Here's my long awaited post on why I decided to become natural. A little background first though, I've always had very thick and long hair whether natural as a child and when I was relaxed. However, around 2006 I started to notice my hair was feeling and looking thinner especially around my hairline. I just attribute it to wearing tight buns, ponytails and stress. So I wore my hair in looser styles to compensate, but continued to get relaxers. In 2008, I've moved out of state for a job opportunity and to be closer to family, but the job fell through within a few months. So now I was really stressed and living in another state, my hairline went into hiding (not literally, but that what I felt!) After a few months of unemployment, you could say I started to transition because I couldn't afford any salon trips, but I also couldn't afford to take care of the two textures either so I had a lot of breakage.I finally gained employment and promptly went back to the relaxers, as I felt it provided a more professional look for work ,but I still had breakage around my hairline that was really noticeable.
So I continued with this self-destructive behavior until October 2010. My college homecoming was coming up and I wanted a fresh relaxer before I drove down. By this time, I had moved again and didn't have a regular stylist so I went to a stylist that a friend recommended. Biggest mistake ever! I'm not going to say it was the stylist fault because I did wash my hair three days before getting the relaxer, but when I say my scalp was burnt from the relaxer, I am not lying! The relaxer had severely burnt my hairline that I could not even get the hair lifted away from my scalp in this area. My hair looked long and straight but I was in pain the entire homecoming weekend and had to wait until my scalp scabbed over for me to comb around my hairline. From that point onward, I said no more relaxers for me ever again! I transitioned from October 2010-June 2011 before chopping off about 6 inches of relaxed ends. My transitioning styles were mainly loose buns, ponytails, braids and Bantu knots to hide the two textures. My hair grows really fast, but the hairline area was still thin in the temple region but it was growing back.
Overall, this was the best decision for me to combat the breakage around my hairline and give my hair a break from the chemicals.I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of my BC so I'm more focused on continuing to regrow my hairline area as well as grow my hair out. My hair has grown a lot since the BC, so I'm happy, but I still struggle with my hairline area. I thinking it might be a permanently hair loss in this area due to the burnt scalp from my last relaxer so I try to blend it in as much as possible without looking like I have a comb over. My current routine is to try scalp massages with essential oils and hair growth aids such as Castor oil, so I'll see if it will make a difference. Has anyone else experienced similar issues that led to them becoming naturals? I would love to hear others' natural hair story.
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