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Naturals, what was the determining factor that made you go natural?

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I was always natural but stopped my addiction to straightening because all my clothes were full of small hairs.

I never liked relaxers because I don't like the idea of chemicals. If I can't put it in my mouth then I don't want it on my head. I rather get a straight style with a flatiron when necessary.
 
It was covering up graying edges or straight hair. Hair color won. Love the wash n go Curly Girl Method. Edges are still tough, but as my hair grows I can cover them.
Also, SistaWithRealHair and MahoganyCurls beautiful heads of hair. In addition, LongHairdontcare2011 beautiful very long straight hair style.

India
 
I decided to go natural because I grew tired of being a slave to my hair stylist. Even more, I got tired of thin and overall wack hair. My hair didn't look good without tracks … my hair wouldn't retain length, and it wasn't cared for properly so it would break hella.
 
When the last relaxer I got took out a good chunk of my hair. My hair melted off as I rinsed that mess out. It literally was like "hair today, gone today." :lachen: After that, I said, "No more."
 
When I discovered it was an option. When I went to college, I finally saw real ladies with beautiful natural hair & thought 'my hair can be like that?? What have I been waiting for?!'
I was raised that a relaxer was what you were supposed to do & had never really considered the alternatives.
 
When I realized that my relaxed hair was thin and lifeless and I knew my natural hair was nothing like that. Also, seeing straight hairs all over my bathroom floor was getting unnerving.
 
It was progressive. I must have gotten tired of relaxing and wanted to get a texturizer. She cut it to a twa :nono: that I was not expecting and I had to let that grow out a few weeks before she would texturize it. I eventually got use to the twa but did go back to get the texturizer. I found out though I couldn't tell the difference between my texturized hair and my natural hair. I did it twice and I figured I should just save my money since I can't tell the difference.

Now I stay natural because I have seen the damage the chemicals and the dryer did to my scalp. And I know I won't have any hair when I'm 60 if I try to go back.
 
Im on a 6 month stretch and I see about 2 in of new growth and I never knew my real hair had a curl to it. I am not so much needing my hair to be sleek and straight as I once did. I wear braidouts & twistouts majority of the time so it's got me really thinking. I also watch Hair Crush's Youtube vid on why she went natural and it makes so much sense to me. I feel like I'm getting to the point where I'm tired of trying to make my Hair do something God never intended for it to do. Thanks for all of your answers ladies.
 
This last time, the relaxer fell into my eye. :nono:

Times before, I was on a see-saw. Relaxer, breakage, braids/natural, repeat for 20 years.

Got sick of that see-saw. :yep:
 
I was tired of always considering my hair whenever I moved to a new city/country. I could never bring myself to relax my own hair (I cannot bring myself to color my own hair and I am still figuring out how to trim my hair); if it is permanent, I like a professional to do it. But, this created a dependency that can be very limiting.

Being natural was not planned. I just decided to cancel my touch up appointment and the rest is history.
 
LongLeggedLife said:
When I discovered it was an option. When I went to college, I finally saw real ladies with beautiful natural hair & thought 'my hair can be like that?? What have I been waiting for?!'
I was raised that a relaxer was what you were supposed to do & had never really considered the alternatives.
Click to expand...

Almost the same way except i didnt know of alternatives until i came here:)

Also because i was tired of my hair thinning and worrying about scalp burns, not being able to scratch my head...etc. I wanted to look the way i was MADE to look.

Plus....i have ALWAYS wanted curls just like the ones i have naturally...i tried everything to have them....and they grew out of my head that way the WHOLE time!:lol:

Sent from my N860 using LHCF
 
I went natural for health reasons....to see that stuff melt a can...and then apply it to my head...Nah Son... lol

Now I just started the process for locs!
 
Several of my closest friends were going natural so I started to look into "the movement" through YouTube. There was a wealth of information and I am a researcher by nature and profession. It's kind of sad that I knew so little about hair back then. Anywho, I just kept researching instead of relaxing. Now I am 2 years post relaxer and one year natural. Not as much researching going on now sinbut ow I need to focus on learning my own hair, but I am not going back! On another note after a while, what I think looks beautiful completely changed with more exposure to beautiful natural hair. Relaxed hair just doesn't do it for me anymore, unless it's super long and healthy,
 
My relaxed hair was forever NL/SL. It was healthy but boring. Then I f'ed it up by going to an African hair braided for stitches, I mean twists :rollseyes: I couldn't get the breakage to stop and I'd had enough. I woke up one morning and went to get it chopped off. Even though it's only been about two months it was one of the best decisions of my life. :yep:
 
I wanted to be different. Going to a majority white school... I felt like I needed to do something to set myself apart from all the other black and relaxed girls. ....and the fact that i live in georgia and it was toooo hot for all that weave I had at the time...
 
i wanted to go natural for years but didnt know how. i hated relaxers and the relaxer, press and curl process but it was all i knew. when i would ask stylists how to go natural they would tell me things like if i stopped getting a relaxer my hair would start falling out and breaking off.
so that put an end to that thought lol.
finally i was researching how to grow long hair and came across this site and youtube videos and ive been natural for just over 3 years.
 
