The Meat & Potatoes Of Transitioning

It's extremely easy to become a product junkie in the beginning because you have to find out what works best for YOUR hair. What works for ME may not work for YOU (or anyone else for that matter). Here are some basic things you should know about "going natural".

It can be a BIG adjustment and not everybody will like your decision to change.  You will have to deal with your friends, family and strangers judging your hair. For me that wasn't any different from being relaxed. LOL The sad part is most black women have been relaxed since they were little kids so they don't remember how their hair was when it was natural. Most only remember getting burned by the hot comb because they weren't sitting still, and also they remember the names they were called on the days that there hair wasn't all put together.

Looking back at family pictures I can tell a big difference in how my hair was then and now. Of course lots of things throughout your life changes your hair. I mean lets face it, even the sun has become more damaging since the late 70's and early 80's. But when I was a little girl, my hair was long (when pressed that is) and full. 

I'm the one on my Mom's lap :-)

Your hair will not react the same way it did when relaxed to the products you use when you are natural. The two different textures will get hard to maintain. Since you won't be relaxing your hair anymore it will tend to shed more and possibly break off if you continue to straighten it be it with a flat iron or a hot comb. So this is where protective styles come in handy and wearing braid outs and twist outs become detrimental. Protective style examples: braids, sew in and wigs.....you get the drift. That's what I did for almost a year. In between the "protective styles" I would try to work with the two textures by doing only natural hair styles and keeping up with my regular trims. The only time during my transitioning that I straightened my hair was only during the times that I had to get a trim. When you have natural hair you should not get a wet hair cut if you plan on also wearing your hair straight sometimes. Don't let any stylist make you believe that. Natural hair has to be cut while it is straight. If it's in it's natural state you won't get an even hair cut. You'll notice you'll have some curly hair in one section and some kinky hair in another section and you may even have hair that is more of a looser curl (even wavy). So if you were to get a wet hair cut and your hair is different in a lot of spots (which most everybody's hair is) you will have a messed up cut. Natural haircare product lines can be bought online thru the individual companies or you can go to Naturallycurly.com (they have all of the natural products there online to buy from all of the different hair companies). You also have the choice of checking out your local Target. They now have a "black haircare section" where they sale some natural hair products. Whole foods also has some hair products too. If you want to know how a particular product will do on your hair, either buy it, if you can afford to experiment, or go online and check out product reviews. Youtube has a wealth of information.  Simply search Natural hair products and you'll find a large amount of product reviews and videos showing you hair styles for transitioning or hair styles for when you are all natural.

Another thing to think about is how long will you transition????? I initially had planned on "growing out my relaxer" which simply means, no more perms, wearing natural styles, No HEAT (except when getting a trim), and getting hair trimmed every 6 to 8 weeks (more like every 8 weeks). In the beginning this helped me come to terms with going natural so that I could work up the nerve to do a big chop (I'll give you information about my adventures in the big chop later).  So my routine was deep conditioning once a month and finding a great moisturizer. My go to style (when I didn't have either a sew in or micro braids) was a 2 strand twist using water (great natural moisturizer by the way) with a rubber band at the end (because my ends still had relaxer on them so my hair needed help staying twisted) then I used a blue perm rod (bought at my local beauty supply store for like a dollar and change) to roll the hair less than half way up (to maintain a little length). This is done on wet hair then I put my bonnet on and go to bed. An this is the result:

 

Other transitioning styles are 2 strand twist outs. I liked this one the best.

And the last bit of advice I can give you on transitioning is to read up on natural hair. Read natural hair blogs, books and ask friends that are natural. Most importantly Embrace your natural hair, kinks, curls and coils. :-)