ladyandsons

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. by Confucius

This tiny phrase pretty much sums up the beginning of my hair journey. I remember being twelve years old and pestering my mothering to relax my thick tightly coiled textured hair so that I could wear it like the other girls in my school did pulled back in a tight ponytail slicked down with gel, I remember that summer when my mother finally decided to relaxed my shoulder length natural hair.

But with great length comes great responsibility and it was this I failed to realised and my BSL length hair slowly started to recede and then before I knew it I had relaxed shoulder length hair again,to add insult to injury my mother was now relaxing my hair every now and again and my hair products consisted mainly of gel and water. I never knew about moisture and sealing deep conditioning pre- poo or protective and so my hair remained at shoulder length for a long time.

Over the years I have visited various salons looking for the right hair stylist who understood me and my hair and would take the time out to educate me about my hair needs but I never found anyone and the last straw came about 2001 when I visited a particular salon that was all the rage and the stylist burned my scalp with the relaxer and amid my protest said ” beauty is pain darling”. I thought to myself why was I paying other people to abuse me when I could do it myself and so I got my hair cut very low and started relaxing with a kit and installing my own weave, my hair did not grow over night but it grew thicker and it was breaking as badly so I thought I was doing a pretty good job and even managed to grow it to shoulder length with the occasional trims. Finally I decided to give hair salon a try again and found one where I thought my hair was doing well I would get it done every four weeks on the advise of my hairdresser and my hair grew thinner and was very fragile breaking easy.

Hair at the start of my journey march 2011

Then I got pregnant in 2009 and no one told me about post partum shedding and boys was I in for a surprise there was hair everywhere about 5-6 months after my son and my hairdresser kept telling me it was not as bad while I noticed my hair was getting thinner and thinner. The shedding eventually stopped and by late 2010 I was becoming tired of my hair dresser and her inability to properly inform me of ways to care for my hair still prescribing my monthly relaxer and treatment, then i found out I was pregnant again and on top of that I was put on medication and had to stop breast-feeding my first son, that was when the shedding and breaking began and oh my I thought I would lose every strand of hair, so I turned to YouTube and came across ulovemegz video on how to self relax which led me to Sunshyne at hairlista and that Led me to K.I.S.S and from there i started on a journey to take the matter of my hair into my own hands. I eventually ditched the hairdresser and have now taken to relaxing trimming and maintaining my hair on my own. i still have a long way to go but i think i am on the right road. to a HealthyHappy Hair Journey.

Hair August 2011