My story
I did not have relaxed hair before the age of 11 or 12, so I do remember how my hair was back then. I remember that it was curly and coily and that I loved it, even though I rarely saw it like that. Right after my mother washed my hair, I once asked her if I could wear my hair freshly washed, in its natural state. She just laughed and pulled out the hair dryer and hot comb.
So, a few years pass… I got a relaxer and was so happy. I could swing my hair, it was long, and everyone else loved it. After a few years, it fluctuated between shoulder length and longer with very thin and damaged ends. Knowing what I know now, I know that I did a lot of things that were wrong for relaxed hair. However, relaxing my hair became more and more questionable to me as I got older.
Relaxed head of hair
It started out with just a niggling thought here and there. Then it was on my mind every time I relaxed. I went a particularly long time without a relaxer when I was pregnant with my son, but ended up relaxing shortly after he was born. It wasn’t until a bit after his first birthday when my best friend announced that she was “going natural” that I made my decision.
I was going natural too, darnnit.
But, unlike my friend, I couldn’t bear to part from my “precious” locks. I mean, people identified me by my hair. I was the girl with “all that hair”. I would just grow it out to about shoulder length and then I’d cut it, I told myself. I was also self conscious about being overweight with short hair.
Well, the battle of the two textures, coupled with a lack of haircare knowledge, led to me doing the big chop after about seven months of transitioning. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I went into shock when I cut it off only to discover my natural hair was nothing like I’d envisioned. I’d expected silky soft curls that moved and bounced. It was curly, but it was not the silky smooth hair I’d imagined. As I combed through my hair that first time, I thought I’d made a huge mistake.
Shortly after BC
I immediately flat ironed it and covered it up with a scarf for about a week. I read and read all I could. I posted pictures of my hair on various forums asking for help. If you’d like to know what forums helped me, please check out my blogroll.
I learned so much about my hair and learned not to expect it to be something that it would never be. However, I did come to love my hair for what it is. I am learning to style it and pamper it. It was a long road, and I still have a long way to go, but it’s been worth it.
What I get from my hair now are things that I never knew I wanted
I credit protective styling and gentle handling with making my hair blossum as never before. I mostly wear my hair in twists like these.
Braidout
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I LOVE your hair! Mine looked the same way after I cut off my relaxed ends. How did you style it? This is the only deterrent I have: I CANT style my natural/post-transitional hair:( So I constantly wear sew-ins because I have to look “professional” for work. How did you learn what products worked for you? I want to embrace my natural hair..and realized how foolish spending $350+ on imported hair is!
Greetings Newly Natural,
My name is Essence China, owner of Rare Essence Studio in Phoenix, Arizona. I was recently featured in Essence Magazine and also I am the winner of the 2011 Spring of Taliah Waajid’s “World Natural Hair Show” Natural Hair styling competition. Having been natural for more than 10 years, I have a story to share with the love and appreciation we as black women should feel for our hair. I am sending you a link to a promo video for my up and coming “Hair Peace” ~ a Natural Hair Anthem. I am an avid reader of your blog and I would love for you to feature the full length version coming out this week on your site. Please let me know what you think and I will be sure to forward your the embed code and full link.
Thank you enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj7YOEcidRM
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Help! The last relaxer I had was in May. 2011. I have been reading this book by Shamboozie and it has helped me with effective conditioning techniques. I use Neuxess Humectress conditioner and so far I have been pleased. I love the way your hair looks, but I wanted to know if you have had a blow out? I have heard that that would be a great way to help with the transitioining phase, but what do you think?
KC- I love your hair! I haven’t had a relaxer since may 2011. I am in the transitioning phase, because I am over weight and my face is huge. Just like you, I am reading all the natural hair literature I can. My edges are so coarse and I wanted to know if that was a sign of how my hair will be? Also, I tried the domenician blow-outs (I mean Ouch) and they seem to straighten the hair, but its sooo much heat. What do you suggest for achieving the straight hair look without the relaxer?
Dyshieke, thanks! For your hair texture, that kind of an individual thing. A lot of people have a mixture of 2-3 different hair types so that may be the case for you as well. Your edges may be one way but the other parts of your hair another. Mine is a looser texture in the front and small tiny coils in the front. It is coarse all over.
