I didn’t really know my own hair (my journey to unleashing my fro and knowing my hair)

I started actively perming my hair when I was 13, also having it in braids and weaves for a significant number of years. I went straight from my mother and sisters doing my hair to having it relaxed and then doing it myself but not in its natural form.  It is no wonder I didn't know my hair in the way nature intended; I only really had the experience of working with my hair in it’s permed state. Coming of age I started working as a mobile hair-dresser. Most of my customers had chemically straightened hair too, the few that didn’t either had looser curls or hair that was simpler to work with. Even with my hair in its chemically straightened state, It took me some time to find and master a technique that worked for it.

Some years back I started watching videos of women transitioning to natural hair, I was seeing videos of black women with hair reaching their waist. I knew it was possible for black hair to grow so long but I only associated it with chemically strengthened hair. I mean my hair was long and thick in it’s permed state too but I was also experiencing some breakage. Seeing these videos, I was sceptical. I kept thinking “it is not possible for black people to have un-relaxed hair like that!”  I also started wondering about their ethnicity. Looking back, that was a “face in palm moment”...  I started properly noticing my sister’s hair and what she was doing and trying to do with it. About four and a half years ago during a Christmas visit, while cooking Christmas dinner together, I asked her what she did to her hair, what she put on it, why hare curls looked the way it did and why was it so enhanced? Admittedly, I was not paying much attention to what she was doing with her hair prior to that moment.  She then proceeded to tell me that  “…your hair can look like that too!” I didn’t believe her. She told me she was making her own products to use for her personal use, some weeks passed and I overheard her church members ask similar questions about her hair. 

So I decided to take her word for it and transition slowly, my sister was always someone who chopped off her hair without thinking too much about it, after all “hair always grows!” she says and she has a lot of it. Instead of doing the big chop like she did, I decided to grow out my perm underneath weaves, wigs and braids while trimming off the permed bits six weekly as I did when I was actively using relaxers. One and a half years later, my sister was officially launching her product line -Endless Limits and I was doing a big reveal, cutting off all the remaining permed hair, styling my hair into a “wash and go”, using Endless Limits’ Conditioner and  Curling Pudding! My goodness, I was surprised with what I saw growing out of my scalp, I saw my curls enhanced and popping! I thought to myself “is this really all mine?!”. I didn’t really know my own hair! My sister who washed and styled my hair joked to my mum saying “wow, she has really nice curls, why didn’t you make me like that”. Imagine we share the same parents and our curl patterns are different, even our hair-care needs! I prefer her curls and she likes mine - Humans funny huh!

Anyways nearly three years on, my hair still surprises me and I still marvel at the many things it can do, the many things the afro hair is capable of! I glance in the mirror and love what I see in whatever state it is in. one day it looks a certain way, another day, the shape changes - I just marvel. My journey has not been all bliss cos come wash day, i remember how long it takes me to detangle but once that it all done, I am back in a moment of bliss I do sometimes feel cheated out of years of this marvelling experiences. I have made a journey from thinking afro hair is unmanageable, thinking it was difficult to keep, to also remembering hairstylists either overcharging my mum to do my hair as a child, or refusing to do my hair, because it was too thick, to embracing all that my hair is and can do. Now I have my own hair out most of the time and spend a lot of time caring for it and thinking about it - it is part of me after all. I was one of those women who changed her hairstyle every 3 weeks, I want to finish by saying - If I can, you can, just spend some time knowing yourself and knowing your hair!