Encouraging/positive hair stories

[PinkPeony]

I' am currently sl again this time as a natural but even though I'm exited about my journey I've been feeling kinda down bc I do miss having longer hair.

I'm sure we all have days that are like that.
We feel like our hair just won't grow, or a style didn't turn out well or you think you finally figured your hair out and it just decides that today nothing will work.

So I figured it would be nice if we could share some positivity up in here, some encouragement for those days when we feel a little frustrated

What do you guys think?
Anybody have any fun stories?
Did somebody notice your hair, did you get a compliment, you finally mastered that banging braidout, rollerset...?
Uploaded your first youtube vid?
Come in and let's share the love and give each other some e-hugs

 

[PinkPeony]

I'll bite I never did my own cornrows before and although they are far from perfect I'm so proud I never thought I could do it on my own and to my surprise I got tons of compliments on them.

That made my day

 

[Ms_CoCo37]

subscribing. Can't wait to read all of the positive posts!

 

[BlkOnyx488]

i rarely wear my hair out anymore, but whenever I do people say, "wow i didn't know your hair was so long!!" before LHCF my hair was never longer than neck length.

so even though i am not long by LHCF standards people who know me consider my hair long now!

 

[PinkPeony]

BlkOnyx488 thanks for sharing! Your hair looks great in your avi

 

[PinkPeony]

Bumpity bump bump

 

[faithVA]

Cool thread. We need to keep this bumped up throughout 2012. Don't have anything to add right now but will definitely share when I have a good hair day.

 

[greight]

When I first mastered a twist out, it was so gorgeous! It made me so happy that I became natural

With time, I'm getting quicker with certain styles. It's hard because my hair tangles so easily, but I get better at coming up with relatively quick styles that look nice, but don't do harm to my hair .

I'm also training myself to not look at my hair's length, but at health. It took a minute, but I look at the shed hairs now to see if I'm still split end free (YES, I am!) versus to see how long my hair is.

 

[Your Cheeziness]

I've finally learned how to do a coherent cornrow! I sat down and practiced a little everyday for a week and finally got it well enough for it to last me a couple of weeks had my parts not been all wayward. lol

 

[PinkPeony]

When I first mastered a twist out, it was so gorgeous! It made me so happy that I became natural

With time, I'm getting quicker with certain styles. It's hard because my hair tangles so easily, but I get better at coming up with relatively quick styles that look nice, but don't do harm to my hair .

I'm also training myself to not look at my hair's length, but at health. It took a minute, but I look at the shed hairs now to see if I'm still split end free (YES, I am!) versus to see how long my hair is.

Yes I'm trying to focus on health vs. length too , staying in low mani protective styles definitely helps.
I still get sad reminiscing about the length I lost but seeing how far I've come in overall knowledge and health I can't help but be thankful for all the advice I found.

faithVA looking forward to your contribution and yes this needs to stay bumped up

 

[PinkPeony]

I've finally learned how to do a coherent cornrow! I sat down and practiced a little everyday for a week and finally got it well enough for it to last me a couple of weeks had my parts not been all wayward. lol

Yayyyy

That's awesome!

 

[faithVA]

I may have one

My hair is SL, natural and I wear my hair in a twist out when I go dancing which is pretty much every week. This one weekend I was down at the Beach with some friends waiting for the event to start so we stopped to eat at this small diner. As we walked out and started across the parking lot, this lady was calling to get my attention. I thought I had dropped something like my cell phone or something (because I do quite often). So I walk back to where she is.

She says to me, I want to ask you about your hair. I'm startled because I'm still looking for my cell phone She says are you relaxed or natural. I look at her hair and I think she has comb coils. And I'm thinking to myself, can't you tell I don't have a relaxer? But of course I don't say this. So I tell her I'm natural. She asks me how I get my hair in that style. I told her I wear twists for a week, and this is a twist out. I can tell she isn't going to retain much of what I say so I tell her she can get some products at Target (KC) and those will help her with her twists. And I moved on.

