Why I chose to go natural... what made you all decide?

I cut my hair because I wanted to fully embrace the person who I really am, without chemicals altering it...I wanted to see myself naturally as God created me, & finally got tired of the typical image *straight hair* as only being what makes a person beautiful...so I cut all of my relaxed ends off ( :

I've always worn my natural hair. Growing up my mother told me that a relaxer would make my hair fall out, and I believed her. When I was old enough to make my own decisions regarding my hair I chose not to get a relaxer b/c I figured - I've gone this long w/out one, so why switch up now. Plus, what if my hair falls out?! I used to be really unique, but now there are females wearing their natural hair all over the place! I used to be the one natural in my group of friends, but now two of my BFFs are natural and I am meeting/seeing natural ladies left and right. I'm glad that more females are giving their natural hair a chance and realizing that they don't need the creamy crack to be beautiful. Straight hair is kind of boring anyway!

Natural hair offers me more style variety with less damage. I had long full relaxed hair, so I don't have a horror story or anything.

I choose to go natural because i was just BORED of my relaxed hair...i wanted something different..something unique...I had the same short relaxed hair cut for 4 years!! i didn't want long relaxed hair (I never like how long hair looked on me)..so one night while on the internet i came across this pic of this girl..she had a head full of thick beautiful juicy curls!! I fell in love and immediately knew i wanted to embrace my natural hair as well..I spent all summer researching natural hair..and in august i did my BC!! now im as happy as ever and feel very unique when it comes to embracing my curls..especially around my campus..

the natural hair to relaxed hair ratio around here has to be 1:200 lol

I was just done with relaxing. A hairdresser had overprocessed my hair and it was falling out, and then I got pregnant and was sick and couldn't deal, so I transitioned and then big chopped. Growing up, my mother was very hesitant to relax our hair and even when she eventually did, only wanted to touch it up twice a year or less, so I was already used to the concept that big, fluffy hair was what God gave me and looked better on me than straight hair.

I struggle with finding styles and still don't really wear my hair out (I wear a puff most of the time) but in general I feel it looks so much better than when straightened.

long story short, i saw one natural hair video on yt. i wasnt even searching for natural hair vids. i dont remember how it happen and after that i was hook on natural hair. watch loads of natural hair vids and thought to myself i want to be natural. transistion for seven months and here iam after 16 months of being natural.

I'm not natural yet but my decision to become Natural was I am in my 40's the older the women get in my family our hair starts to thin out I think I have 2 aunts that are almost bald. So why contribute to the baldness with chemicals in my hair if I am going to become bald then I am not making it easy for my family history to take that away from me.. For some reason why my hair was relax something was going on with it like whenever I washed my hair I lost a lot of hair you could see it running down the drain like I put a relaxer in my hair everytime I washed and don't let me detangle I lost more hair then than I am losing while transitioning.. Also I got tired of the high cost to keep getting a relaxer. I went every 3 months but still $60 is a lot when you don't have it and being laid off and one time my stylist rinse the relaxer out and it was this protein step like Aphogee 2 min that she walked away to do somebody elses hair and I know she stayed aways at least 15 min.. That step was only suppose to be 5 min so even though she rinsed my relaxer out it was still working.. I ask her about it and she was like oh it won't harm your hair..Luckily I didn't lose any hair but that was it for me.

I wanted to be natural after looking at my childhood pictures with my mom. My hair was sooo pretty and curly. I was so confused about hair, I knew I didn't want a perm anymore BUT did not realize that I would have to cut the perm off or just grow it out. Silly me, I thought I would just stop getting retouches and WA-LA I would become natural. After searching youtube I became very knowledgable and BC'd in August 2010 and I'm loving every minute of it. In my city girls are big on weaves and perms so I loove standing out and catching those side glares of other women admiring my hair .

The main reason for me going natural was because of my now 3 year old daughter. She, of course, is natural and I thought what better way to take care of her hair than to learn and "experiment" on mine. So in August 2009, after my last perm I started to transition and did so for about 10 months and have been fully natural for 5 months and some change (its in my ticker...lol). I cant believe I have done it since getting perms was sort of all I knew...It was a drastic change and a great journey so far.My family loves it.. I am getting to know me even better and I'm happy in my own skin (and hair..lol). I even gave up acrylic nails which was something major for me, but my nails now are healthier, stronger, and longer than they were with acrylics (not knocking those who do, I still love to look at them!!) Plus its sort of easier for me to style and do other things with my nails..

There are tons of other reasons why I went natural but my daughter being the leading inspiration in my journey. She kept me motivated throughout and still..Love my boo...

