Is everybody going natural?

Shelew said:
I am on vaca in the Virgin Islands and I am transitioning with about a third relaxed hair left and boy do I see why relaxers were invented!!! My pulled back pony tail can't even stop being puffed. I see where braiding can be your best friend. Wow the humidity here is powerful!!!
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Thats where I am going in a August and I am natural so I will be getting a sewin just for that reason :lol:
 
AmiJay said:
I also notice a lot of people who never had a relaxed hair regimen and then go natural and when their hair thrives, blame relaxing. :perplexed
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This was me UNTIL I re-relaxed after being natural APL and followed a good relaxer regimen. Re-relaxing helped me to understand with 100% certainty that natural hair was my golden ticket.
 
I'm still relaxed. Sometimes when I see the huge variations in texture from one texlax to the next, I think of going natural. But other times when I see how smooth and sleek my bonelaxed ends are I think of going back to bonelaxing. So for now I think I'll just keep the status quo.
 
MileHighDiva said:
Ladies, this is starting to sound like a good business opportunity for relaxed heads that have the following: healthy hair, great elocution, a decent camera, and video editing skills, :yep: Oh, I almost forgot desire and time.
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:yep:My hair isn't long enough at the moment:lol:. I really want to.
 
havilland said:
funny. I remember when I was considering transitioning, Traycee was transitioning to texlaxed with three textures on her head. Then quit. When I started transitioning the first time, Ebony started to consider then quit. And then so did I. LOL

Finally, I just stuck with it and now I'm fully natural. It's amazing to think if they had kept going when they started, they'd be done by now. No judgements..... I am just reflecting on my own journey and I can say I'm glad I stuck with it. Kinda like I get a chance to live that saying "every journey begins with a step" and "if you don't start, you will never get there" and "in a year you will look back and wish you started today".

It took me two years of 10-12 month stretches to make me see that I needed to just go natural. The way I preferred my hair (straight) was something I only got to really enjoy for about 3-4 weeks of the year. The rest of the time I was hiding and stretching. I finally said "forget this! What's the point?"

I'm interested to see how these ladies who I admire handle the transition this time around. I wish them luck! ;)
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I always say that transitioning is not for the faint of heart LOL It took me ABOUT 100 tries before I finally did it right. Mind you I am talking about a 10 year span of "trying." I finally transitioned for 10 months back in 2007. I used run back to relaxers the second I saw someone with fly straight hair or if my hair looked a hot mess LOL Having the hair boards around helped me out tremendously.
 
I started BKTing somewhat regularly after 8 or so years natural. Not sure if that really counts. It doesn't really change my hair texture that much, just makes it alot stronger.
 
[USER=298908]JudithO[/USER];20038603 said:
Smh... I'm about to give up on this transition and BC this weekend... Aint nobody got time for this!
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Good for you. Let us know how it went.
 
spelmanlocks said:
I had a good regimen while relaxing. I wad natural until I was 21 which is how and why I first sought out lhcf. I made it to mbl but my hair started breaking. I moved to another state and couldn't find my usual relaxer and it all went downhill from there. My hair kept breaking so I went natural.
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I'm not shading anyone. I'm just pointing out something I've noticed. I have no doubt that most peoples hair will thrive if they don't put a harsh chemical in their hair, but at the same time, relaxed hair can also thrive with the right reg.
 
I went to an lhcf-recommended stylist once and she said I should go natural. At the time, I wasn't trynna hear her, lol. I couldn't even do a 3 mo. stretch- how was I supposed to deal with a whole head of natural hair. I may go back to her now. :giggle: :look: shouts to @southerncitygirl[/QUOTE]


So southerncitygirl ....who is this stylist?
 
The fact that there are soooo many naturals now online and in real life (where I've lived), is why I was okay with taking the plunge and relaxing. When I first went natural, I knew 2 naturals on campus, and when I went home, I never saw another one :blush:. People would stop me everyday asking about my hair, commenting how they were thinking about going natural. When I BC'd, I owned it, even though I had never had my hair that short in my life, because I wanted other ladies to feel like they could do the same thing.

I feel that relaxers should be a style option, but for a lot of women relaxers are still a crutch. Some people can have totally health, gorgeous hair while relaxed, and others can't. When a woman is getting scalp burns and massive shedding, and refuses to even consider going natural, I think that's a problem. Relaxers don't agree with my scalp. Along with that, I couldn't stop thinking of the potential relaxer chemicals have to permanently damage my scalp and follicles. Especially when I can get my hair straighter with a flatiron and not risk chemical burns. I think as new tools, techniques, products come out and people become more health conscious, relaxers are steadily becoming the least appealing other styling option.

During my little relaxed excursion, I was sad at how few blog, tumblr, and youtube options were out there for relaxed ladies. I had to avoid most of Youtube, and stop going to most of my blogs :sad:. The relaxed sisterhood here is strong, and the ladies are fantastic, but when I looked outside of here, I felt like I was left to fend for myself. The natural community is strong as heck and the presence is so intense all over the web. It would be great if relaxed ladies built that same kind of presence and community out there :yep:. I think that community and feeling of natural hair everywhere helps pull many naturals who relax back to the natural side. Because you are not alone in these e-streets :lol:.
 
