Celebrating 3 years of Natural Hair - 10/21/06

October 21, 2006 was the day I got my third and last “little chop” -- 3 cuts I had gotten between then and August of 2005 when I stopped texlaxing. (My texlax had been a medium-strength sodium hydroxide relaxer kept on only as long as it took for the hairdresser to apply it). With the last of my texlaxed ends cut off, I walked out onto Church Street in Cambridge, MA with naturally curly hair for the first time in my adult life.

  December 2006 - A rainy day of shrinkage

This year I became aware the date was creeping up sometime in September. I began to mentally mark the days to my natural anniversary. It would pop up in my mind periodically. I thought about possibly celebrating it, at least with a "woohoo!". I looked forward to being 3 years a natural, one more year of knowledge and increased love for my hair.

 October 4. 2009 length check - wet and styled. I lose 2 inches when it dries.

I remembered the tough spots I faced in those 3 years: a bald spot on my temple, thinning hair from menopause and dropping hormone levels; having a major cut mid-2008 to get rid of some bad ends; and finally, the painful 16+ month transition from brown, color-treated hair to fully and naturally gray.

Hair Q &A: Hair in a cold, cold climate

Q: My daughter has a hair type EXACTLY like yours, and I am @ a loss for what to try in her hair. We live in a very cold climate so I am opposed to wetting her hair daily, but NO matter what I do her hair comes out looking like an oversized cotton ball. When wet it is eerily similar to your hair type but swells into frizz. HELP!! BTW you have a beautiful mind and beautiful hair! Thanks Sis!

A: Thanks so much for your kind words, I felt really good reading them.

Cold climates are usually dry and that's the challenge. I think I'll write a post on this topic (see previous post). If your daughter's hair is similar to mine, her hair could get puffy and frizzy for 2 possible reasons:

Hair questions: Help me with my daughter's hair please?

This is a real question from Answers.yahoo.com, and here is my actual answer to it, and what I didn't say below it. I had to bite my tongue--

Q.
I have two mixed daughters. One is three the other is two and for the life of me I cannot seem to get their hair to look shiny or decent. I have tried greasing it, I have tried baby oil, Pink lotion. The oldest daughters hair is very rough and brittle while the youngest has very soft hair. It won't grow and it won't stay in place; the curls are out of whack. Mind you I have curly hair as well as their father. My mother tries to brush it and gets annoyed when the curls dry out right away. I see all tons of little girls with beautiful locks of curls hanging past their shoulders, but unfortunately my girls have a little fro. My son on the other hand has beautiful hair that doesn't stop growing. I use the same items on his hair, any advice will be greatly appreciated thanks in advance.:)

A.

Not sure what effect you are going for, but if your daughters' hair is kinky or coily, it will sheen when healthy but won't shine like straight hair. It refracts light much differently.

Baby oil, Pink lotion and other products containing mineral oil are not good for hair. To help add moisture to their hair, try cleansing with a light conditioner, like Suave Naturals, or a light shampoo like Dr. Woods Castile Soap, then conditioning with a heavier more moisturizing conditioner such as Clairol Herbal Essences or Garnier Fructis. You may choose to leave the conditioner in, or rinse hair and add a little more conditioner back. Then try smoothing/scrunching in some castor oil on their ends, then letting dry naturally. This method helps hydrate the hair and emphasize the natural texture.

Retire the mineral oil laced products and try using natural oils like castor oil, avocado, coconut or jojoba oil. Natural fruit butters are also very beneficial to the hair (avocado, mango). But remember that any oil alone will not soften or moisturize the hair. Conditioning is key.

There are so many different textures to natural hair, especially in multi-racial children. All of them are beautiful, not just the locks of curls that hang past the shoulders. I hope you can help your girls learn to appreciate their hair. I've included some helpful links

Additional Resources:

www.naturallycurly.com
http://biracialhair.org/Welcome.aspx
http://motowngirl.com/content/
http://www.curlynikki.com/
http://suburbanbushbabe.blogspot.com/2009/06/hair-q-castor-oil.html


Here is what I didn't say:

Your negative attitudes about hair that doesn't meet your unrealistic standards of curly are potentially harmful to the self-esteem of your baby girls. They are still toddlers, yet toddlers can pick up dislike as well as an adult. You are setting them up for failure, mom. Please get a grip, and educate yourself -- for the sake of your girls.

Hair Purgatory: Between the Big Chop and the "Hang"

A www.naturallycurly.com member started a topic about Hair Purgatory. For hypertextured 4a's, 4b's and beyond, that means when that pretty teeny weeny Afro (TWA) is no longer teeny enough to highlight your head shape, but not long enough to hang even partially south. It's still too short for that but it may be flopping out in other more crazy ways. It may naturally coil. But it also may have different textures. The sides may be tighter like coffee stirrer coils. The crown may have looser coils. The front may grow more slowly than the back. One part may be coarser than another. Or one part may be shrinkier than another.

This is the time when many curlies are focused on gaining length but are still learning what products and routines work best for their hair. It is when we aspire to all those shoulder length and beyond natural looks whose photo albums we so eagerly stalk. We get so focused on our hair future because that is way easier than our hair present. And of course these SL gals never had to go through this awkward period, they just woke up one morning and were SL, right? Let's call this Beyond the Big Chop (BC) Purgatory. It's a tough time because depending on what you do, you can inhibit your hair's development.

Beyond the BC hair purgatory happened to me several times over many years. It was a tough time for me -- too long for the cute shape anchored by my scalp. Too short for the hang. Doing the north, east and west, but definitely no south. WTF was it doing?

• not long enough to hang but not short enough to behave.
• not long enough to pull back into a bun.

I was in this stage several times in my life and each time it felt like I was unanchored and could not see the far shore. No matter how much I patted it down it refused to behave like a TWA. It also refused to behave like it wanted to drop and hang. I went through several cycles of growing it to a certain length, losing hope, and BC'ing again. And it all happened before the curly hair product revolution I saw happen after Y2K.