It was more startling than anything because I wasn't expecting it. I used to get asked about my hair quite a bit when it was shorter because my twists actually look more like locs and my twist outs look just like twists. It can look like a lot of hair when its out.

It felt good to be noticed

 

[faithVA]

I've finally learned how to do a coherent cornrow! I sat down and practiced a little everyday for a week and finally got it well enough for it to last me a couple of weeks had my parts not been all wayward. lol

That is a big accomplishment. Cornrowing your own hair can be very difficult, especially to have it look neat. The straight parts will come

 

[Evolving78]

i watched a few YT videos Saturday morning while i was sitting under the dryer. i was able to do a nice pin up style from a roller set. my coworkers kept telling me how pretty i looked and that i looked like i was getting married! lol hopefully, i can master some more updo styles that can semi protect my hair and not cause damage.

i am happy that i am getting my hair on a healthy track on my own. it will be a big accomplishment for me to get my hair to healthy BSL. i think it will give me the confidence to go back to Cosmetology school to get my license for hair.

 

[Firstborn2]

This is a nice thread, thnx OP

Mine is a lil corny After we moved to a state with hard water, I suffered a major set back. I was depressed and I was going to give up on my hair journey. DH sat me down and said, how can you give up? You have to take care of your hair regardless, you've been doing such a great job of it! Get on your hairboard and ask the ladies to help you, I mean that's what it's there for right? Welp, I got the help I needed and I'm back on track

 

[PinkPeony]

faithVA this is great, length isn't everything.
People DO notice healthy hair, I bet your twistout looked fierce

 

[faithVA]

@faithVA this is great, length isn't everything.
People DO notice healthy hair, I bet your twistout looked fierce

I probably looked like a lion. But my twist outs are coming right along.

 

[faithVA]

This is a nice thread, thnx OP

Mine is a lil corny After we moved to a state with hard water, I suffered a major set back. I was depressed and I was going to give up on my hair journey. DH sat me down and said, how can you give up? You have to take care of your hair regardless, you've been doing such a great job of it! Get on your hairboard and ask the ladies to help you, I mean that's what it's there for right? Welp, I got the help I needed and I'm back on track

Corny? Girl that is so sweet. I love DH stories.

 

[kittenz]

I'll bite I never did my own cornrows before and although they are far from perfect I'm so proud I never thought I could do it on my own and to my surprise I got tons of compliments on them.

That made my day

I've finally learned how to do a coherent cornrow! I sat down and practiced a little everyday for a week and finally got it well enough for it to last me a couple of weeks had my parts not been all wayward. lol

Congrats!! Learning to do your own cornrows is hard, Awesome work @PinkPeony @Your Cheeziness

i rarely wear my hair out anymore, but whenever I do people say, "wow i didn't know your hair was so long!!" before LHCF my hair was never longer than neck length.

so even though i am not long by LHCF standards people who know me consider my hair long now!

Get ready for them to start with the questions if they haven't already You may be able to lead some of them out of darkness

When I first mastered a twist out, it was so gorgeous! It made me so happy that I became natural

With time, I'm getting quicker with certain styles. It's hard because my hair tangles so easily, but I get better at coming up with relatively quick styles that look nice, but don't do harm to my hair .

I'm also training myself to not look at my hair's length, but at health. It took a minute, but I look at the shed hairs now to see if I'm still split end free (YES, I am!) versus to see how long my hair is.

That's a major milestone. Most of my hairspirations rarely length check, they're consistent and practice healty techniques. It works!

I may have one

My hair is SL, natural and I wear my hair in a twist out when I go dancing which is pretty much every week. This one weekend I was down at the Beach with some friends waiting for the event to start so we stopped to eat at this small diner. As we walked out and started across the parking lot, this lady was calling to get my attention. I thought I had dropped something like my cell phone or something (because I do quite often). So I walk back to where she is.

