Why Did You Begin Healthy Hair Care

[yaya24]

I want WL hair

 

[B3e]

To be honest, I mainly want my SO to want to play with it, not just be curious about my current style and or toy with my current install—braids or otherwise. For that I need health and confidence.

& I want to run my fingers through my conditioner soaked hair this summer and see the curls form effortlessly

 

[vainღ♥♡jane]

i started mine today because i want my natural hair to grow long and healthy, and i want my hair to be easy to manage, which is always easier when the hair is healthy. ♥

 

[wild curls raquelle]

I was afraid of how much more damage the relaxers would do to my scalp.
Relaxers are painful
I always wanted wash and wear hair but didn't know I had it
Tired of listening to people talk about how I needed a perm because my hair was so thick in Spanish
Heat damage is a female dog.

 

[teacherjess]

I was pretty frustrated with my hair and had convinced myself the only way i could have long hair was via extensions and i was prepared to spend about $800 on them.

i figured there had to be another way... My friend found this site, but i really took hold of the practices

dang thats a house payment!!

 

[Bouncin&Behavin]

I started because it became apparent that hairstylists do not care about the health of my hair. Leaving conditioner on for 30 seconds (what is that going to do?), detangling with a small tooth comb, sitting under a hot dryer, followed by a hot blow dryer and an even hotter flat iron. Initially, I thought it was because I was young and in college and couldn't afford to visit the salon regularly, but once I "got grown" and could afford to go weekly, my hair seemed to get worse. It stayed chin and shoulder length no matter what and eventually it started thinning! And I always had thick hair. Don't even get me started on my "trims" that turned into cuts!

My last relaxer left me with a nickel sized ball spot in the top of my head and my hair was so thin. It was also about an inch shorter on one side. I cried all morning on Christmas because I couldn't get my hair to look right. I decided right then I was done with hairstylists.

I used to curl my hair with the flat iron everyday! No heat protectant, no nothing and I wouldn't wash or really moisturize until my next salon visit. In hindsight, I can't believe I was so careless.

You girls are AMAZING! I have learned so much. I have not used any heat since January 2nd and I have been wearing PS since then. Tuesday will be 12 weeks since my last relaxer and I want to cry thinking about it. I never thought (because I was told) that I could go past 4-6 weeks because my hair was "nappy." My hair looks better now than it ever has and I have LHCF to thank!

Sorry for the long post, but I'm just so happy! There is so much freedom in caring for your own hair.

 

[prospurr4]

I was visiting a fitness website, and a member on that site was also a member here. So, I decided to drop in on LHCF and was AMAZED to see all the black women, with my 4b hair type, with thick, long, healthy hair. Isis, Macherieamour and Sistaslick were only 3 of my many inspirations

So, I began my healthy hair care journey after I found out I could actually have long, healthy hair.

 

[babayred_86]

I had several reasons:my hair was extremely dry, I wanted to learn how to do my own hair instead of shedding out the money every 2 weeks and also had a major setback ( suffer from psoriasis and had a huge flare up)

 

[orangepeel]

I stumbled upon a youtube video when I was searching for tutorials on how to do twists, which lead to other videos which lead me to hairlista, which lead me to here. Along the way I have learned so much, before I wasn't putting in any effort and my hair paid the cost, now I'm learning and my hair is slowly bouncing back.

 

[BrooklynSouth]

I had natural hair most of my life which started to deteriorate so decided to relax. Relaxing, wrapping, coloring gave me broken, straw hair. A stylist suggested KUZ to repair the damage. I did a search on line to research the product I bought from her..found LHCF..saw the healthy possibilities, hair health was on it's way!!

 

[CherryCherryBoomBoom]

I'd always had a desire for long hair, I just had no idea how to get there. I'd also never really seen any black women with long hair, so I thought it was just a black people's thing, to have hair that doesn't grow long. I was unknowingly treating my hair badly all my life, being relaxed since age 4, blowdrying weekly after every wash, wearing braids for 3 months at a time without sufficient moisturising, then taking them out roughly and scraping through my hair with a comb, it must have broken so much .

One day, after I took out a set of braids in July 2008, my hair was so broken and short to about chin/ear length. I was looking in a Black Hair magazine, and came across an ad, advertsing Triple Gro, a range of products designed to grow black hair long. I was intrigued, and decided to buy a few of their products. That also got me thinking more about growing my hair, so I searched online about growing afro hair long. I came across several helpful sites, including growafrohairlong, and LHCF. After that, I've never looked back.

