I’ve been in love with my naturally curly hair for as long as I can remember, and have been wearing it as such for most of my life, with little bouts of relaxers every couple of years throughout high school and my twenties, as I thought my curls were too out of control. It wasn’t up until a few years ago that I decided enough is enough, and that I just didn’t want to try and tame my mane with harmful chemicals anymore.
Even though family and most of my friends have always been supportive of my choice not to constantly straighten my hair, I definitely experienced resistance towards my natural curls. Most surprisingly, from hair dressers! With every salon visit they would always try to sell me a relaxer under the guise of, “Your hair will be so much easier to handle”, or “Your hair is so dry, a relaxer will take care of that problem for you.” Well, I grew tired and frustrated with this notion and ended up hardly ever getting a decent cut. So I was happy looking after my tresses myself.
It wasn’t until moving to Tokyo a year ago though that I realized I actually knew nothing about caring for curly hair properly. With the dry winter I faced here, my hair started breaking off. Badly. And what made the situation worse, was that I was in a country with absolutely no resources on how to care for afro textured curly hair. This led me to start doing research via my only accessible source, the internet.
So through connecting with other naturalistas across the world on online forums, websites and blogs, I finally started my healthy hair journey in April 2013. I am now a very keen natural hair enthusiast in support of embracing every single curl on your head, by sharing information and inspiration, in the hope that my experience can help someone else along the way.
Love your curls!
xxx
I’ve just started my natural hair journey about a month ago! And I’ve done it for two reasons: one, because after all these years I realised relaxing my hair hasn’t done it any good, it never grew past my shoulders and always broke eventually; and two, I plan to move to Japan, where like you say there’s no where to care for Afro hair. So I figured, best to get to know my hair now. I’d love to hear about what you use and your hair regimen!
Thank you so much for your comment Hun. You are literally the first person to leave me a comment 🙂
Congratulations on starting your natural hair journey! It’s so exciting and I’m sure you’re going to fall in love with your hair, if you haven’t already. And yay for moving to Japan. When do you plan on coming over? Let me know if you need any advice. Also, I’ve just posted my hair regime for you to check out. Some products I found here, but others I had to buy online and have a friend post them over for me. I plan to do posts on what products can be found here, but if you need more information in the meantime, let me know.
Your hair is lovely! I can relate to not knowing anything about my hair. I had the same experience of living in a different place and realising that I needed to know how to do my real hair without having chemicals or even another person to help me. PS. Your hair has grown really fast in the space of a year!
Thanks for reading. Yes, there’s nothing like being shifted out of your comfort zone to shock you into a new way of doing things.