She says to me, I want to ask you about your hair. I'm startled because I'm still looking for my cell phone She says are you relaxed or natural. I look at her hair and I think she has comb coils. And I'm thinking to myself, can't you tell I don't have a relaxer? But of course I don't say this. So I tell her I'm natural. She asks me how I get my hair in that style. I told her I wear twists for a week, and this is a twist out. I can tell she isn't going to retain much of what I say so I tell her she can get some products at Target (KC) and those will help her with her twists. And I moved on.

It was more startling than anything because I wasn't expecting it. I used to get asked about my hair quite a bit when it was shorter because my twists actually look more like locs and my twist outs look just like twists. It can look like a lot of hair when its out.

It felt good to be noticed

I would have been too thrilled that chick chased me down in the parking lot to ask about my hair. Get it girl!


My story is short. I LIKE MY HAIR!! the end.

More info: I recently BCed (and many of you may be sick of hearing about it) but I thought I wouldn't like. TBH I didn't care because I was ready to be natural and I was prepared to just "go with it" until my hair grew on me. Well, no need... I liked my hair at first snip!

 

[Raspberry]

i watched a few YT videos Saturday morning while i was sitting under the dryer. i was able to do a nice pin up style from a roller set. my coworkers kept telling me how pretty i looked and that i looked like i was getting married! lol hopefully, i can master some more updo styles that can semi protect my hair and not cause damage.

i am happy that i am getting my hair on a healthy track on my own. it will be a big accomplishment for me to get my hair to healthy BSL. i think it will give me the confidence to go back to Cosmetology school to get my license for hair.

Girl you will get so much business off having BSL hair alone, the vast majority of black hairdressers don't have long hair .. which is crazy when you think about it.

 

[Nonie]

Well, I've shared this ad nauseum but I'll do it again in case someone has been lunching and missed this. Until this millennium, the longest my hair ever got was to 5-6 inches. Whether permed straight, jheri curled, natural... just a mere SL (not even CBL).

I practiced low mani, I moisturized the heck out of my hair...but still SL was all I could achieve, until I introduced trimming every 6-8 weeks to my regimen. I wore braids and would redo one at a time, dusting off a tiny amount as I did so, every 6-8 weeks and saw my hair go from one inch of new growth to 5-6 inches of natural in one year (I wasn't even using moisturizer)-August 2002:

My plan was to relax again, but I was having too much fun with this low mani regimen that I went another year doing this and this is when I saw my hair break that 6 inch barrier and get to 9-11 inches--August 2003:

I joined LHCF around the time I had reached that^^ milestone and found people who didn't believe in trimming. I tried that for only 4 months and my hair suffered: I lost fullness on the ends and it was clear breakage was going to follow and I'd be back to my 6 inch life-sentence so I cut off those thin ends and return to my no-product, regular dusting regimen because it seemed the new ideas from LHCF were not working for me. I learned there and then not to fix what isn't broken and not to jump on bandwagons. Top pics show the thin ends and the bottom pics what I was left with after I chopped them off:

^^These pics were also a clear indication of why I could never grow my hair beyond 6 inches. Ends of your hair will wear out whether you like it or not, and no amount of holding onto them will prevent this but rather what will happen is they will wear away and thin out so much that they break off anyway. Whether you see this breakage or not, is neither here nor there. It has to be happening otherwise what other explanation could there be to be stuck at the same length for over 30 years???

Then I found a bald spot that I treated for the next 8-9 months as explained here.

