Having natural hair can be an exciting journey. There are times when your hair is fabulous, times when the style does not turn out right, or times when you are completely lost. The road to discovering what your hair likes and dislikes can be enjoyable and frustrating. Sometimes people with natural hair hit a wall of some sort when they feel like their hair isn’t growing and none of the products seem to work. A user expressed her frustrations in our Curly Q&A section.
Question
“What can I do to keep from just getting a relaxer?”
Answer
Firstly, curlyhead101 answered this question brilliantly on Curly Q&A when she briefly explained the thought of hair acceptance and different styles to give you a break from your hair.When embarking on a natural hair journey, it is extremely important to accept your kinks, coils, and waves. It is critical to the success of your journey. Self-loathing your hair is going to make the process more frustrating and unbearable. Something that could aid in accepting your hair type is following ladies with a similar hair texture on social media. Seeing ladies with similar texture can offer encouragement. It can be discouraging to only subscribe to the advice of women who do not share the same hair texture, which then make your goals unreachable. When you do find ladies who have a similar texture, whether they have short or long hair, remember that everyone started somewhere.
Self-acceptance is critical to the success of your journey
If you are getting frustrated with your hair, another option is a protective style. Protective styles are great for giving you a break from manipulating your hair. If you desire long-lasting protective styles, you could go for box braids, Marley/Havana twist, faux locs, crochet braids, or sew-ins if they’re your style. Remember that 6-8 weeks should be the max, as your hair needs to a break and is in need of a thorough cleansing and deep conditioning. When your hair is in certain protective styles, make sure you are still moisturizing it somehow. You can use water-based moisturizer, spritzes, or creams. Too much moisture can cause the hair to frizz so be careful not to spritz liberally! And if you need some inspiration here are links to a few instructional videos.
Marley twists
Crochet braids
Box Braids
Moisturizing spritz
While you are on social media looking for different styles, hopefully you are inspired and become excited about styling. If these two methods do not work and you are still on the fence about if you want to go back to the creamy crack or not, think back to what made you stop getting relaxers in the first place. Was it the possible chemical burns or constant upkeep of relaxing new growth? Was your hair dry and breaking? I experienced all of these when I had relaxed hair, however, everyone’s journey is different. There are various people with beautiful, healthy relaxed hair. If you decide to relax your hair in the end, make sure it is something you are 100% committed to and not because it is presumed to be easier.
Read more:
3 Reasons You Think Natural Hair is Harder than Relaxed Hair
Going Back to a Relaxer is Not As Easy As You Think