 

[chrstndiva]

Prior to moving to my current location, I was fortunate to have great hair stylists who were really into healthy hair. I went every week and purchased my products from them, so I never had a care about my hair. They took care of everything. My last stylist before I moved had thick, relaxed BSL hair and most of her clients had SL and longer hair as well. My hair was thick and between APL and BSL.

After the move, I started going to stylists recommended by others in my new area and my hair became thinner and thinner and thinner. Then my hair broke off so badly that some of it was NL and I could barely make a decent ponytail. I looked like a scalped chicken (my DH says I exaggerate about that).

In Nov. 08, I decided no more stylists and I would do it myself. I refused to pay someone to jack up my hair when I could jack it up for free. I finally purchased a membership to LHCF and looked at other sites and through trial and error got back on the road to healthy hair. Since my hair was different lengths, I kept cutting it to SL until it evened up. I'm not quite back to where I was before, but I should be back at full APL before summer and I hope to be back at my starting point by the end of the year.

 

[Chromia]

My main motive was the desire for longer hair. My hair had always looked healthy but it was stuck at shoulder length for years. I also hated spending half of every other Saturday sitting in a salon. Before I found this site I was inspired by Wanakee and the pictures on her site and Cathy Howse. Then I found this site. But at the time I thought I couldn't grow my hair that long or that it would be difficult and complicated. After spending time on this site and checking out a lot of fotkis I started doing my own hair.

I had healthy hair until I was about 7 and my mom sent me to get a Jheri curl. I had so much breakage after that.

I got another Jheri curl when I was 10 or 11. Then braids at age 11, then relaxers from about age 12 to age 30.

I attempted doing my own hair when I went away to college but I had no clue. Every time I washed my hair I ended up with a HAM on my head. When I went home from college during holiday breaks and summers one of the first things I did was get a relaxer touch-up. After college I got relaxers every 6 weeks.

 

[blksndrlla]

Had great "stylist" that did great styles and knew nothing about health. My tipping point was the CRAZY shedding...

I decided to go back to natural...and he encouraged me, but didn't know too much...So, I took matters into my own hands...

19 months later...i'm still here...

 

[BostonMaria]

I had long, thick hair as a child and Wanted it back.
I was a DIY'er from the time I was 14 until I was 22. After that I decided to let stylists do my hair till I was 35. During those years I had many setbacks.

In 2007 I made the decision to transition. Since then I have turned into a DIYer.

 

[PJaye]

I got tired of wearing my hair in the same style (bun) for years. I searched the internet for tips on haircare and hairstyles and came upon this forum.

I didn't have a desire to grow long hair until I got here.

The same goes for me except the bolded. I just want excruciatingly healthy hair.

 

[a_shoe_6307]

I just wanted to step my game up (I have always had pretty healthy and long hair) and after I cut all my hair off (cause I wanted to rock a Halle Berry do) & started to miss it I needed to grow it back out. I found this site and the rest is history.

 

[ThePerfectScore]

I was sick of looking raggedy...

 

[grownwomanaz]

I was always the dark skinned sista with the, seemingly atypical, long thick hair. I never really thought too much about it and really took my hair for granted since I always had a lot. Then, about 3 years ago I started noticing thinning and attributed it to stress having no clue it was actually being overprocessed. Don't know what possesed me to get highlights while it was thinning, but that was all my hair could take. Needless to say, it came out by the hand fulls for 3 months and what was left broke off. I was sick about it. I felt so helpless so I prayed, dried my tears and went into action. I found Marcherieamour YT videos and was in awe. She always gave props to LHCF so I decided to check it out. I have just about turned my hair around by giving up relaxing all together and really learning how to take care of my hair properly. I am eternally grateful to Jesus, this board and all of you ladies and a few guys lol. Like a lot of others have stated, it is really freeing not to have to depend on someone else to do my hair.

 

[Bella02]

I voted for DIY-er but really for me it was a combination of factors—one too many bad experiences with stylists, two misinformed about how to truly caring for my hair, and lastly learning that it was not impossible to grow my hair long by seeing HH journeys of ladies on this board. So soaked up as much knowledge as possible from the ladies here and started my journey to long-healthy hair.