Then I got heat happy and had another setback by end of 2004 so had to cut off about 2 inches again. I wore my hair in braids for another 2 years still doing the no-product/regular dusting regimen and by end of 2006/start of 2007, I was very happy with my length:

But I had spent all those years in braids and then twists for a few months...and wanted new ideas on how to style my hair. I made the mistake of going to a stylist for hands-on-training on shingling. She gave me finger coils instead... and then chopped off 5+ inches!!! This was Feb 2007. First here's the ugly do she did on my hair--which looks like dried up dog poop:

And this is how much hair I was left with 2 hours after I walked in with that length in the pic of the twists above:

I vowed never to let anyone do my hair again. Anyway, I did come to terms with the TWA and enjoyed a few styles with them. Then I got lazy and wore braids for year and a half and made it back to full SL (June 2008):

I admit that while I was dusting, I wasn't really keeping a regular schedule--and it shows in those ends^^. I would dust just when I remembered. But even with my non-serious regimen, I still made baby steps so that by April 2009, I was between SL and APL. (Now this may seem too slow for some but I don't do ish to my hair. I don't PS, I don't seal, I don't moisturize. I just low mani and dust...so any progress is HUGE to me, since I make little effort to boost my growth):

Beginning of 2010, I got very serious about dusting on a regular schedule and scheduled all my trimming dates for the year on my phone so I'd not miss a single one, and I have to say I've been very pleased. Not only do my ends look nice and the fullness of my strands is along the entire length:

...but I am also slowly making progress and reaching lengths I have never reached before as shown here.

So OP, enjoy get out of the RACE and enjoy the journey. I may not make miraculous strides like some freaks on the forum, but do I look like I care? I am happy with the health of my hair and I am somewhere I never thought I could be. So quit worrying about how long it takes and just have fun with your hair at whatever stage.

When that stylist thwarted my progress by giving me a BC I didn't want, I was mad...and could've just sunk into depression. But I didn't. I looked for a silver lining in that experience and getting to know my hair--so I'd never need anyone's help--was how I was able to accomplish that. It was during this time I discovered S Curl and that it could make my hair so soft and easy to comb, and I was able to actually avoid being a PJ because rather than copy what everyone was doing, I focused on my own hair and "listened" to its needs. I didn't jump on the Shea butter, CON shampoo/conditioner, oils bandwagons. I tried them and my hair hated them and I listened. And I am now captain of my own ship. I don't care how much people rave about something, I don't care to try it because I know my hair and know what it likes and what I don't know, I don't miss.

One last thing, baggying is something I have done since the 80's as my bed-time regimen so that has always been part of my journey. I just now do it even when I wear hats and headwraps and that helps with my moisture as does my regular washes.

 

[NikkiQ]

Thanks for tagging me in this thread!! I all these great stories. I don't have any stories as of yet, but I will be sure to post them in here. Time to sub to this thread

 

[bigbrowneyez]

I was a bit discouraged/disappointed cuz I really wanted to be WL by December and I thought I had a good two inches til I got there. Well, I straightened this weekend and to my surprise I only have an inch and a half. Yes, that's not a big deal from two inch BUT my hair was nice and thick and for the first time I consider my hair long. I thought I'd never get that feeling with the hair anorexia I have. I'm grateful and excited to continue my journey! I get a relaxer this Saturday, I'll come back and post a pic.

 

[Aggie]

So many beautiful stories from all of you lovely ladies...Some of you made me laugh, some made me so proud of my sistas accomplishments, and others...well lets just say, you ROCK!

@faithVA, you are just the coolest gal ever

@kittenz, girl I am all over the floor . You are funny!

@Firstborn2, wow, your husband rocks! Such a wonderful supporter of your hair goals.

@PinkPeony, girl thank you for tagging me to be a part of such a cool thread. I like it already.

@Nonie, thanks for sharing your "I'll do me" story, that was very inspiring and helps me to keep things in their proper perspective.

Now that all that mushy stuff is out of me, let me get down to business. Hmmm, I have had a lot of rolling hills in my hair journey because of my decision to go natural, then texlax it a few times.

The first texlaxer was really great. In fact, it was by accident. My niece tried to relax my natural hair and it came out texlaxed by accident. I tried doing it myself the second time around and ended up a little straighter than I liked.