I did flat iron my hair a lot while transitioning but later switched over to non heat styles like braid outs and twist outs (with rollers on the end). I wouldn’t recommend using heat a lot as it can damage your hair and alter your texture.
The blowouts are a lot of heat. If you’re going to get them, make sure to use a heat protectant and the lowest heat as possible.
KC – I love your hair and your story. I, like you, feel somewhat defined by my hair. I live where NO ONE knows about natural hair so I am left to websites and blogs. Yours is great and I thank you for starting it. I stopped relaxing in Apr ’11 and just started letting my hair curl up after I washed it. I loved the curls I was seeing on the back of my head but the front of my hair had a lot of relaxed ends. I was lost on products and did exactly what you hit right on the head “tried to treat my natural hair like it was relaxed”. It was a total mess after a while. I don’t have a problem “representing the REAL ME”. But I refuse to walk around looking like a hot mess. I’m a police officer and I represent more than just myself out there. People see me and take notice of how I present myself which means a lot on many levels. People used to describe me by my hairstyles and how professional and put together I look. I can’t lie…it matters to me how I look and represent myself. I can’t walk around with bantu knots in uniform. It just won’t work :-/ Sorry!! I BCd on Monday (9/19) and now I’m happy. I have a TWA (finally found out this week what that means LOL) that I’m starting to get used to. I had every intention of combing a texture softener through my hair to allow me more versatility in case I want to wear it straight but while searching for a good product to use I stumbled across your site. You’ve helped me to put it off – at least for a while!
So now to my question. What I need to know is if you can recommend a good product to soften and “release” my curls without chemicals and keep them that way after my hair dries. I LOVE how soft and “loose” my curls feel when they’re wet. I honestly very rarely comb through my hair, even when wet, because I lose the definition of the curls I love so much. So I wash and style my hair using my fingers only. Luckily I rarely get knots. When my hair dries it (obviously) shrinks back up but I also lose most of my style. I’d love to find something that can allow me to keep a looser curl, softer feel and lessen the shrinkage. Am I asking for too much???
I’ve always loved how inexpensive (and actually pretty good) Suave products are. I used to use the moisturizing shampoo and conditioner years ago so I bought that hoping it would work for my dry natural hair. It takes A LONG TIME to soak into my hair. That’s something I’m not used to. Tomorrow I am going to buy the Tropical Coconut you suggested. Hopefully that will work better.
Thanks again for your wonderful site. Can’t wait to get your feedback
You have very beautiful hair and it’s an inspiration to me. Thank you so much for the great post and pictures. I understand how important it is to handle hair gently to prevent hair loss.
I want to do this! You are gorgeous!
I keep having that niggling too. Especially seeing my daughter’s beautiful hair. What will I say to her when she says , ‘but mama, why your hair that way and mine this way? ”
Know what I mean?
To Tasha126
I find the Shea Moisture products curly smoothie works well to moisturize, soften & retain curls. I buy it at Target, but it sold at Walgreens as well.
Hope it helps =~)
Thank you for your honesty and sharing your journey. I am a year and a half in of growing my natural hair out and I am inspired to continue knowing that I will get to my hair goals with continued TLC. I love that you say that you’ve finally accepted your hair for what it is and what it could not be. That statement is the truth of each natural’s journey. Thank you!
Hello, ladies.
I hope that you all are doing well and have been enjoying the holidays.
I am doing research about women’s hair choices. Will you help me by answering the questions on the site link you see below? The questionnaire takes less than 8 minutes.(Please participate in this survey only once.) If you are able to answer these questions, please respond by Saturday, December 17, 2011. You may also forward the survey link to other women as well. I am so excited to hear from all of you. I appreciate your time. Thank you!
Natural hair:Hair that is not altered with chemicals that change the original/natural texture of the hair.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/researchhair
Hello! I am going on 6 months of transitioning, 8 months since my last perm. I must say that I really love your hair, and my day for the BC is coming soon, (I’m still getting mentally prepared for it) LOL, but anyway, I will be logging onto your website tutorials and updates etc…. from other viewers! Be Blessed!
Hey Freda, congrats on your transitioning, but I am confused. If you are 8 months without a perm, then you’re 8 months transitioning, right? (not 6?)
