Good Hair? Relaxed hair vs Natural hair

In modern history, we women of colour have fought and struggled with self-reflection on what we call beauty. Women of all cultures embrace their hair as their pride and a hair is seen as a women's reflection of their inner beauty and is an interpretation of a woman's mood, attitude, life style and most of all reflects on one's personality.
In African based societies, whether be in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia or in the African countries there is a constant battle on what is better chemically textured hair and natural hair. Chemicals such as relaxers and perms change the texture of one's hair and destroy the chemical and physical composition of the hair and essentially wears it off. This view is not to say I oppose to relaxers of other chemical products.

The argument is whether relaxed hair is better than natural texture hair. In recent years lot of women have done the "BIG CHOP" or a transition plan from chemically textured hair to natural afro texture. Women that are natural hair claim it's a way to embrace and showoff their African heritage and natural beauty.
 To women that want to transition, this is my advice: The easiest way to transition is to do the big chop however this may be a bolder step to take most people would consider. Transitioning without the big chop may however be the harder road taken by most because of the fear of having short hair. I personally have tried transitioning from relaxed hair to natural hair, however I can say it ain't an easy journey. My "healthy hair journey" began December of 2011, but was only short lived till May of 2012. BUT WAIT, LET ME EXPLAIN!

Because I usually have my hair braided it was easy at first to maintain my hair during the early stages of the transition. When the hair was unbraided however, my hair became hard and was very brittle and started breaking off quickly. This would have been mostly because of the two different hair texture, the relaxed and the natural new growth. The two different textures made it hard to comb my hair especially when wet, it would get very tangled. During the transition period I would not recommended that you use direct heat on the hair; because it dries out the hair and essentially weakens it making it prone to breakage. Hot oil treatment is a good way to keep your hair healthy during the transition period and also gives your hair a lot of strength and softens it making it easier to care for.



Growing out relaxed hair... NOTE: different textures
Credits to Natural Shren

 The reason why I went back to relaxers after 5 months was because I was not ready to cut off the relaxed hair just yet, because my hair was not grown to the length that I had wanted. The main reason though was because I wanted to put in a leave out weave and the texture of my leave out would not blend in with the texture of the weave so relaxing my hair was the only option I thought was appropriate. My advice to all you ladies considering transition, do wear protective hairstyle wether be braids, twist outs or even weaves
but always keep away from chemicals because that will ruin your whole journey.
I do however recommend you to take the chance and start you transition, although it is both a physical and psychological journey. Some days you feel better about your hair than others.

It takes strength, courage and a lot of patience to stay committed to this journey. I plan to restart my "healthy hair journey" in December 2012, for a year till December 2013.

I suggest you to refer to Link of Hair Types in order to know how to care for your hair as best as possible during transition perio.

Keep tuned for progress and updates.
Stay Beautiful
xoxo