There is so much management in our lives. We manage our finances, families, jobs, and even our bodies, but it seems strange to manage our natural hair texture. What is natural hair management anyway? Keeping a look of perfection? A daily strive for curl definition? A twist out that doesn’t frizz? None of those sound so bad by themselves, but when combined the irony lies in not keeping or accepting the natural in natural hair.
Many women, natural and relaxed, perceive natural hair to be strenuous, difficult, or unruly. Those adjectives are often paired with washing, detangling, styling, and drying time. I don’t know about you but I don’t miss the long days at the salon and the money that was shelled out when my hair was relaxed. Due to the process of relaxing the hair, chemically straightened hair actually requires a greater need for protein treatments, deep conditioning, and heatless styling. Although it is fair to argue that detangling coily hair may be more time consuming, maintaining healthy relaxed hair or relaxed hair that retains length still requires more than 30-45 min on washday!
Many of the awesome women with relaxed hair on Hairlista include protein treatments, deep conditioning, and heatless styling in their regimens…and I do not recall a wet wrap only taking an hour to dry at home or at the salon (depending on the length and density of your hair, along with the quality of your hooded dryer”>. You may think relaxed hair required less time to style, but if you are referring to a quick blow dry and flat iron every week, then the health of the hair was definitely compromised.
A big reason why women refer to their journeys as a struggle is the lack of familiarity, but that is not fair to our texture.
Even with relaxed hair, no one learned how to wash, wrap, roller wrap, flat iron, curl, and crimp overnight. It is something you were either accustomed to or your stylist did.
There are challenges with natural hair just like any new journey you embark on with unfamiliarity. There are no natural hair rules, only suggestions. You don’t have to re-twist your hair every night. You don’t have to finger detangle. You don’t have to do the LOC method or purchase the most expensive products. These are all suggestions that have helped others along their journeys. If you don’t want take part then that’s ok, but that does not mean that the information cannot be useful to someone else.
Back to the re-twist every night statement. You don’t have to look a certain way to be acceptable or attractive. This has many women taking hours to twist or braid nightly. As far as wash and go’s, if you give up on mastering your wash and go because you cannot achieve the desired results, time restraints, and style longevity (second, third, and fourth day hair”> that you are satisfied with, that’s fine. There is no perfect wash and go and there is no perfect natural hair type, texture, or look. Your natural tresses are perfect for you, and all the time it takes to make them look different is time wasted on the wrong thing. It’s one thing to explore versatility, but it’s another thing to allow a certain aesthetic to define your beauty and schedule. Mange your life, your family, and your 401K but don’t manage your hair texture. Moisture retention, combating split ends, and short detangling sessions are the extent of my worries.
Do you consider your natural hair a struggle?
