A New Turning Point: I love big hair

Let me start off by saying, this post is in no way to bash those who choose to straighten hair. I think that hair is versatile and within reason most hair (not all hair) can be straightened without lasting damage.

You would think that with 10 years of being natural under my belt I would surely know everything there is to know about my hair......well I had a revelation this past weekend. I will never straighten my hair. I only use the word never when I am certain of it (just like I said, I will never relax my hair).

Why? I have not applied any heat to my hair for nearly a year now (blow dry sometime in December 2009, last flat iron must have been early in 2009). My hair has well and truly thanked me for it, split ends are down, afro is huge and time spent in the mirror is up.

I love my hair more today than I did before (and I did not think that was possible because I really really loved my hair a lot!). The new perspective is that I love it textured and only textured. I know that big hair is not for everyone but it sure is for me!


Have you had a turning point in your journey? If so, spill the beans!!

Comments

  1. I think it is too soon into my hair journey for me to start saying never (not even four months yet lol) but it is very unlikely that I will go to a salon in the near future. (Note all the modifiers XP ) I'm at a point where I feel confident enough in my styling skills that I can walk out the door and that anything I don't know how to do I feel sure I can learn :)

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  2. I totally understand. I love textured hair too as this is how my hair wants to be.

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  3. Nicki - Oh 4 months is way too early to say never. Even too early to say that you will always be natural. I think some people are able to commit to this early on but it took me atleast 2 years to finally know that natural hair is and always will be for me. Styling takes practice but after a few tries you get there. Well done!

    Tinuke - Thanks :). I love love my hair texture :)

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  4. I am only 7 months natural, but I can say with absolute certainty that I will never relax my hair ever again. I have not even thought about applying any type of heat. My stylist thinks we should try flat ironing after a year, but I am uncomfortable with this idea. So, it is very likely that I will never apply heat to my hair ever again.

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  5. Turning point: Hearing my friends complain that my hair is "too big" and is "blocking" them.

    Basically, I'm almost there in terms of BIG BIG BIG hair :)

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  6. JC -- would love to see pictures of your fro. I've been following for a while and don't think I've ever seen a photo.

    As for the post, I transitioned for 16 months and did my final BC on this past Friday. AND LOVE IT... I'm glad I didn' do it sooner, my BC was right on time. :)

    veronica
    www.sonoteddesigns.com

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  7. The thing that gets me down the most is that I waited so long to go natural. I've been in this journey just for a little over 2mos now and no way in the world would I go back to relaxers. My hair was never this healthy and full before.

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  8. Thanks for sharing your turning points.

    Alice your hair is gorgeous! Somehow I still want bigger hair. It is like the bigger it gets, the bigger I want it to be. Bigorexia?

    Sonoteddesigns - yup no pics on the site. It is a pretty regular question too.....I am keeping all of you waiting :)

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  9. I love your blog. I too would love to see your hair. For me being a woman means I have the right to express myself with my hair. So most of the time I wear a nice, full braid out. But I like the fullness and glamour my natural hair gives me when I wear it straightened. Pageant beauty or urban cutie- either way natural hair is still fly.

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  10. As soon as I decided to go natural, I knew I would never 'relax' my hair again. The thought to straighten my hair never occurred to me.

    The more I play with and get to know my hair the more I love it. I am at the point where I know that I will never straighten my hair (or apply any direct heat for that matter).

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  11. Happy to be back to see such a wonderfull post. You're the best!

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  12. The turning point for me was when I started waking up in cold sweats from a dream that I'd relaxed my hair and now had to style it. I haven't had a perm in my hair for 16 years now and that scared the dickens out of me. I remember the dream too, my hair was limp and straight but I kept trying to get it to stick up.

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  13. :sniff: so happy you've found love w/ Big Hair!!! I think a lot of us underestimate how long it takes for us to fully embrace the froishness factor, but when it does dawn on you, it's very liberating!

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  14. Interesting that you should write this. I had a similar revelation this past weekend. Late last year I decided to give up using direct heat, mainly blow-dryer for a while and see how my hair would react. I still do my conditioning under a bonnet dryer at times. This year I have used a blowdryer once. My hair is not as dry, breaks less and I dare say the afro seems to have grown a little. I don't think I can say "never" like you but I definitely know the benefits of limiting heat.

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  15. since i'm natural (1 year), i've discovered and loved my tightly coiled hair. I've been in trials and errors (until now lol) but i know i'll never use heat on my hair.

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  16. Skeptical at Best6 October 2010 at 22:02

    I've reached the "I love big hair" point, at the most, six months after going natural. I can't say that I'll NEVER straighten, simply b/c I haven't done it since being completely natural. I think I'd at least like to see the difference compared to my relaxed hair.

    I thought I would be mainly a straight natural, but I'm not so sure anymore. I've noticed that the styles that appeal to me are the bigger hairstyles. IMO, the bigger the better!

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  17. How can you write a post like that and not attach a pic?

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  18. I am transitioning (11 months)...and I can easily say: I will NEVER go back to a relaxer. EVER.

    I can't say that I will never use a flat iron though...but I am almost there....If I can get comfortable with a temp that will not cause heat damage, I might be ok with using a flat iron when i am fully natural. Right now, I am 99.3% against using a flat iron. I haven't used a flat iron at all during my transition and have only blow dried my hair twice...way back in Feb/May.

    JC, when you straightened your hair, what temp did you use? And did you get heat damage?

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  19. Missed you Kadiane :)

    lol family viola - It is what I always do :)

    Soleil - I never straighten my hair completely straight. I used to go for a blow out look. I used 100 Celcius which is about 200F. My hair does not like heat (yes took me long enough to get that lol). My hair always reverts but it is damaged because it always starts to split. The worst splits are those which are 6 inches away from the end so cutting those off means a hair cut not a trim. I realize now that my hair simply does not like heat. Other people can get away with it but I can't.

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  20. Thanks for this post.
    I recently came to this revelation as well.
    I am 7 months without relaxed ends (transitioned for 1 yr prior. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my hair texture and fullness. It was like a light bulb that came on as I looked in the mirror and admired my huge chunky twist out or chunky braid out or huge ponypuff....lol.
    It feels awesome to feel this way about my hair!!!!

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  21. I've had a lot of turning points in my hair life but honestly right now the only thing I can safely say I will never do again is just blindly go to a salon every six weeks and let some stylist put just any regular-strength relaxer on my new growth. Like a lot of black women I put my faith in stylists who I believed had the secret skills to "handle" my "difficult" 4b hair...and I did this for 18 years. Being natural really demystified my hair and its care and it's made me -- not some random stylist -- the most knowledgeable expert on it. And with that I just thought of another "never": I will never work with any stylist who doesn't understand and respect my hair and my knowledge of it.

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