Hey naturalista's! Hope everyone is blessed. Today I'm coming at you with a top 5 post about how to make it through your natural hair journey.
I've been natural my whole life, never put heat to my hair, but still I suffered and unfortunately my hair fell out. I had to shave my hair completely bald and start again, I did this on April 8th 2016. That wasn't too big a deal for me, but a genuine issue I had was my hair did not grow, it was stuck at 5 inches. Not that it was breaking and not growing, my hair was so damaged it didn't grow for five years.
I resulted to protective styling and left my hair alone after five years of trying and eventually as I said decided to shave it off. Best decision I've ever made, truly. I still have a problem area though, the back of my hair is VERY thin. I think maybe too tight braiding, breakage and just a sensitive area of my head and constant ripping out of hair got the best of it. It is definitely better than it was before, but as I said my hair is very thin in that area, and grows much much slower. I've started putting Jamaican black castor oil and on the strands in that area at night in hope to improve it.
This is a journey and my hair is still very short, its too early to tell at this point with that area. I'm just happy it's better than it was before, and i'm just going to keep trying to restore more hair in that area, it's a process right! So that's a lil background to my hair, I'm 6 and a half months in and to be honest it feels like it's been much longer! I thought I'd give you some tips on how I've been managing.
1.
I know you don't want to hear it, but patience. YOU MUST BE PATIENT. Focus on the process rather than the end goal of a full head of hair. It will happen, growing afro textured hair is not easy, it takes a lot more effort and care, but if you are diligent it will grow. My hair grows very slowly compared to the rest of the natural hair guru's I've seen on youtube, I only retained 2 inches in 6 months, so that's my hair growth rate. My routine is perfect for my hair, I don't struggle with dry and brittle hair although I did in the beginning, avocado oil does my hair wonders, it keeps it soft and conditioned, so I'm doing everything right. I'm diligent, and my hair just grows slowly and I'm really OK with it :)
2.
Don't
compare your hair to other peoples. Ever heard the saying comparison is
the thief of joy? (Don't just apply this to your hair, apply it to your
life!) Looking at other peoples hair growth will drive you insane, I was
guilty of this in the beginning, I was totally happy with how my hair was
growing until I started looking at other YouTubers, blogs and what not, I
thought there was a problem with my hair because my hair didn't look like
theirs at the 4 month stage etc. It's nonsense, I've been really lucky
finding products that work for me so early, but I did have an additional 5
years prior experience of knowing what products just did not work for me.
My point is if you look at other people's hair, you will psych yourself
out. Focus on your own journey.
3.
Protective
style. I gave protective styling a go on my six months, I did some really
cool grey faux dreads, before I shaved my hair that was my go to
protective style. It stops you from watching your hair like a hawk and
just have some fun. However I must admit, I protective styled way too
prematurely. My hair is still far too short and most of the locs fell out,
some of them fell out when I was in lectures :/ They only made it for 3
weeks but I have seen a significant difference, my hair definitely seems
thicker and the textures changed, it's actually really nice, I have 4z
hair and if it's possible it made it even thicker and curlier!
4.
Do not
be a product junkie. I cannot stress this enough. Firstly, you will waste
a ton of money on products you will never use again. Secondly if you're
using a ton of products at once, and you use something that's actually
working for your hair, how are you going to know what's working? You also
need to use some products for a while to see their benefits, you could
have the magic ingredient and you will never know because you're using too
many things!
5.
Document
your journey. You don't have to be taking snapshots on a daily basis, but
I take a photo monthly and this has really helped me, because my hair has
the ultimate shrinkage. The shrinkage is REAL, my hair is so tightly
coiled. When I see some naturalista's wash their hair in sections I am
amazed because as soon as a bit of water touches my hair it recoils like
BAM, if I washed my hair in sections they'd come out for sure. But because
I get so much shrinkage, between my 4 months til now I thought my hair
hadn't really grown but because I had my pictures I can see that it has!
Like I said just focus on your own journey, pictures will snap you out of
your delusion, your hair is growing!
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