Naturals, transitioners... come inside... poll

[bludaydreamr]

For those of you who really think it is time consuming to do natural hair....you are very misinformed and wrong.


Just like the lady above, I spritz, fluff, then go.

On wash day....wash, condition, dry, spritz with glycerin and water, fluff and go.

Now when you are trying to do or look at hair styling options through "relaxed eyes" then yeah, it's hard. You can't do straight things to natural hair.

Let it BE NATURAL and your hairstyling will be just as easy. Now of course, you will have bad hair days BUT don't you have bad hair days as a permie?

I really wanted to seriously clarify that because if you've never done it then how would you know???

Thanks you, Thank you, Thank you! I was thinking this very thing before I read your post. I thought this way, and I was misinformed. I also had no idea what my hair was like and feared what I would have to go through, and that is how I found LHCF. The best thing I could have done is transition because I had NO clue about my texture or type. Now that I see my true texture; I even understand why I had the problems I had while I relaxed.My hair has taught me a lot. So until you do it for your self you're just making assumptions.

 

[tatiana]

I knew i was in the 3 range years before i went natural so it didn't influence my decision. Either relaxers were getting stronger or I was getting more sensitive sealed my decision to go natural.

 

[PassionFruit]

not sure if this will make sense to anyone but if I had 4b/c hair, I would stay natural... I always end up back with a perm or texlex cuz my hair wont hold styles & such with no chemical

 

[Faith]

I said "no influence". I have basically NO curl pattern. Besides the back part of my head that has 4a tendencies and may spring into some S shape once in a while, my hair is one big ol' Z pattern. If I based it on curls I would never have gone natural again.

 

[halee_J]

No influence. I did know what my texture was though because I relaxed at 14. But I relaxed it was because i thought my hair was unmanageable and had no options. I liked the 'swangin' hair' look and I thought the only way to acheive it was via relaxer. Now I know better and I no longer have to endure the slapping on of the 'hot stuff' every few weeks like a slave...I like straight hair but not all the time.

Is my 3ish texture helping stay on this transitioning path? Not really. I do like it but then again I love ALL natural textures . Whats really helping stay on this path is having found the right products and regimen.

 

[Ballerina_Bun]

my curl pattern did not play into my decision to transition initially. HOwever, after I noticed the curl pattern at the nape of my neck,(which I stopped relaxingw (when I was relaxing), I thought it would be beautiful to have an entire head full of curls like that. But yes, my inital reasons did not include my curl pattern.

 

[TinyT]

I decided to Big Chop and grow my natural hair out to stop the chemical damage to my hair. My hair was getting thin and I had a few bald spots. No amount of aphogee would help me. So I decided I would rather have big hair than no hair at all.

My hair has grown in and I love it!

 

[beautifulisaunderstatment]

Yes and no. I thought I was gonna have 4a/4b hair. Thats what I wanted. Ummm but I didnt get that. I got what I got.

 

[Candycane044]

Hi Caramela! This is a great thread. My pattern had nothing to do with my decision because I realized that with a relaxer, I could never have long hair. I didn't care what type of texture I had, I just wanted my hair to thrive and I was tired of seeing my hair break off all over the floor.

 

[*Luscious*Locked*Doc]

I've been stretching/transitioning since nov 07 and as I was stretching I started thinking about what it was going to take to actually relax my hair properly e.g. proteins, SAA, etc and I was like forget about it this is going to be so expensive. This was also when I first joined the boards. I noticed my hair in the back which was basically BC'ed from damage and not relaxed started growing in spiral curl patterns but it was mostly only in the back. As I've not relaxed since then all of my head has developed those patterns. After admiring many naturals on this board I decided to transition. For me i think it's been a combination of both - cost/effort and my curl pattern which I have never seen in my entire life!

 

[gradygirl]

My curl pattern had no influence on my decision to go natural. I did not know what to expect but I was ready to accept whatever hair type I was.

 

[tinkat]

My curl pattern had little influence. I did not even know what my hair texture was going to be when I transitioned.

 

[Napp]

mine actually was. ive been natural for most of my life and my hair was always fluffy(it still is) and i never really saw a curl pattern. so i thoght i didnt have any curls. one day i saw the JFM texture softener and i saw the black girls hair and thought if i use this then i can have like that so i used it and i liked the results after growing it out for a few months i noticed that the products that made my texturized hair look the way i like worked on my natural hair so i stopped texturizing because i found with the right products i could get my hair to curl.its not loose n curls or anything but i just wanted some kind of spiral/wave action. i like the way waves look so i guess im a bit biased

So yes the curl pattern had a large influence in my case. (does that make me a bad person or something?erplexed) Sometimes i still feel like texturizing ...

 

[Caramela]

So yes the curl pattern had a large influence in my case. (does that make me a bad person or something?erplexed) Sometimes i still feel like texturizing ...

Absolutely not! I think it's great that some of the ladies had the attitude to accept whatever their texture was. That's great! That's just not me though. I will be honest enough with myself and everybody else to say that because I can see a distinct pattern vs. just puff, I'm more apt to continue with the transition to natural. That's just the reality.

 

[sydwrites]

i'll say that my pattern didnt have any influence on me going natural, but i never planned on wearing it in its natural state in the first place. i just wanted a thicker head of hair, and i saw so many people who got that when they gave up the chems. now once it got a little longer i realized that i liked the nappy hair too and even though it drives me crazy at times i like my cotton ball curl combo.

 

[LiberianGirl]

The curl pattern had nothing to do with my decision. I didn't get my first relaxer until 16, so I knew I didn't have type 3 hair. The softness of my newgrowth vs the dry overprocessed relaxed hair had the most influence on my decision.

The sheen and health (thicker, darker, softness) of my new growth was the primary factor that made me to decide to transition to natural. Whether pressed or in it's natural state, my unprocessed hair looks 100% better than my relaxed hair. My texture played a secondary role...I do love it though.