HELLO EVERYBODY!!!! *EXTREMELY PIC HEAVY*

maghreblover

New Member
This is officially my sixth time attempting to post this so I’ll make it much shorter than intended :wallbash:

HELLO EVERYBODY! I’m a newbie!!! :grin: Been lurking round here since June but only just got my subscription today, still quite excited! Anyway, I thought I’d just use this thread to say hi, introduce myself and give a *brief* :look: hair history, and include a few pics to make the thread pretty! :grin:

So here goes: I’m Nigerian by nature, born in the UK, bred in Nigeria, and buttered in the UK :rolleyes: I've loved big, long hair since I was what- three? four? and I put on this wig which belonged to my mum:

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I was texlaxed from about the age of five/ six, but my mum took quite good care of our hair considering. My hair was never really long, it was always past shoulder length but never quite APL. I was quite alright with it though.

And then at the age of 10, I passed the exam into the more or less best secondary school in Nigeria. Everyone in my family was extremely happy (one of my sisters, a year older and pictured with me above, was already there). I, on the other hand, was devastated as it was a school rule that we would have to cut off all our hair, and I mean about/less than an inch! I cried so much my parents got a family friend who was a pastor to come pray for me :lachen:I told him "I'm not cutting my hair! Even Jesus had long hair!"

Needless to say, in a couple of months, this was the back of my head:
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And I stayed in that school the full six years! Two months before my graduation in 2007, believe it or not, this young man here was me at the age of 16 :nono::

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I graduated in July 2007 and have been growing my hair since then, with little or no knowledge about caring for it. I kept it constantly under weaves and in braids without proper care or attention.

Three months after my graduation, this was my little afro:
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Still in October 2007, one random day, I wet my hair and let it airdry! My curls were so well defined, I loved being natural :lick:!
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I remained natural because I knew instinctively that excessive relaxers without proper care would be damaging, and I thought the best way to grow my hair would be to let it do what it wanted for about two years when hopefully I will be satisfied with the length and start texturising again. This was my hair in April 2008, nearly a year since I'de began to grow it:
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As you can tell, I'm just a little too dramatic :yep:

Anyways, my plan to stay natural for two full years at least was curbed when I gave into pressure from family and friends. I had gone back to Nigeria for Christmas in 2008 and everywhere i went, people were like, "Ah Ah! Your hair is so due! Won't you do it? Your hair is due for a relaxer!"

So in February, 2009, this was my last picture natural. I had just taken out a weave as well so it was a sorta braidout. there is a little tuft of straight hair in front though which had been out of the weave and which I tirelessly straightened :nono::
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And a couple of days later, I was texturised, steamed and ferociously straightened (i'm the one sitting, obviously. the standing one is another of my sisters---we are very many, we are eleven children :yep:) :

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so it took me about 19 months to grow from an inch of hair to shoulder length. but the day i texlaxed, i hated it! my head felt so empty, light and....hairless! i missed my big hair :sad: but in a few days, it began to fluff up again, and it was then i decided to stretch my texturisers to about once a year so i could enjoy less thin hair most of the time.

I did enjoy taking pictures of my straight hair:
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I put another set of braids in my hair, and it was towards the end of the life of those braids that I found growafrohairlong.com, BGLH and consequently LHCF. I then made up my mind to stick with braids so that I could care for my hair better! When I took out those braids in June, I was pleased to see my hair had puffed up:

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And with lots of new knowledge, thanks to ALL OF YOU :drunk: I began to take proper care of my hair in June this year.

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Some pics of my hair between June and July:
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I got it straightened here for my leavers ball (just finished A-levels in the UK) but it poofed right back!:rolleyes:

And the last pic before I put my hair back in braids- I actually got it straightened at a salon in Nigeria that day, and this was the state of it when I got home. Not sure whether to blame the humid weather, the hairdresser or the hair :lachen:
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SO that's TWO years worth of growth right there!

Right now, I'm still rocking the braids I got at the beginning of August, and thanks to you guys, they still looking acceptable!

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So thanks again for all your help for me and my fellow lurkers!!!!! Before I go, remember the sister I wrote about ages ago, in the first picture who went to the same school and cut off all her hair just like me? She finished from the school a year before me, and three years after near-baldness, this is her hair- i just took out her braids: (note, she doesn't know ANYTHING about haircare and she's texlaxed like me :lick:)

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Sorry for the extremely long post!!! I love y'all!
 
your post is so funny.. Love your hair and your progress is amazing.. your sisters hair is yummy too..