Hi Kcurly,
I stumbled onto this site in my search for a way to style my hair (and I’m glad). I am currently transitioning from relaxed to natural hair. My last relaxer was done in April 2011 and since then I found a natural hair care stylist who has been helping me transition. He did my first real cut about two weeks ago. After I gained 4″ in new growth he cut some of the relaxed hair out. He said as I get more new growth he will continue to cut the relaxed hair out until a have nothing but natural hair.
I love you story and I wanted to know the time period between each picture from the big chop?
Also, I am going on a Caribbean vacation in Feb. 2012 for my birthday and I have NO clue as to what to do with my hair. Where I live is too expensive to do braid extensions or a weave. I want to go in my transitioning state, but I do not want to look like a ‘tele-tubby’ on the beach and I haven’t had much experience styling and handling my hair because 9 times out of 10 I go to the salon and let my ‘transitioning stylist’ handle it.
Is there any way of styling my hair that you can recommend?
Vanessa
How did your natural hair grow so much! Your braid out picture is beautiful! How did you get your hair to grow? All I do is wet my hair, co-wash and put gel in it, it kind of curls. But I have trouble with kinks and nearly loc-ing, which I don’t want.
Model Search for SIGNATURETEXTURE™
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Hello all my name is SuLakah I am the online personality for a new hair product line called SignatureTexture.
Signature Texture is a new hair products company for kinky hair. Our company is looking for natural hair models. While setting up our company website http://www.signaturetexture.com (Visit for more info). The owner of the company noticed that it was difficult to find stock photos of models with kinky or kinky curly hair. While photos of models performing leisure activities were easy to come by, real model type BEAUTY SHOTS were scarce. (On the other hand, there were plenty beauty shots of women with traditional wavy, or curly hair). You can visit the site to see for yourself that only 2 or 3 BEAUTY SHOTS were found of black women with kinky hair type. Believe me I spent hours looking for them myself. This did not make us happy, knowing how many beautiful sisters were out there with natural hair, we were kind of outraged. This prompted the online team to host a model search to find beautiful women who had kinky, kinky curly afros. So by supporting our model search you are not only helping us, you are putting your foot down, to people who don’t think enough of our genre to make beauty shots readily available of us. I reside in Orlando Florida, SignatureTexture.com’s headquarters are in Atlanta Georgia. It’s been challenging to find naturals here in Florida, especially Orlando, which is why I am happy I found this group.
I reside in Orlando Florida, SignatureTexture.com’s headquarters are in Atlanta Georgia. It’s been challenging to find naturals here in Florida, especially Orlando, which is why I am happy I found this group.
Organizers, Owners Please sponsor our competition. All you have to do is tell your group members, fans, customers about the model search, then encourage and remind them every so often to enter. If you get 40 or more people to LIKE our page and enter in the model search contest, we will put your logo and a link to your site on our Model Search ad. Please let us know if you will be interested.
Contact Su Lakah on fb http://www.facebook.com/mysignaturetexture, like our page. Then send her a message of if you wish to participate. All your members, customers, fans, friends have to do is LIKE our page send us a message of what group, company, organization they are from. Then they will be sent an invite with details on how to participate in the model search.
Thanks a mil
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http://www.facebook.com/mysignaturetexture
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Hi I love your hair. I have been transitioning for 2 months. The top of my hair is the size of my pinky finger or a little bit more and the back was shaved off but it has grown back. i have noticed recently that when I comb it if its wet or has leave in conditioner in it, about 10 to 15 strands of hair come out. I always watch how I comb it and use a wide tooth comb. Is this ok or should I do something different
I just wanted to start off by saying how much I appreciate your hairstyle tips and style of your site! I have some great tips to share with you and your readers. My client KYNX Hair Care Line has some unbelievable products that I would like to gift you to try out as a part of your “Protective Styles Tips”! KYNX is really known for maintaining your Fro without the frizz, keeping your hair healthy for a fun natural look! Send me your mailing address because I would love to send over some of our great products!
I did not asket s relaxet hair .And braids and perms. I asket 4 wedding upstyles. If u can show it on video. Even better. Thanx
Your hair looks great, so many women get frustrated during the transitioning process. if your braid out or twist out styles ever get tangled, just make sure you detangle your hair before shampooing with the Take Down Remover. If not it will matt and tangle worse. Dreadlocks can be removed too with the product.
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