How long did it take you....?

[happylocks]

How long did it take you to accept you hair, texture and to be proud of it.

. I must admit that I have not always accepted my hair, especally as a child, It was not until, I grew up and looked at my hair myself, and saw that I loved my hair,

it texture, the changes that could be done to it, and that anything could be achieved, That I had hair like no other, I could style my hair any way that I wanted too

, I took me a while to love my hair

as well as myself,

, but I am there, Now I am trying to teach my young sister, about how beautiful her hair is and can be, I have my mom there to keep proud to be who I am, but going out in the world can make you feel less

. :, I have had to grow to accept myself, and I do plan to make a place for myself, not just hair wise, I think it is important to teach younger girls to accept themselves and see the beauty that come with being who we are

 

[elite_chiq]

I am not going to lie i hated my hair pretty much my whole life and the comments such as "4a/b hair can't grow" really didn't help me love my hair, then i got into boards/learning about my hair. I guess the saying is tru "your scared of what you dont understand"... now after learning from my mistakes i love my hair.

 

[happylocks]

This board is teaching me alot, also seeing beautiful natural hair helps me soooooo much

, I like to go to nappy sites for hair, that helps me to stay on my goal , and be proud to be natural and of who I am

 

[Daughter]

For the longest time, hair wasn't a big deal to me, though it was to others... when I was a kid it was admired for its' length and thickness, but lamented that it's not the wavy 2b texture of my dad's... When I had it relaxed, I loved my hair, the compliments helped a lot! But I still got frustrated as even when it was very straight I was fighting to get it to be sleek... something my big ol' hair could never be.

When I finally decided to grow out and cut off the relaxed hair, I think it was then I truly loved and appreciated my hair, and even more so now that I'm taking more care of it and understanding it more (as well as the rest of me

) Since I've become interested in hair and scalp care (actually taking notice of the advice in my hair books and websites) I have come to fall in love with my hair again

, accepting and liking the shrinkage (a whole new short lookin' "do" without cutting the hair!

), volume and thickness. Although since I was about 18 I always liked my hair to look nice, I didn't really love my natural texture until I was 22.

 

[Daughter]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
elite_chiq said:
I am not going to lie i hated my hair pretty much my whole life and the comments such as "4a/b hair can't grow" really didn't help me love my hair, then i got into boards/learning about my hair. I guess the saying is tru "your scared of what you dont understand"... now after learning from my mistakes i love my hair.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hear you, some people don't realise how words can affect you to your very core, especially if you are hearing negative things about yourself from an early age.

Here's to love and acceptance of ourselves!

 

[Elyse]

It wasn't until I was 30 that I began to embrace my natural texture. My youngest child has 3B hair like me and I became curious about wearing my hair curly.

I have had a LOT of negative feedback from my relatives, but my husband and kids are very supportive.

 

[Blackndiangirl]

For me it took untill I think last year, after finding this board and others like it to enbrace my natural hair texture,I was in my 20's and all my life ive have had negative feedback from relatives and family about my hair.
I finally stoped listening to them. Yay

 

[Chakira]

It's hard, when all of the images out there (until recently) say that our hair isn't beautiful. I started growing out my relaxer a few months ago because my hair was damaged. Since then I have grown to love my hair (due in part to the best boyfriend in the world who enforces that i am beautiful!) Now I embrace and accept that my hair is gorgeou... though a little on the short side!

 

[happylocks]

It is sad the affects that ppl can have on others in a negative way, I never wanted to be white, I just wanted their hair,

It was made to seem ideal and if you have anything close to it, all the other little girls would try to be your friend. I remember when I was younger one girl who had long hair type 3 , could control all the other girl, that followed her, because of her hair

, and forget the real friends

.Even that young I learn how some ppl work and to becareful, I hope to grow my hair for my self with pride in my natural hair and dark complextion

 

[happylocks]

It is very sad, that some AA women say that they are balck on the outside and white inside, What happened, and how can we stop this from affecting the younger AA girls, I do think it has alot to do with looks and hair. I really think it could start there what do you think?

