Natural Hair Goes Beyond Hair
Natural hair has been dismissed by society for a long time now. People have judged women’s hair based on society’s perception of it. Today natural hair has become a huge part of the world. It has become a culture and community. Come with me on this journey to understand why natural matters.
Natural hair is very important to me. I myself am natural. I have been for 6 years now. I big chopped when I was in high school. Big chopped is a phrase we use in the natural hair community meaning that our hair was cut off. I was really scared and afraid of what I would look like without my hair, more so what my peers at school would say about me. Now that I look back, I am glad I made that decision.
My natural hair journey has given me confidence in myself that I didn’t have before. I love my natural curls, and I am now able to help other naturalistas. Naturalistas is another term we use in the natural world. I have family members who are somewhat new to being natural and they come to me asking advice. I give them knowledge from my own experience in being natural on things like hair products I like to use, videos to watch on Youtube and tools to use.
Natural hair is unique. It comes in different shapes and curls. Natural hair isn’t just hair, it is a statement that is saying, “I am proud of who I am and where I came from.” Like so many others, I didn’t like my natural hair when I first started my journey. My hair didn’t look like other natural hair. It didn’t look like how I imagined it would, but I later realized that nobody’s hair is the same. Your natural hair might look the same but it’s not. You can’t compare your hair to someone else’s. You will only end up disappointed in the end. You have to come to terms with “this is my hair and love it”. When going through your natural hair journey, you gain a sense of confidence and self love. It helps you find out who you are as a person, and that is an amazing thing.
Big Chop of Transitioning
Through research, I found inspiration through women who created blogs to share their hair journey. I’ve discovered that they all had so many things in common. All these women went through the process of big chopping or transitioning. Big chopping is either having your hair shaved off or completely cut off and transitioning is letting your hair grow out as naturally as is and then cutting off the damaged ends through a period of time. These women all had the experience of having to get to know their hair, and at the end of all their stories, they were all happy they went natural.
Natural hair is versatile. You can wear it any style you desire. It lets you express who you are. There is so much that goes into being natural. There are curl patterns that range from 1A, the loosest curl pattern to 4C, which is the kinkiest of all.
Porosity
You also have something called porosity that comes into 3 different categories. The first category is low porosity, which is when your hair can’t absorb moisture into the hair shaft meaning it sits on top of the hair. The second category is high porosity, which is when the hair shaft can absorb water, oils and other products, but the hair can’t retain that moisture because it drinks it up quickly. Lastly is normal porosity hair which means it absorbs and maintains moisture at a normal rate.
In this post, you have learned what natural hair is, why it is popular in the world today, why it matters to me personally, and why this is an important topic to talk about so that everyone knows. Here are some of the blogs I found of other women telling their stories on becoming natural:
I appreciate you sharing your personal hair story with us. I also enjoyed reading through the inspirational blogs that you shared. I thought the song by India Arie (https://youtu.be/KtYarYhKa9c) “I am not my hair” really matched your story and content well. Despite how scared or nervous you were about your hair, I am glad that you have embraced and love yourself and your hair. I feel like this message of loving yourself no matter what is something that many people need during these crazy times. Thanks for posting! 🙂
I loved reading this article, and I think it’s an important topic. People sometimes think they’re complimenting someone when they are actually insulting them, and others just can’t resist being subtly rude by paying too much attention on an aspect of someone’s look. I love natural hair and think it’s beautiful, and it’s sad that so many women are made to feel bad about something so beautiful. People need to mind their business, for sure…
I did find another great article that includes the points of view of 30 women who have dealt with ignorant comments and racist remarks concerning their hair:
https://www.byrdie.com/natural-hair-stories
Hopefully, articles like these will teach people that acceptance is the path, and that stupid people need to talk less and read more!
It can take a lot to make a big change like that and then work towards accepting and loving yourself. I think your story would help a lot of young women out there struggling with self-acceptance.
Thank you for sharing your personal story with us.
I have had friends explain the process of trying to maintain natural hair, but they never explained the importance of it. I think your personnel story helped explain why it is so important and how it is a pretty intimate process.
It’s probably not the same but my hair is naturally curly and I would always go out of my way to avoid letting it just be curly. I hated it so much and was so jealous of people with straight hair. It has taken along time but I am finally embracing my curly locks.
I enjoyed reading about your personal experience with your hair journey. I can tell it’s a topic your passionate about and I admire how you’ve found a sense of confidence in it. It’s a relatable story, a journey of self-love. Your post was informative, too. I definitely learned a few terms I wasn’t familiar with before.
I understand how you felt about the transitioning phase I too am natural I did the big chop in 2011 and I feel in love with it. I did receive alot of negative feed back from some but I learned to embrace my new look. I was thinking it might be of assistance if you listed some of the products you’ve used and seem to work well for you. Great Blog!! Thanks for sharing.