My Baby is Finally All Natural!!!

Do you remember my post "Looking Out for Our Girls by Eva" ? This was a post about a woman who goes to pick up her daughter from the child's grandmother house and the child's hair is relaxed. Well I had a similar experience. To fast forward, I decided grow the relaxer out of my daughter's hair. It's been about 16 months of talking to my daughter about her hair. Telling her her hair is beautiful, letting her touch and watch my hair grow. Putting her hair in twists, cornrows, extentions, everything. The only thing I left up to her was when I was going to cut the relaxed ends off. Well, MY BABY told me she wanted the ends cut off yesterday and here she is........

All Natural!!!

If it moves you to leave a comment please say something encouraging to my baby who is on her own natural hair journey respectfully.

I'll let her read them for encouragement.

Proud Momma signing off  :)

17 Mos.

Folks, some months have passed without pics to update. Here is month 17.

So my locs are growing fast but there's not much change as for my hair actually locking as far as I can see. Well, what do I know?

 

Look what I can do. Finally.

The sunny day put me in the mood to pose after a fresh reti

What is that catching the sunlight?

My peacock loc adornment

There's nothing like a good pair of earrings to add a little "extra" to the hair

Watchout nah!

I need suggestions

First let me say that I can't believe I'm going to show this to you guys. But I can't help but feel that if I don't ask then I will never come up with a solution. And probably someone else is having the same dilemma, so here goes ladies...

Hair that is in my hand and down below it is what is complete. Also some hair on the sides is complete. In one day! I'm excited.

But.......

Ok, so it's been about 4 weeks since I last reti my hair. I started Monday, but didn't reti any yesterday. Let me just mark it as 1 day of reti complete. So I have the entire top of my head to do and here's my problem. Because I can't spend alot of time on my hair in one sitting, I have to come up with a way to style my hair and mark where I left of. On Monday I spent approx. 6 hours on my hair throughout the day because it's my day off. For the rest of the days I can only spend about 2 or 3 hours. Because I'm new to doing this myself, takes me about 3 to 4 days to complete. So how can I style my hair over a 3 day period that is decent? Or what can I do to keep my place in the World of Thick Strands?


This is how I wore today and it is horrible, but what else can I do? Any suggestions my sistas?
What's in the bun is what is needing a reti. This is still alot of hair. It would probably take me 4 hours. I go a little faster in the front because I can see.

awaiting what great ideas you have for me...

Sos....Sos....Sos...

My first loc year!!!

It seemed like a year was centuries away last December but here I am. Locs and all. My locs have been through a lot in the last year.

First there was the holey locs...in my first month as well as cutting some of my relaxed ends on a whim...
The dilemma of two hair textures..in the 5th month
The demise of my relaxed ends month 7
Contemplating taking my locs down because of the parts not being straight and what I decided to do in months 8 and 9

and my locks today...

Curls from my curly mohawk done 2 or 3 days prior

The rubberbands for the 2 lower pony tails popped, so I was left with this half up half down do. Still cute I think.

I would like to put up some comparison shots. Can anyone tell me which photo program that I can use to do such things as collages?

 Happy Happy Napday to me!

Re: Cshan's Curly Mohawk

I don't think my sections were up high enough, but cute enough style to start the work week.

Instead of putting it all up, I kept a fringe.