I loved my relaxed hair! It was so easy, and with my regimen I made it to waist length!! So like Traycee, I don't have the story of relaxers breaking my hair off like a lot of people. When I had gotten my first relaxer five or six years ago, Traycee and Macheriamor were the first two people I followed. I went natural because I got bored and wanted a challengeto see if I could achieve the same results that I did while relaxing. So far so good, though for me I think retaining length while natural is harder than it was to retain length while relaxed. But I do like the versatility of going from wash and gos to flat ironed hair.
 
AmiJay said:
Jenny from Justgrowalready, Ebony C Princess, Tracy from KISS and Sdestra are all going natural! All of them do crazy stretches anyway so might as well!

OT: I was in Target tonight and I always go into the hair care aisle and they only had 2 different brands of relaxers. Then went to CVS and they had like 4 different relaxers. A couple of years ago there would've been more to choose from.
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Yeah...I definitely decided to go natural. So far - 5 months post, and counting. I plan on transitioning for a long time first, since I'm so attached to my hair. I'll just snip relaxed ends off here and there as I go along. So excited to see my natural texture, and spend some quality time with her.:grin::grin:
 
mz.rae said:
I loved my relaxed hair! It was so easy, and with my regimen I made it to waist length!! So like Traycee, I don't have the story of relaxers breaking my hair off like a lot of people. When I had gotten my first relaxer five or six years ago, Traycee and Macheriamor were the first two people I followed. I went natural because I got bored and wanted a challengeto see if I could achieve the same results that I did while relaxing. So far so good, though for me I think retaining length while natural is harder than it was to retain length while relaxed. But I do like the versatility of going from wash and gos to flat ironed hair.
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.

This is how my relaxed hair was too. It was so healthy it looked like a wig was plopped on to my scalp It was much easier to moisturize my ends and i had ZERO single strand knots and split ends. I prefer the look of my natural hair and style wise its easier. Thats the only reason why i stopped relaxing.
 
sunnieb said:
@simplydebra guess I'm showing my LHCF age. I didn't see those comments as shade, but can appreciate and understand how you do.

I do remember a young lady who was natural and relaxed for the sole purpose of showing her subscribers how to transition. Anybody remember that? There was shade all in that thread, but my opinion was that there was a market for that type of info. :look:
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I remember that... but in her case, she needed an eclipse thrown her way. I think LHCF, relaxed or natural, was truly unified on that point!
 
Nope. Not me.

I was natural for five years and texlaxed a year and a half ago because the maintanence and shrinkage was no longer fun for me; I was always in longterm protective styles, and if not, I was blown out and bunned. I avoided dealing with my natural texture like the plague; I did not have time for all of that maintenance anymore.

Being texlaxed has been a journey where I've made mistakes and learned much. I use the wealth of knowledge and routines i formed when natural, and it works well. Sometimes I desire the idea of being natural, but thinking about the reality of being natural keeps me in check. The biggest thing being texlaxed has released me from was my fear of water. (water=shrinkage=destruction of that twist-out that took me five hours to do :lol:)

I will always LOVE the look of textured & curly hair, but all that 4b shrinkage was NOT the move for me anymore.
 
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I feel like sometimes it's harder to be 4b/c and be natural than other ladies with looser curl patterns. Maybe it's because our breakage/shrinkage is higher than others so it takes longer to do anything.

When I was natural in college, I felt like life was easy until I was around 4-5 inches of hair and then I would want to chop it off again because doing my hair became too much work. I wish I knew that I could be a long haired natural back then. But I felt like when you went natural, you COULDN'T have straight hair as well. Silliness.

Now, after being at LHCF for a year or so, I don't think being natural or being relaxed or whatever even matters. Porosity. Deep conditioning. Avoiding heat if you have to. Protective styles. When and how to use color. How and when to trim. I think those things matter WAY more than whether you relax your hair or go natural.
 
It's still a majority that I see mostly in the online community. While I am starting to see more and more naturals out and about they are still the minority. The majority that I see mostly are weaves. Long ole ratchet weaves with struggle leave outs.
 
Britt said:
It's still a majority that I see mostly in the online community. While I am starting to see more and more naturals out and about they are still the minority. The majority that I see mostly are weaves. Long ole ratchet weaves with struggle leave outs.
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Struggle leaves outs dampen my spirit every time I see it lol but I agree natural is the minority but its growing at a rapid rate tho...
 
People are going natural... but people are also getting smarter about relaxing. You won't find the best relaxers to use at your local Walgreens or CVS.
 
If anyone chooses to be relaxed, a few rules. Stretch at least 12-16 weeks, avoid heat (heat plus chemicals seems like a bad combo usually), up your protein/moisture game, and use lye relaxers.

The best kind of relaxer in my opinion is lye. Which they don't sell in CVS or other chain drugstores. The best my hair ever was while relaxed was when I went to get it done professionally every 2 months and my stylist Jason used Affirm Lye Fiberguard(not sure of the name). My hair was BANGIN.

But it was $155 to get a touch up. Not about that life, anymore.
 
naija24 said:
If anyone chooses to be relaxed, a few rules. Stretch at least 12-16 weeks, avoid heat (heat plus chemicals seems like a bad combo usually), up your protein/moisture game, and use lye relaxers.

The best kind of relaxer in my opinion is lye. Which they don't sell in CVS or other chain drugstores. The best my hair ever was while relaxed was when I went to get it done professionally every 2 months and my stylist Jason used Affirm Lye Fiberguard(not sure of the name). My hair was BANGIN.

But it was $155 to get a touch up. Not about that life, anymore.
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$155? Girl, I would've gone natural on gp!
 
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