Relax...hair fall out...relax...hair fall out...relax...hair fall out. Yeah, every time I grow my hair out to a decent length, relax, then my hair falls out.
 
The last time I got a relaxer the lady left it on for too long and left me burning while she talked on the phone.

The next day my edges on the left side had raw and weeping skin on the scalp and I was scabbed and crusted over the next couple weeks. Luckily the hair didn't fall out and my edge is full.

I wasted 5 hrs in the salon, spent $55, and got burned (literally and figuratively) and vowed to never do that again.

No more chemicals on my head, no more wasting hrs at the salon, and I will hold on to my $$.

I no longer like anyone's hands in my hair and my hair is the longest and healthiest it's ever been since I was a little girl.

Matter of fact, I pretty much treat my hair as if I was 10 years old again! :)
 
LHCF has made me realize that I can do so much with my natural hair. I can get it bone straight without needing a relaxer (using proper straightening techniques and BKTs), and it has a natural curl pattern that I absolutely adore. I can't wait to wear wash-n-gos when my hair get longer :grin:
 
I decided to go natural because of my hair stylist. He asked me to give him 6 months of him doing my hair and no relaxers. I didn't have anything to lose because my hair was so thin and never longer than SL. At the end of the 6 months is when he started cutting off the relaxer. The health and the thickness of my new growth had me sold. Me and relaxers haven't been in a relationship since then...hmph.
 
When I got my last touch up and the stylist not only tried to rub the perm in my ends but she also half permed the roots on the back half of my hair. Two weeks later the back half of my head felt and looked as if I needed a touch up. That was the deciding factor. For a while I have been envisioning a mishap with the relaxer that would ruin my almost BSL length. So I figured, I can go natural and still have my bone straight look, my relaxed curl look and my wet and go look when I want, all chemical free. I am nervous about the shedding while transitioning but not more nervous than I was about a relaxer mishap!
 
Asked myself why I relaxed my hair.....I don't like the process and had to force myself to do my touch ups. I could not think of a good reason to continue so I stopped.
 
I hope to see more replies in this thread.

I've been toying with the idea of going natural for the past 2 years actually. As a result, I started to stretch my relaxers out a little bit more, eventually up to 13-16 wks. The reason for me even thinking about this is b/c I personally see how my hair has changed from continuous relaxing. It's thinner and my natural curl pattern/hair texture has changed from frequent perming. I just want to give my hair and scalp a long term break. I am currently 14 wks post and got my first ever full head install last week. If this weave situation goes well, I plan to keep weaving up my hair for a while and give my own hair and scalp a break. I'm just anxious to see how my hair reacts to being weaved up and left alone for sometime. I do know that if I continue to relax I'd prob do it no more than 2x/yr and I'd texlax at best and wear weaves when I desire straight hair or I'd blow dry and flat iron my hair.

I even toy with the idea of being a heat trained natural, that's another viable option as opposed to perming. The people I've spoken to that have stopped perming and even if they still use heat, they say their natural hair is just naturally stronger and has better sheen than when they relaxed.
 
Before the forums, blogs and YouTube I tried to go natural by myself with no success. I didn't know how to do it so I gave up over and over again for about 10 years.

On Nov 30, 2006 (I was 35) I got a perm. I had stretched for 4 months and was so excited to see my progress. When my stylist was done, I looked in the mirror and all I saw was shoulder length stringy hair. It was so lifeless and flat that I was angry. Not with her of course, but just with the whole relaxer process. I went online and found so many websites and blogs and decided I'd do it. A good friend of mine told me I was going to fail yet again (bless her heart, THIS was my motivation) so I had to prove her wrong.

I ended up on naturally curly and the ladies there helped me so much. 10 months & 2 trims later I cut my SL transitioning hair so short that I couldn't put it in a ponytail. A year later I was APL. I haven't looked back since.

I don't look down upon relaxed ladies, but I believe we should be aware of our options. We don't NEED relaxers. What we need are educated decisions when we make styling options that do not harm our body and soul.

ETA: my friend ended up apologizing to me when I grew my hair out LOL she would texlax for years and is now au naturale too.
 
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My friends who were already natural. And this forum.

Sent from my 4G Thunderbolt using LHCF app
 
bosswitch said:
LHCF has made me realize that I can do so much with my natural hair. I can get it bone straight without needing a relaxer (using proper straightening techniques and BKTs), and it has a natural curl pattern that I absolutely adore. I can't wait to wear wash-n-gos when my hair get longer :grin:
Click to expand...

Same here!
 
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