 

[ineedmoney]

i learned to love my hair in middle school. it seems weird to say learned to love, because i never really hated it. my hair was cool but it made me feel diffrent. it wasn't the silky stright of my white friends or the "just for me" procesed look of my blk friends. i got a perm in the 7th grade that did nothing but hurt my already damaged hair. my hair broke off into a cute cut almost but it is still uneven. i love it though. i'll rock my afro and feel like me ya know. but it's hard to maintain that feeling because people make you feel like napps are a bad thing. espcially with guys. i had a boy at my school tell me that he didn't know how i could be so fine and have such F

ED up hair! plus the minute i press this mess out and sport my "kelly" flip or wear a pony tail cats wanna hollla like i was halle berry or somebody. lol. ain't that just weird.

 

[happylocks]

AA ppl can be the worst at time, and guys as well, I enjoy being around the natural afrocentric crowd of ppl at festivals and things like that, I like the men in dread ohhh yeah

, But now they are liking the whole natural look and the WA girls or HA girls are wearing the braids

as well, and they look cute I give them credit, but go with the afro and the will tell you to go

. Haters,

 

[LavenderDutchess]

[ QUOTE ]
For me it took untill I think last year, after finding this board and others like it to enbrace my natural hair texture,I was in my 20's and all my life ive have had negative feedback from relatives and family about my hair.
I finally stoped listening to them. Yay

[/ QUOTE ]

YEP same here!

I still get negativity...but I am learning to really love my hair.

I have also noticed that all of my black guyfriends liked my hair better when it was straight and all of my white guyfriends like it bettter now....????

I wonder why

Oh well, I like it and that is all that is starting to matter

 

[happylocks]

its sometime just the way ppl think, I think when ppl see positive and beautiful natural hair they will accept it more, I dont want to go back to the time when AA were not allow to wear afro, and always had to have thier hair pressed or perm, just keep the natural hair looking good and many will follow

 

[lsubabiedee]

after i began college...up until then i felt like something was wrong with my hair...my family made fun of me b/c it curled up....i let my mother blowdry and press my hair for years...and then she told me that no hairdresser would take people with hair like mine and that i needed a perm....well...i guess she was pretty pissed when she put the perm on and my hair still curled up!
Anyway, she always blamed me for not taking care of my hair and that wasnt necessarily my fault b/c it always tried to revert...i mean ALWAYS...
Now i have so much love for not only my hair textures...but for all textures...i love to see nappy heads....i just love it...and I plan to spend my life studying how black women all over the world suffer b/c of our "bad" hair textures!!

 

[calbear]

I actually never hated my hair - what I hated was how it was being taken care of. As a child my mom made it seem like having my hair was bad but it was always healthy and did what I wanted so I tried to ignore that. My mom (due to a back issue) couldn't care for my hair that often so I was sent to shops and they did ok. (a few burn patches here and there and the stupid stuff I did on my own)

I am truly in love with my hair today (at 30) because I am learning to take care of it properly and work around my issues such as a serious lack of hair per square inch in the back of my head.

 

[Nonie]

I have never hated my hair texture. I grew up in Kenya among kids who had 4A/B hair - I'd say 98% of them - so texture was never an issue. (Come to think of it, I don't recall any kid in elementary school that had a perm.

) And even though I had friends who were biracial and of Arab decent, I don't ever recall envying their hair. What I do recall envying is the girls that had long 4A/B hair. They were able to wear so many cute styles: pony puffs, French braids, two or three single plaits with ribbons, pig-tail braids... while the most I could ever achieve was the puff you get with a headband, or an afro.

