Coming out of the Curly Closet

Returning to natural after a lifetime’s worth of relaxers can be a scary feat and for most women it is. Not only are you altering your image, but for some women it can completely alter their perception of what looks good on them and what does not. Personally I’m still in the early stages of my journey (I call it my “awkward” phase). Returning to my natural was actually an accident on my behalf, but it was a happy one regardless. I was a senior in high school and I already was highly self conscious. I wasn’t much liked, I was struggling with my weight and I was just at a point where I really wanted to figure out who I was. It was the beginning of my senior year and my aunt was getting married. I had gotten picked to be a bridesmaid so I had to get a sew-in. It was my first professional sew-in and I fell in love with the look so I made the decision to keep it for a few more weeks. A few weeks turned into another month and a half and after it came down I saw an unbelievable amount of curly new growth; thus began my transition. It took me a minute to get used to the curls, but after a while I started to love what I was seeing. As the year progressed my hair flourished as I continued to trim the relaxed ends. Slowly but surely I was becoming a different person, a newer, happier version of myself.

Caring for two different hair textures was difficult at first because what worked for my relaxed hair didn’t work for my curly hair and what worked for my curly hair definitely didn’t work for my relaxed hair. To this day I am still a product junkie (which I love sometimes because each product has its own amazing list of benefits). One of the biggest trials of maintaining two hair textures at once is the fact that my ends were not as thick as the rest of my hair so certain styles fell very short of my expectations because of the fact that my hair was so very thin at the ends. This made twist outs very difficult to achieve; some days my curls would pop and some days they would just stop. As expected there were days where I wanted to run back to the creamy crack, but I didn’t get discouraged.

When I graduated I was 10 months post relaxer and thanks to marching band I had lost about 60 pounds. I felt my insecurities melting away and I was finally happy with what I saw when I looked in the mirror. My biggest victory came from wearing my puff to my graduation ceremony. While other girls were worried about sweating out their edges I was worried about my cap flattening out my puff. After I graduated I had more time to figure out my hair and here I am 2 years later with a head full of natural hair and newfound realization that in life you have to do what makes you happy. For so long I kept up appearances for the world with my straight hair until I realized at heart I was a curly girl. I love the versatility and strength of my hair.  Yes there are days when I wish it was a little bit easier to deal with, but I still embrace the kinks, curls, single strand knots and everything else that comes with it. This is who I am, this is my hair and I’m not going back. So to all of the women who are afraid to let it grow my advice is join the club and stop hiding who you are. If the world can’t accept your curls then they don’t deserve to.

Was accepting your hair a process? 

[by Talia J. Clayton]