Today I am writing an unusual post, warning for a huge mix of text, baby pics and reviews :)
I have decided to transition- those who haven't got afro hair or haven't heard of relaxers are probably thinking.. okey?! Transitioning means growing out your naturally curly hair and stop relaxing (straightening) your hair.
Warning for long text explaining basically my whole hair journey lol:
Well relaxing afro hair means chemically treating it so that your hair strands goes straight- permanently. It can cause a lot of breakage if you don't care about your relaxed hair properly, or even if you do. My hair has been relaxed on and off since I was about 8-10 (ill change this afterwards when Im sure what age I was).
How it all started.
At that time I was really shy and insecure, I lived in a tiny town (more like village) in Sweden which was not the most multi cultural place. It's fair to say I was the only none white person, which to them automatically made me black, even though I'm half white half black. Anyway, all I wanted at that time was straight hair and light skin. My mum is white and none of my Swedish family have or had dealt with afro hair, so my English family sent the relaxer. Since me or my mum didn't really know how it worked, I just thought it was this miracle product that would automatically make my hair looks like the young girls on the package (lol you all know what pic im talking about, otherwise click here).
If you know how relaxer works you can probably guess it didn't quite turn out like that. The relaxer is applied similar to how you apply hair dye to your head, only that you have to constantly press and smooth it to help the hairs go straight. It would not dry bone straight and to achieve super straight hair you will still need to style it with a straightener or hair dryer. We (my mum and I) did not do any of these so my hair was straighter, but not at all straight.
This is my natural hair by the way, sorry about the baby pic.
After that I don't really remember, but shortly after that I started to visit my English family yearly so I think I had my hair relaxed at the salon when I was there. That might have been a few year after when I was a bit older. At this time I was only wearing my hair up in a pony tail, yes always! And it was super long. I had it straightened a few times at the salon in England and my hair was super long! Almost down to my breast (I dont know how else to describe it)
When I was around 13 or 12 my hair I still only wore my hair in a pony tail, I was to self conscious about my hair. I discovered hair straighteners and started to straighten it almost every day- but still wore it up! When I was 14, I moved to a new city and for the first time in about 5 years, I wore my hair out. This was a big deal to me lol.
My hair was now it's shortest in a long time! A couple of years before this, my hair was twice the length.
During my next visit to England a hair dresser cut (in my opinion) way too much of my hair off. To be honest, that's when my hair stopped retaining length ( I say this because it was obviously growing, but it was breaking more- hence it did not look longer). I was now wearing my hair out every day and straightening it.
When I was 15 I started to visit my child hood friend (more like family) more often when I was in England, and she had started to wear weave (sew in hair extensions). Her hair was long and straight and it looked really natural. I had it done during my next visit and I was hooked!
Now I was wearing tracks (which is not a full weave, the rest of your hair is still left out) and straightening my hair. Since I had never felt happy with my own hair I was now hooked on wearing weave. I would leave it in for way too long, up to 5 months, then get it done when I was back in London.
I now committed every single relaxed hair crime lol. I took it out myself (cut the threads of the weave myself), then without any treatments or leaving my hair, I headed back to the salon to get my hair relaxed (only like a day after taking out my weave) and had them sew in new weave! This is really really bad. You should leave your hair at least 1-2 weeks on it's own after having weave sewn in. I knew this, but didn't care because I now felt I couldn't wear my hair without weave, same was as before I felt I couldn't wear my natural hair out without putting it in a ponytail.I don't regret it at all, the only thing to regret is how insecure I was at that time.
In the first pic I am wearing tracks. In the second GLUED in hair extensions.
Around 15 years old.
Here I am wearing weave, AND glued in hair extension (mainly used by white people, because imagine how that tangles in the afro growing out?!). That was crazy. Oh and I had dyed my hair black here.
Around 16 years old.
I wore weaves until I was like 17 or 18, and then decided to leave my hair alone and try to grow it out, but still relaxing it. Since I started this blog I've just been leaving my hair alone, hence all the pony tail looks!
Except when I was really young I've always loved curly hair, and every time I see my hair growing out I've been thinking about transitioning. The last time I relaxed my hair was 3 months ago, and before that I was already thinking about transitioning. I found that it was too much of a hassle and my regrowth was too tangly.
But then again, I wasn't detangling my hair at all so it makes sense it would be knotty.
I decided to transition about 3 days ago, and I won't change my mind. Sometimes I'm really spontaneous, but not in a way that I change my mind. I just make my mind up really sudden lol.
My hair regime will kind of be the same, except I'll stop blow drying my hair completely, to prevent breakage and to be able to see my new growth. I had a sample of this product before I decided to transition and I still really liked it. It's meant to detangle your new growth and moisturise it.
I really like it and it makes detangling a lot easier.
I haven't tried this brand before but I've now checked out their other products, they all contain mineral oil and other bad stuff! The ingredient list in this is fine, but not amazing.. it contains quite a lot of Shea Butter which is the second ingredient.
It smells of mango and lime, the smell is amazing! This is what it looks like.
Any transitioning tips for me?
Any hair journey stories, link it :D?
x
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