I could go on for days about hair now its crazy...

laleepop- your decision is very close to mine!

I decided to go natural about 5 years ago right befre i found out i was pregnant with my daughter. Previuosly,, i would do my own perms, weaves, braids and all. i got to a point where i felt like black hair had to be professionally done to look good. lol. a few ladies i work with were also a major inspiration, theses women had almost waist lenght hair, i just knew it was a perm but to my suprise neither of them had a perm. I decided i would give a press n curl a try. when i went to the salon my hair was a damaged mess and i had about 3 inches cut off. this left me with hair just above chin level.

for years i pressed my hair, and i decided to keep it up because i didnt want my daughter to think she "needed" a perm. i thought what kind of example can I be if my hair is a damaged permy mess? lol

I just started the more natural styles this past summer. I got sick and tired of stressing about my hair when I wanted to go on vacation. Everyone would tell me "braid it, weave it" over and over. I knew there had to be other options, so my youtube search began. i found prettydimples01 first and the rest was history!!!

I was natural for 10 years then decided to start wearing weaves out of the clear blue - due to not having enough patience on letting my hair grow out naturally.

Weaves got on my everlasting nerves and I decided to stop hiding my natural hair and let it be free and grow out w/o weaves.

I just chose to go natural out of the blue beause I didn't feel like getting burned every time I relaxed my hair. I kept weave in my hair to transition but I finally got tired of that too. It wasn't until July when I decided to really take the natural thing serious. I literally stayed on youtube for hours looking at videos. I did a mini BC in August but my hair was uneven. I finally did a real BC last month and I love it. My mama told me that I'll never find a man because I'm too obsessed with my hair. LOL!!

I've been natural my whole life but to make a long story short I decided to stay natural (after almost sucumbing to a relaxer) because I wanted my younger sisters have better self esteem and then along the way I learned that it was MY self esteem that needed to be raised as well. I love myself a lot more now.

Where do I start, I have only been natural since April 2010 but I have been relaxed since I was 13. I am 39. For twenty six years there has been some kind of chemical in my hair. I have had the relaxer, the gheri curl, the New Era, the halle berry cut, the fried died laid to the side and the what the f*&k.

I have had chemical burns the size of beetles, hair breakage that looked like precision cut. Sat in a hair salon so long I cried.

Two years ago, I found a pic of in KINDERGARTEN with a serious press and curl (I could smell the Blue Magic).

I was so envious of that hair and the little pantsuit was MEAN too

Now, I can't get my big ass in that pantsuit but I can get that hair. That's my hair.

My decision is similar to laleepop and thetiffany.

When I got pregnant last year of course I couldn't get perms anymore. It didn't bother me and I decided to cut my my hair short (I've always loved short funky hair). When daughter was around 7 months or so I was on a major search (by the way I'm still searching) for products for her fine, frizzy, dry curly hair. During that time I went to a friends house (she is natural) to get my hair washed and pressed. When she washed my hair she couldn't believe that my hair was curly and said "wow your hair looks like mine". I guess I BC'd and didn't know it! lol

The search for hair products for my lil one, my friends comments and GA humidity all contributed to my decision to wear my hair naturally.

I owe all that I am to my daughter! If it wasn't for her I'm not sure I of had the courage to go natural.

God definitely knows what he is doing!

OneOfTheGreatOnes wrote:My decision is similar to laleepop and thetiffany.

When I got pregnant last year of course I couldn't get perms anymore. It didn't bother me and I decided to cut my my hair short (I've always loved short funky hair). When daughter was around 7 months or so I was on a major search (by the way I'm still searching) for products for her fine, frizzy, dry curly hair. During that time I went to a friends house (she is natural) to get my hair washed and pressed. When she washed my hair she couldn't believe that my hair was curly and said "wow your hair looks like mine". I guess I BC'd and didn't know it! lol

The search for hair products for my lil one, my friends comments and GA humidity all contributed to my decision to wear my hair naturally.

I owe all that I am to my daughter! If it wasn't for her I'm not sure I of had the courage to go natural.

God definitely knows what he is doing!

Wow, I totally agree! I am 7 months pregnant and I've been relaxer free for 8 months..lol At first that was because of my pregnancy but now I'm loving and getting used to my curls. Just trying to find a good regimen to meet my hair needs without the BC...??

I decided to go natural because I didn't want to straighten my hair anymore. I loved my natural curls and being natural has opened many doors for me. But let me tell y'all a story about another natural I met.