AND WELCOME@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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:welcome: to the forum! I enjoyed your post enormously, thank you for sharing your journey so far. Your hair is absolutely beautiful!
 
Hello.....and welcome

Both you and your sister have some nice thick hair!!!

I am very fascinated on why your school required you to cut off all your hair? Did they see long hair as some sort of distraction to learning??
 
Your post was hilarious!! Welcome to the boards! I loved looking at all the pictures! You are just beautiful with a lot of thick pretty hair. I can't believe they required you to cut your hair at that school. If that had been in my neck of the woods, there would be a lot of uneducated folks walking around! LOL!

Welcome again and congrats on your progress!!
 
Hello.....and welcome

Both you and your sister have some nice thick hair!!!

I am very fascinated on why your school required you to cut off all your hair? Did they see long hair as some sort of distraction to learning??

thank you!

it is quite a common thing in nigeria actually, although most schools don't do it anymore. the ones who do all seem to have plenty of reasons though- it could be a distraction, they don't want to create a sort of 'good hair' hierarchy as well (in my little cousin's primary school, for instance, popularity is measured by hair length)- although in my school there was still that 'good hair' thing where people who had more defined curls were placed higher up. My school also felt it would help to make sure we look neater all the time. They also want us to save time and money...dunno if i'm even making different points here, teehee! :)
 
Your post was hilarious!! Welcome to the boards! I loved looking at all the pictures! You are just beautiful with a lot of thick pretty hair. I can't believe they required you to cut your hair at that school. If that had been in my neck of the woods, there would be a lot of uneducated folks walking around! LOL!

Welcome again and congrats on your progress!!

thanks so much!

and uneducated folks, hahaha!!! :lachen::lachen::lachen:
 
Loved your post!!! You and your sis have some pretty hair, thick too. Please, what school is that? Loyola? Lol @ your housewear, damn! the things we have to go through. I had to cut my hair too, never knew the reason behind it, just chucked it up as one of those things :ohwell:.
 

And I stayed in that school the full six years! Two months before my graduation in 2007, believe it or not, this young man here was me at the age of 16 :nono:


This is too funny!
Welcome to the boards, you and your sister both have yummy hair!
 
Loved your post!!! You and your sis have some pretty hair, thick too. Please, what school is that? Loyola? Lol @ your housewear, damn! the things we have to go through. I had to cut my hair too, never knew the reason behind it, just chucked it up as one of those things :ohwell:.

haha! it was our sunday wear! and you guessed right- loyola! what school were you @?
 
haha! it was our sunday wear! and you guessed right- loyola! what school were you @?

I was in Airforce Ibadan for JS1 then transferred to the one and only QC..lol!!!

By the way, I have practiced my side-eye for all the folks that will be tempted to tell me to do "something" to my (natural) hair when I go back this Christmas. smh! lol!!!
 
thank you!

it is quite a common thing in nigeria actually, although most schools don't do it anymore. the ones who do all seem to have plenty of reasons though- it could be a distraction, they don't want to create a sort of 'good hair' hierarchy as well (in my little cousin's primary school, for instance, popularity is measured by hair length)- although in my school there was still that 'good hair' thing where people who had more defined curls were placed higher up. My school also felt it would help to make sure we look neater all the time. They also want us to save time and money...dunno if i'm even making different points here, teehee! :)

Very interesting. Thanks for the reply.
 
Hello.....and welcome

Both you and your sister have some nice thick hair!!!

I am very fascinated on why your school required you to cut off all your hair? Did they see long hair as some sort of distraction to learning??

I should say it's mostly because we're in boarding school, away from our parents (sometimes a plane ride away) and at the time you're going in, you're probably 10/11 and not allowed to handle money yet. So, taking care of relaxed or natural hair can be a disaster in such a situation.
 
Welcome! You and your sister hair is so thick and long! I enjoyed reading your post. You're hilarious!
 
I was in Airforce Ibadan for JS1 then transferred to the one and only QC..lol!!!

By the way, I have practiced my side-eye for all the folks that will be tempted to tell me to do "something" to my (natural) hair when I go back this Christmas. smh! lol!!!

wow! I know so many people who went to QC! Very famous school, that one! :yep:

haha, i wish i'd mastered that side-eye :rolleyes:
 
Welcome aboard!!!:yep:

Thank you for sharing your hair journey with us. Your progress is great! Keep up the good work.
 
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