Friends going natural... But it's weird...

greight

Well-Known Member
This is me rambling so take it for what it's worth. I probably come out as a horrible friend, but oh well.

My friends have gone natural and the convos are so interesting, especially reflecting on how much grief they gave me about things that I talked about (with excitement). Like co-washing. My friend shut me down and told me that it was stupid and that shampoos clean hair, co-washing is not beneficial since your hair is dead. I argued (heatedly) that shampoos strip the hair, etc etc etc... This argument was so HUGE, you could not believe. A year or so later, she tells me that I was right and co-washing has helped her. :ohwell:

Another told me how she could never go natural and that her natural hair is uncontrollable (with a :perplexed at mine) and that she needs a relaxer. I went hard and told her, that relaxing is a choice but your hair is YOUR HAIR. She looked at me like I was nuts and said only certain girls could go natural and that was not her. Chick went natural one year later and acted as if she was with it all along.

And then another has gone natural, but she shot down all my hair suggestions only to parrot them months later! I'm telling her to avoid heat and she's telling me that she's training her hair. Okay, but please don't come at me when your hair starts falling off.

While I love my friends, just thinking about hair conversations gives me a headache. I used to want to talk to them about hair, but because they gave me the cold shoulder before, it's hard for me to get excited about it again. LHCF became my refuge because of this very reason and so I just have a blanket policy of not talking about hair in the real world. I do what I do, period. You do yours.

I'm no wise sage with hip length hair, of course. But I've been there, done that too many times that I kinda know what to expect when they mention things. I should be overjoyed that they are natural, but they, quite frankly, killed my joy while I've been natural.

Ever get to that point IRL? Where even "I told you so" doesn't make you feel better? Eventually, I think I'll come around and start being open again, but for now...
 
Cut them some slack. Sometimes it takes people a while to come around. Change is difficult...I've been on my hair journey longer than all of my friends.

A lot of them have gone natural...but their hair is not retaining length like mine, their hair is dry, and their styles (bantu knots and braidouts or twistouts) fall flat or frizz up within a few hours; however, when I try to give them tips they give me the side eye because my hair is relaxed, even though it's clearly longer and in many cases thicker than theirs...and my braidouts last all day. I use a ton of natural products and I know exactly what products and techniques would help them. I actually started two of my friends on the path to going natural.

...Idk, I really don't worry about it. My number one priority is my hair. I try to avoid talking to people about hair in real life, but it's unavoidable.
 
Sounds like you helped your friends. Everyone is allowed to have there own thought process. Sounds like your friends were listening all along. It rare to change someone's mind right away. So you should be happy they remembered all that you told them.

PS My hair is trained and all of it is still on my head.
 
^^^^^ @ Solitude

I know I should, but I'll have a selfish moment and wish that they would have been a bit supportive about my journey when I made it. I'm being whiny, I know :look:. I never put down their hair or their choices, never. So it's hard for me to be chipper.

I still give them recommendations on products, but I've also learned that one product may not work as well on others.

I did my mother's hair today using my products (she's relaxed, fine hair). While she never really liked the idea of me going natural, I think she has come around finally since her hair came out great. But the conversations and arguments (when are you going to perm your hair?) were so mentally exhausting, I literally stopped mentioning my hair for months.
 
I realized I can't talk to my friends nor family about haircare. Adviced goes unlistened so when complaints start, I just say "I'm sorry and hope you can figure it out". Hair is only unmanagable if the person makes it unmanagable
 
This happened to me years ago. I first went natural at 17. I had a friend who wasn't down with the program and said a few bad things about "African hair". Fast forward 10 years later, who's been natural for years and is now anti-relaxer?

It just takes some people longer to come around. Bite your tongue....you know the truth.
 
Sounds like you helped your friends. Everyone is allowed to have there own thought process. Sounds like your friends were listening all along. It rare to change someone's mind right away. So you should be happy they remembered all that you told them.

PS My hair is trained and all of it is still on my head.

Hmmm, I guess you are right in that respect. I didn't really look at it that way. :yep:

They're pretty stubborn, so I'm not sure if I had a direct influence since my hair was a hot mess when I first started out.

About heat trained... I'm fine haired so my heat policy is no heat is good heat. Since that friend is just starting out and used to have her hair burned (you could smell it) to a crisp, I wanted her to at least try to understand her hair and work with it and not use the flat iron until she got to know it better. She likes straight her though so I don't know.
 
I just felt like this yesterday.

One of my very good friends, who wore locks for 8 years (and cut them out 2 years ago), recently decided to become a loose natural. Outside of the 8 years she was in locks, she'd always been a relaxed head with very short ear-length hair. When I BC'd 4 months ago, she gave me GRIEF about all the changes I was making. "Co-washing will make your fall out"; "You're doing too much to your hair"; "Ain't no way you can grow your hair to WL". You name it, she gave it too me. So much so, that I stopped talking to her altogether about hair.

