for me to do my hair. So I decided to just blow dry it, research some styling tips online, and hope for the best.

The first day was so wild that I just wore a huge poof with a headwrap. Another tutorial video, and I tried again the next day.

I hated it. It was huge and unruly looking, and I couldn't get it into any shape or semblance of order.

I know myself, however, and forced myself to wear it for at least a week before immediately grabbing gel and going back to my wash and go. The amount of compliments that I got from coworkers and friends was astounding. I was confused as to why everyone loved it so much. I confess that I'm still a little puzzled on that point. But here we are, three weeks later, and I'm still wearing it nice and big. It's starting to grow on me.

My hair journey has been pretty complex. I won't lie to you and say that I haven't sometimes considered going back to a relaxer like so many natural girls have done. Natural hair isn't easy or cheap to take good care of, especially if you're a girl who can't afford regular salon visits to professionals and have to do it all on your own. But in the long run, I'm glad that I'm natural. And I'm sure it's not over yet.