Hair vent: Texturize or not.....

[Tai]

RushGirl, stop wearing the hat. You don't like it and you don't need it. Seriously. Get some curl keeper and a headband, some cute earrings and rock your curls.

If she takes out half of your curls you're talking about being a 3a. Go to NC.com and look at pics of short 3a hair and see how you like it. It doesn't really curl when it's short.

 

[RushGirl]

Nah, it's just too short for my taste.. seriously..when I put product in it.. it gets even shorter.. lot of my curls turn to coils when I put in products.. I hate that..I need a good haircut because of the scab hair and the curls need to be stretched..then I can take my hat off.. it's the back of my head that's really bad.. if it was the front..I'd be okay with it..but the back has most of the scab hair and the shrinkage.. I don't want to be a 3a.. just more of a 3b.. I hate that my hair curls up more with products.. but I need products.. well, I guess I don't since I wear a hat..but they just smell so good..

 

[EbonyF]

and as for whoever said most natural styles are juvenile...puh-lease. i know that's your opinion or your experience, but it's really insulting to those of use who rock our natural hair all day everyday PROUDLY.

I'm glad I am not the only one who caught that comment. That comment was truly insulting and untrue.

 

[mscounselor]

I think you should as we counselors say "sit with it". You know the reasons you are uncomfortable with your hair. I am with Tai. I am doing the long transition because, although I have had a short, relaxed cut, short hair isn't my thing. I could learn to manage it, but dealing with your natural texture and new length would be too much for me.
My advice, do some protective styles, sit with your discomfort, then act. Drastic actions usually leave you disappointed.

I haven't had natural hair, but I don't agree with the juvenile look comment. I have relaxed hair and people think I am 16. You'll look young with or w/o chemicals and the hair has nothing to do with it. It's also a personal opinion so she has a right to share that comment as well....

 

[Aquamarine]

I'm only 5'2" and a puff makes me look like i'm about 11......i'm 32!

I'm just catching up and I just wanted to add that I didn't mean to offend anyone about natural hairstyles. I was just saying that styles such as puffs (one of my past staple styles because it was easy) made me look younger than I am. When I think about it, that's not a bad thing at all! Perhaps my soft voice has something to do with it too?!?! lol

Looking at certain texturized hair albums makes me want that kind of look again. What's weird is that I've almost always self relaxed, so salon time and cost was never an issue for me. What I've also discovered was that when I was 'relaxing', I'd always purposely wash the cream out of my hair after a few minutes so that I wouldn't have the bone straight look........I had no clue that I was, in essence, texturizing. .....

What's keeping me on the fence this time is the fact that my hair grows fast and with my texture (4a/b), I found myself touching up every month to keep from having breakage. It's a trade off, I guess. Natural is definatly freedom from having to re-touch ever so often, but I'm not too fond of the marathon twist sessions....which hardly ever come out nice enough for me to wear to work, imo.

My mom is natural. She's been natural for about a year and a half. I twisted her hair (same texture as mine) and as I was twisting, I was telling her how long her hair had become. Lo and behold, by the time I finished her head, those seemingly long two strand twists had shrank to just below her nape! No way can a year and a half of growth be this short. She never used heat, always wears protective styles. It's just the nature of the hair lol ....I feel like this....I'm low maintanence. If it takes too much work for me to show length I don't want it lol. It almost defeats the purpose of being natural for me, because natural is supposed to be about freedom.....not twists and outs, etc. I'm not down wth a lot of heat, nor am I down with twists to stretch my hair out (too time consuming). .......Like I said before, both natural and processed hair has it's ups and down. Choosing is the hard part.

Thanx again for all of the great advice. I'm taking the advice on waiting a bit longer to make my decision.

 

[mscounselor]

I think anyone considering a texturizer or "returning" should consider what they want from their hair. Then ask themselves is that realistic. I think someone else said it as well. I think that some people (including me) don't think that far ahead when choosing to transition. I too don't really care about braids. I think they are beautiful, but I wouldnt be upset if I couldn't do them. I think it all boils down to, again, asking yourself what you want and what you can be comfortable with.