It's interesting looking back coz I remember us playing with each other's hair and even though our dolls had mainly type 1 and 2 hair, we didn't immediately rush to play with the biracial kids' hair. It was whoever had long hair that we'd be after. I guess type 2 hair was just too slippery and limp to do much with, unless you could pluck the head off and hold it upside down between your thighs to do a good braid/cornrow. Worked with dolls, anyway.

Oh I did love it when I got my hair pressed, but not so much for the straight look as for length. I remember tilting my head back so I could feel the hair at the base of my neck =&gt; I had long hair.

And then I'd smooth it into a forced pony braid using as many bobby pins as needed to fool everyone into thinking every strand made it all the way to the pony; I'd then tuck the braid so no one could tell how really short my hair was from the size of the pony braid.

 

[NGC]

I can't say I ever hated my hair. I really didn't pay any attention to it. Not until my mid-twenties.

I can say I never knew how to take care of my natural texture until a few years ago when I "disovered" hair boards.

 

[karezone]

I never really paid attention to it until I started taking care of my hair. I know that it is really thick and wiry but with a little skill it can be styled. I think that if I was to go natural gradually, I would not be traumatized or anything.

 

[chocolate01]

I have never hated my hair I think it is because i grew up in a family that felt that hair was hair no matter what the type and they were somewhat negative to people that didn't take care of their hair. It wasn't until I got to school that I encountered the whole "I love your hair, you got that "good" hair", "you must have a lot of indian in your family" and it was weird for me because I never made a big over the type of hair I have. I have always been a little disappointed that so many people place so much empahsis on the type of texture one's hair is and a negative emphasis on certain textures. just my two cents.

 

[DigitalRain]

I'm relaxed but went natural briefly in for a while several years ago. I have mostly 4b hair, with some 4a at the crown. My hair was always called bad hair, cause its coarse, very kinky, and doesn't lay flat, no matter what. The only thing liked about my hair is that its tough, and able to take abuse.

When I went natural because of chemical damage, I was so surprised, I loved it! After a shower, I had little ringlets everywhere, especially at the crown. Its wiry and almost impossible to break. I loved playing in it. Then I let my family pressure me into relaxing again, which I sometimes regret, because by now I would have had a head full of fluffy natural hair.

 

[CocoaCure]

I didn't start loving my natural hair until I was 29 and went natural for the first time! The thing I have a problem with myself is that I was "pleasantly surprised" to find that my hair was actually quite curly, especially in the crown area and in the back. I feel as though I'm not sure if I would have been all that happy if it was really really kinky and I couldn't ease the comb through it as well. I was prepared to work with whatever God gave me though, but I must admit - I can't say I'm totally "There" with the acceptance issue. I mean, I accept MY hair - but I'm not sure that I would have been so accpeting had I not found it to be pretty easy to style. I know that sounds absolutely AWFUL - but I'm being honest and hopefully you all can help me correct some of my thinking.

But I really am starting to love natural hair - even in it's most kinky, 4Z state!! I'm seeing more and more that I'm liking every day! This issue is SOOOOOOOOOO deep seated adn when we're really honest with ourselves we'll find where we still carry some of that plantation in us!!

I also hate that I ended up relaxing again - now I'm transitioning and will big chop in June/July when I have about 4 1/2 inches of newgrowth! Enough to slick back into a wavy bun, or have a nice fro with a headband!

 

[lsubabiedee]

Cocoa...its okay...sometimes i wonder if i would have decided to take the natural route if my hair was a different texture, then I dismiss that thought b/c regardless of what i WOULD HAVE done, i made the decision and now i love all natural hair...like you said we have to correct our way of thinking...and that doesnt happen over night...and i hope my transition will help with that

 

[miss_brown]

Great topic

I don't think I really loved my texture until I cut off my relaxed hair. Even after that, it took me a while to truly accept my natural texture (4a with 3b/c patches) as beautifl. However, the longer it got and the more practice I got at working with it, I began to like it more an more.

Now I'm totally in love with it and all its versatility