I met a natural when I was in class and I was talking to her about her big chop. So I asked her why she went natural. You know what this girl told me? She said she went natural because she had a perm and she was smoking weed at the same time. She found out that smoking the weed and those added chemicals were bad so she stopped relaxing. I'm glad she was natural, but your telling me you quit relaxing so you could smoke the weed? I was amazed!!

i went natural because after i graduated high school and move out the house, I didnt have money to run to the salon to get a relaxer or touch ups. So i thought "hey! I watched my mom put relaxer in my hair my whole life and never had a problem. I bet i can do it, whats so hard?"

Lets just say my hair broke off so bad i had a nappy patch on my crown . I couldn't even pull my hair back into a ponytail. I eff up my hair bad. I had to get ALLLLLLL the back shaved . But did that stop me ..NOPE. I found a salon and i gave the lady the whole story of me effin up y hair and she promise me she would take care of my hair but really didnt live up to her word and every time i went she went up on the price. NO THANX!!!
I told myself after my last relaxer i was never going to look back and i never did. Now i thought about get back to the creamy crack but i didnt and now i am soooooooooooo in love with my curly nappy coily kinky hair.

NaturalSinceBirth wrote:. She found out that smoking the weed and those added chemicals were bad so she stopped relaxing. I'm glad she was natural, but your telling me you quit relaxing so you could smoke the weed? I was amazed!!

That's funny! Maybe it was medicinal.

I love all these stories..My story is that I always loved natural hair. I have been around the world with styles like dakotab, and at 20 I decided I was not going to do the perm and burn anymore I am a West Indian and since I could see, I wanted to have locs, that was the ultimate style..And I did for six and half years, then I b/c's almost four years ago.. and I am just coming into my own even though it's been 18 years on naturality...

I chose to become natural because I had some serious hair damage that caused me to have patches of hair missing & I didnt like that I was trying to cover the missing patches with my other hair Now that I am natural I wouldnt change a thing I luv it & the new me

I chose to start transitioning to natural hair for several reasons. I've always hated getting relaxers and desired to wear my hair natural. As a teenager I remember asking my mom if I could grow locs. She, of course, said no. So I continued being a slave to the salon and the relaxer. I would always burn and end up with scabs no matter what I did, yet I had long, healthy relaxed hair. After having my daughter, my hair began to shed and thin. I tried everything to get a handle on the shedding. My stylist talked me into getting a texlax at first so that my hair would [i]appear[i] thicker. I never got the texlax. Instead I just decided to skip the relaxers all together. During this time, my daughter got sick and started losing her hair. She was completely bald in several places. While researching different methods for growing her hair out and holistic products to use, I ran across several natural hair forums, which just confirmed my decision to go natural.

i chose to go natural because my hairdresser @ the time used to rock this big puff on the top of her head & i thought it was sooo fly i had to have one lol..i wasn't thinking of the bigger picture of what the experience would be like all i knew was i wanted that damn puff lol

So...why did i decide to go natural? I wanted to feel 'one with the earth', return to my roots, etc etc... LMAO!

No, I just wanted to see what my natural hair looked like! My sister and I always had super long hair as children and it was, honestly, too much hair for my mom to handle. She would press our hair weekly and I finally got my first relaxer in 6th grade! I went all though middle school, high school, and college with a relaxer.

In 2008, I was bored one day and went to Cost Cutters. I wore my hair in a baseball cap and a ponytail to just below my shoulders. I asked the stylist to chop it all off! She told me HELL NO! I grabbed the scissors and cut off the ponytail and asked her to 'clean it up'. Ive been natural ever since. My avatar is a pic taken in July of my hair growth. Now, when straightened, is just below my shoulders. I love my natural hair and i love it more the bigger it gets!

this is a great question! i think i have a variety of reasons why im currently transitioning -- my relaxer never seemed to get my hair straight, so it was like 'what's the point?'; i had some highlights that turned my hair to straw (so i thought i would kill 2 birds w/ one stone by cutting off the damaged ends & at the same time gradually rid of myself of the relaxer). After a while relaxers just became something 'you did' w/out any rhyme or reason. I also noticed that w/ every touch up my scalp was becoming increasingly irritated when in the past I had had no problems. Even though im not fully naturally yet, my hair really seems to be in a healthier state.

Something else that contributed was my last relaxer in Dec 09, i moved and went to a local salon for a touch up and the stylist put some something on my scalp that literally had me say 'Ouch!!!' out loud; I think it was an astringent like Sea Breeze...I'd never had that happen and after I did some googling I learned that some stylists actually do that.