Now I have a patch of straight hair sitting in my hair between two patches of texlaxed hair and can't wait to grow it out. You know what the greatest part of this is? Nobody even notices it. It's like it's my own little . In fact, everyone says how beautiful my coils are whenever I would wear it in a wash and go. And I'm like,

Many people still thinks I'm natural because I mix my relaxer with grease and oil to greatly reduce it's straightening ability. I try to tell them I'm relaxed but they don't believe me. It's okay though because I really love my curls and I really like that it's easier for me to manage.

I am currently working on the thickness of my hair and as for length, it's not even APL yet, but I get a ton of comments about how long my hair is whenever I would straighten it out. I think this is because I wear it in a wash and go (that's only neck-length) most of the time. I wonder what everyone's gonna think when I install this afro jerry weave on the weekend:scratchch.


All in all, I was feeling like I should have been a whole lot further with my hair growth, afterall, I was BSL before I went natural. More good news though, I am almost there again and will be celebrating in a big way when I do.

 

[Aggie]

If I get more stories, I'll come back and post them here.

 

[Charla]

This is a nice thread, thnx OP

Mine is a lil corny After we moved to a state with hard water, I suffered a major set back. I was depressed and I was going to give up on my hair journey. DH sat me down and said, how can you give up? You have to take care of your hair regardless, you've been doing such a great job of it! Get on your hairboard and ask the ladies to help you, I mean that's what it's there for right? Welp, I got the help I needed and I'm back on track

Firstborn2

I love that! Your DH really but the "Dear" in Dear Hubby!

 

[Charla]

I've had a lot of encouragment along the way so far on my healthy hair journey from family and friends, but I think what touched me the most is when I got an email from another hair forum member who said I encouraged her to go natural! Me? Her exact words, "Just wanted to let u know that u are my initial inspiration to go natural." Ya'll I can't even describe the feeling that gave me! Her words encouraged me to press ahead despite my own hair struggles and learning curve.

It's amazing how total strangers can have such a positive effect on you! When I was contemplating the BC instead of long-term transitioning, I watched a lot of YT videos, and the ones I was most inspired by I sent an email letting them know how much I appreciate them taping it for us to give the rest of us courage. I got responses back from all of them with words of kindness!

E-people get a bad wrap sometimes, but when negativity and false motives, double-talk and side-eyeing is eliminated, we E-people can be a huge source of encouragement to each other!

 

[lilyofthenile]

I needed a thread like this!

My first year was a heartache! Really terrible. No length retention, no steady growth, but my hair was getting better at the roots. Now I have it almost down. I know protective styling is what my hair loves, but products are something which will work one day and stop working the other. It's a challenge and it is still a challenge for me but retaining length to me has now come after health. I'm very healthy inside and out orientated, the length will come.


This isn't much of a story... but I'm just sharing this to also appreciate what other women on here have experienced and that I'll take away a few things from that. I find it very encouraging. Hopefully I can add part two of my story in a few months time to inspire!

 

[VictoriousBrownFlower]

I have days when I miss my longer hair. Or regret ever going back to relaxers to begin with, but we can't cry over spilled milk. I think of it like this. If I got there before I'll get there again. The one thing that helped me this time around is experimenting when I felt down about my progress or length. I try out new techniques and styles. The longer it grows the more encouraged I feel to keep going. Set goals that you think you can accomplish and never do things to your hair in the spur of the moment.

I'm glad I can finally do a simple and easy style like this. I'm shoulder length too after being here

but now I can do this only 7 months and 19 days after my bc

If the pics are big sorry. I tried to resize

 

[MariposaSexyGirl]

I'm just very happy I am at a point where I actually feel like my hair is long and I can actually wear it in many styles and it will still look long. My high ponytails reach bsl. I haven't bc'd and never plan too but some time in the near future I hope to be completely relaxer free as well. I have no regrets and I will continue to enjoy it until my ripe old age. Your hair was gorgeous and grew well as a relaxed head PinkPeony so it will be down your back before you know it. After you take the best care you can all that you need is patience. I love the new name by the way.