Let’s talk about hair! My hair has caused major drama in my life for years and years and years. I’ve had braids, twists, perms, crazy dye jobs featuring platinum blonde, pink and orange, weaves and braided extensions, shaved sides, mohawks, shaved designs, fingerwaves, you name it! During my adolescent years, my father often referred to my experiments as “The Hair Wars,” because my parents could not deal lol.
For the past year, give or take a few weeks, things have calmed down tremendously, because I am now natural. After discovering I was pregnant in early January, I had a minor, panic-induced meltdown, and decided to cut my hair… all of it. I went in the bathroom with my orange all-purpose scissors that are generally stored in the kitchen utility drawer (come on, you know the type of scissors I’m talking about!), and I went to town. I cut all but about an inch and a half of my hair. Mind you, I had just gotten a relaxer maybe two weeks prior to this, so what I was pretty much left with was a spiky, dingy, uneven fro (if you could even call it a fro). I LOOKED NUTS. But like I said, my emotions were going haywire and so I didn’t really even care. I was looking for some type of liberation I guess, I’m not sure. For the next couple of months I wore my T.G.I. Fridays red cap (I was a waitress at the time) or a hooded sweatshirt. As the spring came and the months grew warmer, and as my pregnancy progressed, I abandoned the hat because I simply did not care! I was big, uncomfortable and sweating constantly and could care less about what my head looked like! My roommate at the time and one of my best friends, Krissy, told me that I walked around looking like Pat from Saturday Night Live. You know, that person with the crazy poofy hair, that no one could tell if it was a man or a woman???? Yea.
I barely took any pictures of myself during these months because I looked NUTS, but I will share the few that I have stored on my MacBook PhotoBooth. Please excuse the swollen face and nose and frumpiness. SMH.
Excuse the color filter… but this was a few days after I initially cut my hair with the orange scissors. I was about 2 months pregnant here. My friend Dave forced me to visit his barber so that I could at least have an even cut.
As soon as my hair got long enough to grab, (I think I was 5 months pregnant here) I went to an African braid shop and paid $230 for some Senegelese Twists that only lasted about a month. Because my hair was so short, they fell out quickly. I don’t recommend doing this type of style unless you have at least three inches of hair.
After I took those twists out, I walked around with this for about a month. You can see it grew fairly well… I think the prenatal vitamins had a lot to do with this. I was about 6 months pregnant here.
When I was about 7 months pregnant, dead in the midst of a blazing Chicago summer, swollen as EVER, I decided it was a good idea to try to give myself Janet Jackson Poetic Justice Braids. It took me about 8 hours, 10 packs of Kankelon braiding hair and at least 20 bathroom breaks to get these done. They lasted MAYBE 2 weeks… 
This was a few weeks after I gave birth. I colored my hair an auburn reddish color… please ignore the bed head and swollen face.
And, this is my hair currently. Packed into a neat fro. On a daily basis it hardly looks this neat hahahaha. But, overall, I am quite proud of my hair growth. Like I said, I definitely give credit to those wonderful prenatal vitamins. I haven’t straightened my hair since December of 2010. I would imagine if I was to straighten this stuff out now, it would be almost bob length in the back, and something like a bowl in the front, but I’m not sure. I’m happy to be natural, mostly because I’ve been a complete and utter bum for the past year, neglecting all upkeep, and if I had a perm… I’d be bald from the failure of keeping to a hair care regimen. I’m just now starting to get back into taking care of my hair.
Be on the lookout for posts about my hair efforts… I will share what I do and what I discover. I am, in no sense, a natural hair care expert… I doubt if any of what I do is actually considered legit healthy hair care for natural Black hair… but as I find things out and learn, I will share.
Oh, and I also might add, I am NOT one of those natural-haired sistas that are all of a sudden against all things un-natural, including perms, hot-combs, flat-irons and weaves, after they BIG CHOP (Cut out all relaxed hair). I am not a hair revolutionary activist. I think women should do what makes them happy and what fits into their lives. I don’t agree with the slang terms “good hair,” I don’t believe Black women have to have long, processed hair to be considered attractive. BUT, I don’t judge anyone who decides to rock a weave or a perm and I’m positive that I will rock more than a few weaves in the near future! However, being natural is what’s best for me right now.
🙂
Courtney
Our Stretch Marks 