5 Things My Natural Hair has Taught me

Finally, 2021 is here! Although 2020 was a tough, weird, and twilight zone kind of year, it also was a year of learning. I learned how to celebrate every milestone big or small and I am sure you did too. So to take this lesson to the new year, I am celebrating every little thing!! Starting with some of the lessons my hair has taught me along the way thus far.

2021 makes 7 years since I have started my natural hair journey. I can’t even believe it has been that long like seriously time has flown by.

From attempting to return natural twice, transitioning for a year and half, semi big chopping to fully natural now, my journey has had many ups and downs. However, I definitely have learned and am still learning so much in the process. Here are the top 5 things my natural hair has taught me thus far:

1. Ingredient Consciousness

Returning natural made me super aware of the ingredients that are in my products. Honestly, I never ever ever looked or paid attention to the things that were in my products when I was relaxed. Really focusing on the ingredients in my products has aided me in understanding my hair for real; what “she” likes, what “she ” doesn’t like. ( yes, my hair is a “she” and her name is Necole aka my middle name lol ).

2. Confidence

Being a veteran in the natural gang now, I can 100% attest to the confidence my natural hair has instilled in me. Frankly, I’ve always had long hair even relaxed.

But when I embraced my natural, transitioning was difficult and I had to really re-evaluate where I put my confidence….specifically speaking not allowing my confidence to be appearance-based. I learned that no matter the length, or shrinkage (smh this really took some time to learn lol), I made my hair NOT the other way around. This leads to my third point.

3. Biases and Wrong thinking

The true confidence I learned being natural had nothing to do with how my hair looked or outward appearance but how I carried myself. I realized that like most African American women I had fell victim to the belief that straight hair or a certain hair texture or curl pattern (majority looser curl patterns ) were “good hair”. Being natural & learning my hair texture definitely changed my perspective as well as simple exposure or representation helps you to see the limitations in your thinking. Honestly, being natural is like entering into a whole club where everyone is your hype man and everybody shares their tips and tricks lol.

Also, natural hair will humble you with a quickness that is UNGODLY !! 😓 Don’t believe me? Try spending 3 hours doing a Flexi rod set with new products that cost you about $50 to have your hair disrespect you before the event 😥😥😩😩. Humility will most definitely be your new middle name! But if humility is your middle name then this next lesson is your first.

4. Patience

Y’all I am still working on this one but I can say I’ve gotten so much better. Natural hair requires a level of patience that has to be developed over time. Dealing with transitioning hair for a year and a half is a lesson all by itself!! But once fully natural…..😒🙄. You get the point lol.

If you are of kinky or coily textured hair lady like myself, shrinkage alone is a whole other level of patience that one must learn— Shrinkage coupled with detangling! 🤦🏽‍♀️. Yeah, I am going to leave that topic for another post lol. Needless to say, this lesson, the most, has taught me our final and probably the most crucial lesson of all…

5. Embracing diversity within the natural hair community

Patience with my own hair, discovering my own bias thinking, and learning all 3 (yeah, I know crazy) “curl types” in my hair gave me an appreciation for all curl patterns. Really just a genuine love for natural hair as a whole was developed.

In fact, I am actually not a fan of curl typing whatsoever (definitely will explain a future post because it’s A LOT!!). but in the beginning, researching natural hair and seeing the many different curls; plus being influenced by my mom who returned back natural two years before my sister and me; I just begin to truly love curls as a whole no matter the texture. I loved the styles, the versatility, the different textures, everything. This genuine love through exposure and research helped me break from my own ignorant beliefs, gain confidence, patience, and become conscious with product ingredients along the way.

No matter if your transitioning, big chopped, newly natural, thinking about returning natural, or a veteran natural like me, these lessons can be applied to any area of life! So let’s keep this change of perspective mindset all year long!

If you are natural or relaxed and your hair has taught you a thing or two, drop a comment below! Share your story with me!! I would love to hear from you!! 😁

XO,

Ashleigh