complicatedSimplicity

going natural requires just as much, if not more, effort than being relaxed since it’s so different from what you’re used to. I got my last relaxer august 2009, and from there, i washed my hair with conditioner (called co-washing) every one or two days, and washed with shampoo 1x a week or every other week. when i used shampoo, i only focused on my scalp because when you rinse it out, it cleans your hair too. shamppo is EXTREMELY drying, that’s why i used a moisturizing conditioner. Suave Natural Tropical Coconut is really good and it’s cheap too. don’t be afraid to co-wash your hair as much as you want. a lot of people think that black people can only wash 1x a week or less. not true. most people just wait because they want to preserve a hair style, but you’ll probably notice that your hair and scalp feels better and your hair will grow faster too because you’re keeping it moisturized.

Moisture is very important. You want to use a moisturizing conditioner, a good leave-in conditioner, some type of moisturizer, and some hair oil or hair butter to lock/seal in all the moisture you just put in. The oil/butter is important because if you don’t lock in the moisture with it, it wil just evaporate and your hair will feel dry again. So I would co-wash, let my hair air-dry until it was damp, apply a leave-in conditioner (spray or cream, whatever u prefer), section my hair and apply hair moisturizer/hair lotion to my hair once it’s fully dry, then go back thru those sections with an oil like extra virgin olive oil (you can buy from walmart) or a hair butter like shea butter.

Also, protective styles will help a lot. that’s basically any style that keeps your ends protected and a style where you’re not constantly messing with you hair or damaging it. So braids, kinky twists work. Also, buns and ponytails. This makes sure that the ends of your hair aren’t snagging and getting split, and it’s less manipulation so you’re not stressing your hair out. I mostly wore buns.

Another big thing is letting go of the heat. Using blow dryers and flat irons/curling irons all the time is only going to damage your hair. You won’t retain much length. a better alternative is do dooby wraps or roller sets because sitting under the hooded dryer is a lot healthier than using hand held blow dryers and marcel irons like they do at hair salons. for any form of heat, make sure you use a heat protectant serum,cream, or spray, and don’t use a lot of heat.

To avoid heat as much as possible, you can do styles like twist-outs, braid-outs, and bantu knot-outs. look them up on youtube cuz there are a lot of video tutorials. I did twistouts a lot. that was the style in my facebook albums from before i cut my hair where my hair was really crinkly/wavy looking.

it also helps to get motivation from other people, and there are a lot of online resources. here are some websites that helped me and gave me a lot of info:

1. curlynikki.com

2. bglhonline.com

3.naturallycurly.com

4. youtube.com users—

longhairdontcare2011

lethalpleazure

leobodyC5

healthyhairjourney

blackonyx77

mahoganycurls

misskrisnew

nikkimae2003

richeau

sheacocoaluv

sunshinelovespeace

taren916

torridiana777

xGOLDn

naturallycurlydotcom

5. there are lots of people on tumblr that talk about natural hair too. just search for natural hair and you’ll find them.

6. also look on fotki. people post pictures, hair regimens, recipes to make your own stuff, and it’s a cool place to create your own profile and post your own pics as like an online hair diary. my fotki is fotki.com/MsIconic. i haven’t updated it recently, but you can get the gist from there. and look at the people who are my friends because they have great albums full of info.

this is all i can think of right now. if you have any more questions, let me know. :)