When I was 17... *Hair Edition*

[xcuzememiss]

When I was 17, my relaxed hair was experiencing breakage. IT was always thick but the ends were looking chewed up. Probably from getting my hair blown out every week at the Dominican salon. I think I was shoulder length and slick because of the oil sheen to make my hair blingy. LMAO

 

[xcuzememiss]

OMG.. That was me in H.S.

At 17, I was was relaxed and a little pass SL. I didnt think my hair was super long, but I thought it was a decent length. Especially compared to others. I went to the stylist every 2 weeks which is the only time water saw my head. In between the stylist I would flat iron my hair almost everyday and spray it with oil sheen all the time. I kept a brush and a comb in my purse at all times and combed/brushed it any chance I got. I never really thought about length much in HS because I had some of the longest hair and it was shiny and bouncy because I went to the Hair Stylist every two weeks. But I had SERIOUS flakes that I just use to comb out because too much water was bad for your hair, right? So glad that part of my life is over. lol. TY LHCF!

 

[kblc06]

When I was 17, I was just discovering hair boards, but I had already began implementing healthy hair habits a couple of years prior to that. I was a healthy relaxed BSB/BSL.... I had been transitioning for a few months and did a not-so-mini BC from BSL to chin length (and completely natural in the back)

 

[PeaceFlow]

I was practically bal'headed with dry natural hair

 

[the_sweetest_berry]

When I was 17 I was transitioning/natural but it was not by choice. My mother did not think having my hair relaxed was healthy so she refused to pay for my relaxers. At the time I had no idea how to deal with my 4B/A hair so I mostly wore in braids or under weaves. I only wore my natural hair out for one month in the only natural style I knew how the do,"the puff". It looked good but I easily got bored with it. I had no knowledge of haircare at the time. I was so tired of being natural that when I turned 18 I got a job and started to pay for my own relaxers. I soon regretted it. By the second month of relaxing my hair started breaking off like crazy. I was so freaked out that I transitioned not too soon afterwards and this time it was my choice. It wasn't so hard the second time around because I did my research and found sites like LHCF. Now, I am fully natural, I take good care of my hair (or I try to), and know a diverse number of hairstyles so I never get bored. So it turns out that my mother was right about being natural but my only wish is that I learned about caring about my hair sooner.

 

[sugarwater]

i found lhcf when i was 17

 

[Sondice]

When I was 17, I was rocking w/ sew ins. Surprisingly I had no idea what so ever about protective styling, none of that, I just wanted to give my hair a break from relaxers, styling ect. There was no youtube back then and I didnt know LHCF even existed. When I took out the sew in after like 6 months my hair was between SL and APL. I was sooooo happy cause I thought for the longest time that my hair just didnt grow. I got so many compliments from everybody

 

[MsChelle]

When I was 17 my hair and I were involved in a serious hate/hate relationship. I hated it and it hated me back. I begged my mom to let me cut it off.....she said NO. It was THICK and I had no idea how to tame it or do anything with it as far as styling it. I kept it in a ponytail for about 3 years and my mother made me wear it down for my graduation from HS. People thought I was rocking a wig. It was about MBL and there was two tons of it!!!

 

[Janet']

Love this thread!

 

[niqu92]

when i was 17[which was 3wks ago]my mom wouldnt let me touch my hair.she thought that if she let me take care of my hair myself then i would mess it up.she didnt even let me get a relaxer until 17 and the only reason i wanted it was because MBL,almost WL natural hair was getting almost impossible to do every morning.needless to say due to my mom my hair has always been long,the shortest its been is a couple inches below APL and thats only because i wanted to cut it tht short. It wasnt until like January that i told my mom "Mom, im going to be in college next year so i need to learn how to do my hair myself!im too grown for you to be washing my hair still!i need to be independent!" and she finally decided to let me take care of my hair myself.but she warned me and said if my hair falls out then she wasnt going to do anything about it.
sooo because it was the first time tht i was taking care of my hair myself,i started searching on google for tips and waa-laah!i found LHCF.
my mom is suprised my hair hasnt fallen out yet but every other day she claims that it will soon because my hair is missing her "magic touch" lol

 

[diadall]

When I was 17 I didn't have a relaxer yet. I did experiment with color. I used my aunts Sun In and told everyone it was from the chlorine in the pool and being in the sun all the time. I was on a performing arts track and kept my hair in a ballet bun. I am doing that again with my SL hair. My hair was dark brown, thick and healthy.

 

[CB1731]

When I was 17, I dyed my MBL hair blonde, right after a relaxer, it fell out in clumps in the shower as I was getting ready to go out dancing with my girls.

 

[Glamiam]

When i was 17 i knew nothing about retaining length. I actually believed that my hair "wasn't meant to be long". I used to flat iron my hair every day or 2 days. Although i used to protective style and stretch my relaxer for 5 months, my hair never seemed to grow because i just kept frying my hair. 3 years later, (now) i decided to throw out the flat iron and my hair grew like weeds..wish i knew that from before hand, i could of been bra strap length or longer by now.

 

[tmhuggiebear]

When I was 17 I was permed with arm pit length hair and every one was convinced that I was Dominican or mixed because I had what they had "good hair". Even though I was the one receiving the "complement" the good hair comment used to bother me so much.