Now that she's natural, it's all she wants to talk about. Mind you, all while STILL telling me that I don't know what I'm doing (in a half-joking, half-serious way). I love her dearly, but I will lose her as a friend if I continue these hair conversations, so I don't. And I've told her as such.

I'll just let that gorgeous mane of mine speak for itself in 2012 :grin:. Until then, mum's the word :yep:

I'm trying to get my hair to that level... It's hard though! I wish I did have a bigger support group, but ya'll are it! I'm sure I'll eventually come around to my friends, but I don't feel like going through another mentally exhausting conversation defending myself. I might as well tell them to google since they can get stubborn :ohwell:.
 
I say forgive them and start enjoying convo's about hair! My sister and I transitioned around the same time and we can have conversations for hours about hair. Its something we can share together that I can't with anybody else.

BTW I remember when a co-worker with WSL natural hair told me about co-washing. I thought she was MCNASTY!!! She would pre-poo with coconut oil and co-wash. She was from Trinidad and had the prettiest have ever. That wasn't enough to convince me and my shoulder length dry hair LOL That was 1992 and I didn't co-wash/pre-poo till 2007! Yeah I feel stupid, but at the time she told me it just sounded CRAZY to me LOL
 
Poor you. I think it sucks because when you needed it your friends didn't offer you respect or support but now that they're natural and doing their own thing they're acting as if that advice fell from the heavens to their heads without still giving you respect or credit.

I get it.

You put in work to figure out your hair and even if your friends were staunchly against it (being natural) they STILL should have acted like your friend and appreciated it was something you were excited about.

Oh well girl, just focus on YOU. A pretty head of hair goes much better with a positive attitude and an open mind.
 
I've just realized that there are some friends I can't talk about hair with - they jump to conclusions about their hair, only to "correct" it later, ask me for advice then don't listen, or don't tell me all the details of their issue, then use additional details to refute what advice I've given them. So now they can tell me a sob story about their hair and my response is, "Shrug. Sorry boo."
 
Many of us have had to figure out this hair thing on our own. I wouldn't have any more hair conversations with them. Let your friends figure it out by themselves and you just do your thing.
 
i convinced my mom to go natural...even did her BC...and i get so frustrated b/c she goes a week or more w/out moisturizing, doesnt detangle (and when she does, she does it on dry hair) & today she even used pink oil moisturizer :nono: ...today i told her i wish she just kept on getting perms...i shouldnt have said it but i hate the fact that she just abuses her hair, like wasnt the point og going natural to have HEALTHY hair... and then i tell her her hair is so dry and she's like "i like the dry look" im like you can still have a fro and keep it moisturized...thats why my hair is growing and hers isnt
 
i convinced my mom to go natural...even did her BC...and i get so frustrated b/c she goes a week or more w/out moisturizing, doesnt detangle (and when she does, she does it on dry hair) & today she even used pink oil moisturizer :nono: ...today i told her i wish she just kept on getting perms...i shouldnt have said it but i hate the fact that she just abuses her hair, like wasnt the point og going natural to have HEALTHY hair... and then i tell her her hair is so dry and she's like "i like the dry look" im like you can still have a fro and keep it moisturized...thats why my hair is growing and hers isnt

Oh my goodness, this sounds like my sister! She keeps complaining that my niece's natural hair isn't growing longer despite all the "great" products I buy for her. (In fact, her hair has gotten shorter.)

I keep telling her she has....to....moisturize...every...day!!!! But, every time I see my niece (which is pretty much daily), her hair is as dry as a desert! :wallbash:

I won't even get started on the older women at my church walking around with bone-dry, picked-out, seventies-style fros :nono:. Don't get me wrong, the big fro is a good look, but the dry fro is NOT...what's the point in having dry damaged natural hair that's no better than your dry, damaged relaxed hair?

My sister has gone natural, too, but she protects her hair under wigs with a method similar to the deep moisture method used by a member here.
 
i know exactly how you feel. when i started on my HHJ and tried methods i found worked, i told my family about it. no one paid attention to me, they insulted me and insulted lhcf. after awhile of this i stopped making suggestions. but then when they saw my hair was growing they started getting all on me, and getting upset about me not trying to help them out so their hair can grow too *eyeroll* w.e. they're on their own.
 
This sort of thing is why I rarely talk to people about hair stuff IRL unless I am asked a direct question. Usually my answer to said question is an INTENSE side eye and some comment about good hair and/or doing "all that stuff" #wadayagonnado
 
I totally understand where you are coming from! When I started my transition back in March, I started to look up EVERYTHING about natural/transitioning hair. Thats also when I found LHCF. My friends started asking me what I was doing and I told them that I'm going natural. Soon, they all wanted to jump on the natural bandwagon and rode with it without moisturizer or even googling some info about it. I tried to tell them some things, but they never wanted to listen. Almost 7 months later half of them are having a hard time trying to keep the relaxed ends from breaking off or having flakes from product overload. They are coming to me trying to ask me stuff. I just tell them, "I dont know" or "products are different for everybody". I never give them a direct answer anymore. I figure if I looked for it, so can they. That way I'll avoid all arguments about hair.
 
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