My crown

He Likes it

I've read in so many blogs that there is a huge fear of women of color going natural. One reason that sticks with me is the reason they believe that their man or men in general won't find them attractive. I've also read in many blogs that that simply is not true and this I know for a fact.
My significant other loves my hair and he's not the only one. While at work, a gentleman strolls into the front lobby digging for info. A rep looking for a contact name to push a sales pitch to.  I inform him that the facility would be closing in a month and so no new contracts or contacts would be made. He offers his apologies for the apparent job loss I would be experiencing in the near future and asked what would I do. I explained to him that I was a student of cosmetology and I would be focusing on my studies the more to graduate. He tells me that his wife is a stylist and loves what she does. He goes go on to explain that his wife is tackling to expand her target market to African-American clients. (That's right. He and his wife are caucasian.) I explained to him that most stylists feel that there is a huge difference in african descent hair and caucasian hair. The truth is, its not. What's different is the texture and therefore maintenance. Other than that hair is hair. It all needs to be cleansed, conditioned and nourished just the same. You just have to learn how to apply proper care to hair texture that is coily or very tightly curled, I explained. Very interested, he asks the super loaded question that he probably had no idea what it meant to a black woman. "Why do African-American women straightened their hair? I think yours is beautiful the way that it is and it's natural, correct?" I thanked him for the compliment and told him yes that it is indeed natural. But there was no way I could explain to him in totality my views as to why we as black women straighten our hair without taking up the rest of his day and mine. I simply explained to him, my personal reason and that was because my mother relaxed my hair while I was still in kindergarten maybe even as early as preschool. "For me, it was all I knew."  "Well", he starts again, " I sure think your hair is beautiful and it looks as though you put some time into making it look so." Yes I do put time/work into the upkeep of my locs. As I did when I relaxed it. Except now this is my texture, the natural me. I thanked him again and he went his merry way with a good bye and a good luck to me.
Which brings me back to men, all types of men, love natural hair. Not all men do, but don't believe that there are just 1 or 2 out there admiring your natural coils. There are plenty of them that are secretly admiring you.  All wide eyed in amazement at your gravity defying curls. Mesmerized by the appearence of softness that resembles cotton. Longing to know what it feels like. In complete awe of your beauty and confidence. They are out there do you see them?

Hair for a formal

Hair pinned up above the ears on both sides.

 What I used: Water and two hair pins.

~Maybe next time I'll be more creative~

8 months and counting.......

8 whole months. Wow! I can't believe it. So here's the update. My locs are coming along...well sorta. I'm beginning to become nervous again. Not knowing how my locs will turn out is just about maddening to me. Since I've cut my permed ends, I am experiencing alot unraveling and I not sure how to handle it. Because my locs are shorter and I can't style as I once did, I'm starting to notice other things, like my parts. My parts in the top center and front are not parts at all. The locs appear to be sporadic. The person who retightens my locs said that there were straight parts, but perhaps were lost when I fell behind for one of my retightening sessions. (????)

(click for better detail)

I'm seriously considering taking them down to have some uniform parts put in. BUT here's the other dilemma, I really do like my locs. Sure there are some corrections that need to be made but overall I don't want to start over. I don't know what to do...

(click for better detail)

Comparison

The night I cut my ends off. (sorry for the poor quality) 1 day later
3 days later

Besides the fact that my locs need to be retightened. Do they look different? Are they drawing up? They are definitely fuzzier.

Wow, big difference. That's probably a good 3 to 4 inches gone. In some places I probably cut 5 inches off.

Milestones

My oldest child

Saturday, July 25th I celebrated my halfway point through cosmetology school. We had a great time. I don't always get time to spend with friends and family and so this was much needed.

I forgot to ask my other guests if I could post their pictures. Though this guest here didn't mind.

My niece

Also......

I did it! I got rid of those stringy, dangly, lifeless relaxed ends! Freedom. I must say that I was very fearful of cutting them, but they had to go. Turns out my hair isn't as short as I first initially thought. I feels great and looks better. To me anyway. I sure there are others that think other wise, but I'm the majority when it comes to my hair and soo it looks good.

click the pictures for better detail

Now if I can only get rid of this issue of my scalp flaking. That's what I'll be up on next.

Something different

I tried a new style today. I'm not sure if I like it, but at least it's different. Now only if I could change the scenery. I'm sure folks are tired of looking at my burlap wall and blue office chair :-) I need to get out more and take pics.

7 months update

Seems like I just did a post for 6 months. Well here are my locks at 7 months. I'm ready for my relaxed ends to go, but still a little afraid. I'm scared I won't look right with approx. 4inches of hair. On the other hand, I'm not going to let fear stand in my way. I've set the date. The first anniversary of my locs I WILL be receiving a hair cut. (I feel nausea setting in) I believe that once these stringy wild ends are gone, my locs will take off instead of being hender by the bunching of the relaxed hair. I dunno. Maybe it's all in my head. Here's also a style I've worn to diguise the 2 textures.