 

[YaniraNaturally]

When I was 17 my SL hair had been relaxed for about a year. My hair thinned and broke off but it always somehow stayed at SL. Sadly, because I was one of the girls at school with the "longest hair" it never bothered me. I didn't realize that my hair was suffering from moisture overload and excessive relaxing (root to tip, every 28 days of course). I should also add that I wrapped my hair every night with a cotton scarf When I wore my hair up (for NJROTC) it was in a TIGHT bun/ponytail. I also used a pomade and a HARD brush to literally scrape back my edges (now I know that my edges will actually lie flat with just some water ). I washed my hair pretty frequently (every 3,4 days) and then I would blow dry it and flat iron it within an inch of its life.

I honestly shouldn't have a strand of hair left But my hair is pretty resilient because although my Mom and I knew that it wasn't as healthy as it once was, people still constantly complimented my "healthy hair." Now three years later (and 7 months after finding LHCF) my hair is finally retaining length and thickening up! I'm on my way to APL for the first time ever

 

[NJoy]

When I was 17, my aunt, a hairdresser from Atlanta, came up, took one look at my raggedy broken off sl ponytail, grabbed her scissors and cut that ish off. It happened so fast. And then she said, "I know you THOUGHT you had some hair in that ponytail but you need to start over, baby". What the?! Then she cut it into a style that I couldn't maintain. The reason my hair was in a ponytail was because I was hair lazy. Suddenly I had to wear my hair out and my flips and curls were now reduced to bends.

 

[kmn1980]

At 17, I was growing out my Halle Berry in Boomerang cut that I snuck and got done and got yelled at by my folks for. I had been begging for it since 1993 so by 1996 I was fed up and tired of waiting. I was on the swim team and washing my hair everyday. I was unknowingly stretching relaxers just because I didn't like sitting in the beauty salon all.day.long.

 

[nappystorm]

I had found Wanakee's website (back when she owned it) around late 16 or early 17. I was washing my hair, greasing my scalp, and bunning. My hair grew alot that year. I went from a chewed up and fried SL to a full APL/grazing BSL-ish.

 

[ashleymichelle1]

When I was 17 (like 2 years ago) I found LHCF and other websites and I decided to chop my hair off because it was badly damaged and a little past sl. I decided I just wanted to start over. I had long hair before I started getting relaxers so I decided I wanted to go natural. I wore sew-in weave for probably a year staright until I became comfortable with the length of my natural hair.

 

[iri9109]

when i was 17 i didnt know any better...i was relaxed...a master flat-ironer using tons of blue magic "organics" grease & oil sheen...on dirty hair...several passes on the highest my flat iron could go...washed my hair like 1x a month...never DCd...smh no wonder my hair stayed just below shoulder length forever...and my ends were horrid

 

[wavezncurlz]

I was natural at 17. I lived in the Phillipines with high humidity and I swam a lot. I knew relaxers wouldn't do a damn thing in that weather. I wasn't very creative with my hair so it was usually in french braids or a bun. During the dry season, I'd do an occasional rollerset or blowout. It was probably midback/waistlength at the time but no one knew because I rarely wore it out.

Interestingly, being natural wasn't really cool in the late 80s and I definitely marched to my own drummer. I'm "facebook friends with some high school friends now and looking back at my tagged pictures, I realize that my hair is still the same. The only difference is I am using much better products, I have gotten better about creative styling, and I know how to wear it out with twist/braid outs. I guess I was ahead of my time

Yep, I always wore my hair up somehow and I loved my poofy side bangs! LOL I also noticed it was much thicker - sigh...

Some pics from then (sorry if you've seen them b4). :

 

[HeChangedMyName]

when I was 17 I was relaxed and use to regularly abuse my hair with my regular conair curling iron, I'd lay it on my edges to straighten them out and greased my hair up with Blue Magic often. I loaded it down with grease and put it in tight pony tails on wash day to make sure it dried shiny and straight and somehow my hair was the same length it is now. lol. I did fingerwaves with heavy brown gel once i mastered the technique.

 

[IrrationalThoughts]

When I was 17 transitioned from a wave nouveau without knowing it. I either kept my hair in box plaits under a cotton bandana or I wore a half up style with bangs straightened on HIGH with a curling iron. And I died my hair regularly, like every few weeks.

 

[Fab_Nikki]

When I was 17, I was relaxed with hair alittle longer than shoulder length. I was a big Blue Magic junkie! I didn't think my hair looked right unless it was straight and shiny from the mounds of grease. I would request a touchup from my mom every time my edges sprouted. I thought nothing of the fact that my mom applied the relaxer the entire length of my hair (root to tip). All I knew was I had straight hair. My hairstyles of choices were limited to straight, a ponytail or a french roll/bun in the top with half down in the back. I was 17 in 1996

 

[cinnamin316]

At 17 i was just learning to accept my hair. However the "popular" girls had their hair is how i wanted mine. So believe it or not I wanted shoulder length hair that was really stiff and greased up and wouldn't move in the wind. They all had it and I wanted that bad lol. But by the time I was 17 I realized my hair just didnt behave that way because it was actually healthy. When I cut my uneven apl-bsl hair to layered shoulder length for my senior pics it had so much body and bounce. You couldnt tell me nothing. I was flinging my hair all over the place. My hair grew fast that year too, I stayed at the salon and kept cornrows in.