 

[Belle Du Jour]

I agree with the person who said life it too short, so do whatever makes you happy. I love natural hair. I love my natural hair. What I don't love is the length. Other issues that I have make it hard for me to wear styles like 2 strand twists. My hairline is too weak for braids, etc. . .

I was contemplating a texturizer too. Just to get me through the growth hump, and I planned on cutting it out after my hair grew out to a certain length. It sound crazy, but using the texturizer to transiton back to natural. I also like the idea of washing and going every day. At the end of the day, you have to do what's going to make you happy. And hair grows so even if you make a mistake, you can always go back to natural.

 

[Belle Du Jour]

The only problem with that is that short hair doesn't really make me feel pretty. I know that's shallow lol.

I don't think that's shallow at all. You look your best when you FEEL your best. So do what's right for you.

 

[mscounselor]

If you want to wear your wavy 4a hair out but also wear it straight, does that go better with just being natural or texturizing?

 

[Aquamarine]

Hi ladies. Just an update.

After concidering all of the pros and cons and reading all of the very helpful comments here, I went ahead and texturized this past weekend. It came out just like I wanted it too. It still looks nappy and thick, but it doesn't FEEL as dense and chunky. I now have a sea of small to medium corkscrew spirals and some waves here and there. Concidering that my hair is still rather short. My 4b around the front and sides only stretched out a bit, making it less wiry. Here's how I did it...

I mixed half of a jar of Cream of Nature mild lye relaxer with two tablespoons full of olive oil and two tablespoons full of Vanilla scented Vo5 conditioner. Yeah, I guess it's safe to say that I was looking for the mildest process possible lol.....

Next, I just started applying it all over my hair. I found a petroleum based coconut scented hair grease that I applied around my hairline and ears for protection....

Total time from first application to rinse out was about 10 minutes. I made sure to rinse out the mixture very well untill I saw no pink residue from the shampoo (Isoplus neutralizing). After the 3rd lather, I conditioned with Pantene Hydrating Curls.

Somone here recomended S Curl texturizing gel for definition. I bought that and used a dab. It works well. At first glance, it looked to me as if I hadn't done anything to my hair, but as it settled, I could see the definition. My hair is definatly softer. It dries softer too. I think that my mistake the last time that I attempted to texturize was that I used a CON regular strength and left it on too long. I was going for an unrealistic curly look that was too far from my natural hair.

My next goal is to get more length by repeating this process in about 2 months,then after that, I might transition again if I feel like it. I can really say that my hair is wash and wear now.

thanx again everyone : ))

 

[RushGirl]

I'm so glad that it turned out the way you wanted it too..I hope mine does too..I'm going Sunday to get mine done.. I wanna see some pics.. so hurry up and post some!!

 

[Lucia]

congratz on your new look

 

[DDTexlaxed]

I am transitioning from a texturizer. I had very difficult to relax hair, so I put the S curl on for 10 min. I thought it turned out well, and it was okay. I overprocessed it to wavy, not curly.The con of a texturizer is that it is easy to overprocess it. My good results turned bad because it was overprocessed. I could not easily straiten my hair and forget about it curling up! My hair is growing because of mtg and my sulur 8 mix. My advice to those wanting a texturizer is to get it prof. done. There is still a potential for error, but I hope all is successful for u. I'm hoping to be natural soon and rid myself of these 3 textures. Unfortunately, some parts of my hair were relaxed strait, while some parts have some wave pattern of thetexturizer, and some of my curly nat. ng. I must transition for a while bc I don't want a twa. I want a medium one. It isn't easy to transition from a texturizer, so I'd caution anyone who wants a temp. texturizer to roller set their hair on perm rods or straw set it for the texturized look. I wish I would've stayed natural. My texturized hair was unstyleable for me. Choose wisely!