straight natural

I just realized that I never did a natural hair post on here. Could be because everyone and their momma has a natural hair post or a whole blog dedicated to natural hair transitions, hairstyles, products, personal stories, how-to vids, etc. It’s really too much yet, here I am, adding my 10cents.

I went natural in 2001 over Thanksgiving break during my junior year of college. After thinking about it for about a year and one prior attempt to abandon my relaxed strands (I grew my hair out then succumbed to a perm last minute) I found myself alone in my apartment with nothing to do… nothing to do except cut off my hair. I hopped in the car and headed to the salon. Closed. I had the option of waiting a couple of days for them to open but I knew that I had to get my hair cut right then or I wouldn’t do it at all. I drove around and found a new salon, walked in and asked to get my hair cut. The stylist asked if I was sure. At the time, my hair was pretty good looking and just grazed my shoulders. Black women don’t go around cutting off hair like that,  so this stylist just wanted to make sure I didn’t wild out on her later. “Yes, cut it off,” I told her. She did. She cut my hair down to about two inches. When it was all said and done, I liked it. It was new and my head felt so light. I was a little bit nervous about how people would take it but there was no turning back.

Good or bad, everyone had an opinion about my hair. One guy friend stopped me on campus and asked me why I didn’t tell him first so that he could have stopped me. He said guys didn’t like women with hair that short and he could’ve saved me from that mistake. Ugh. He was halfway right. Some people were obviously turned off by my short, kinky ‘do but others who wouldn’t have looked twice were now attracted to me. One guy I met at a party told me he came to talk to me because of my haircut. He figured that I had to be quite a confident person to do it, plus it showed off my features. Sweet. While I haven’t relaxed my hair since ’01, I have gone through quite a few styling changes and constantly fight the urge to just slop some of that creamy white goo on my head.