As you have been seeing me in all my recent post here on the blog and on social media you see I'm sporting my natural curly hair. In this post here on Instagram I kind of just stated a brief why I wanted to start wearing natural curls and I also didn't really specify if this was a permeant thing or not so I wanted to do a full blog post talking about it. At first I wanted to just do the natural thing for the rest of the summer because blow drying your hair in the summer is extremely brutal and I also started to notice the front of my hairs on my crown was starting to break so I thought my hair could use a break from heat. I honestly started to feel deep down there was a little more than that to it and wanted to make the change permanent. Before I get into it in depth I wanted to share a quick hair journey from the beginning so the whole story can make sense! So grab a cup of coffee, tea, or wine for this read!
My hair growing up...
Growing up in the Latin community having natural curly hair was considered to be "pelo malo" (bad hair) or "que pajon" which pretty much translates to your hair is a hot mess. My household was not shy from those beliefs. The minute I was old enough to go to a salon I was taken to salons mostly every weekend to get a blowout and by the time I was old enough to withstand a perm you better believe I was getting my hair permed monthly. My hair was straight as an arrow and because growing up that's all I was thought I was in love with it. By the time I went to college and was working and making my own money I went to the salon pretty much every week. I was in my early 20's so I also experimented with color! Lots of it! I've dyed my hair every color you can think of. Can you picture me as a blonde? Lol Eventually I got over that stage but by the time I graduated college my hair had gone years of perms and so much color treatment.
Some time in 2012 I was getting tired of my hair looking so weak and broken and just didn't know what else to do to make my hair look healthy. At the time my cousin had gone natural and she no longer was using chemicals in her like a perm. She told me that's a huge reason my hair looks thin, weak, and broken. She told me I should go natural and leave the perm world behind me and that it wasn't going to be easy but totally worth it. It took me a while to get on board and many times I was ready to fall off the wagon when I was seeing my natural hair grow in and pushing out that damaged hair out. That in-between time was such a frustrating process for me. I was still getting blow outs but taking better care of hair by not putting chemicals in it. A few years later my cousin tried to convince me to go full on natural and rock my curls and leave the flat iron behind but I was married to straight hair and had embedded in my head that natural curls where ugly since that's the environment I grew up in.
A few years down the line, my hair had completely pushed out that damaged chemically treated hair and I had real healthy natural curls with nice form. At the time a lot of people who would see my hair curly on that once in a blue moon lazy day where I didn't want to straighten my hair and they would say how much they loved my curls but in my mind I hated them. Even my husband who I was dating around that time told me he loved my hair in it's natural state. My mind had a lot of undoing and healing to do from all the nonsense that was drilled into my head growing up about natural hair.
Now..
Fast forward to now where I'm a mom and of course God gave my daughter my natural curls that I have been so scared to rock. God is funny that way. My daughter is very observant and every time I would blow out my hair at home she would say "wow mommy hair". I started to feel what if one day when she's older she sees her beautiful natural curls and hates it? Will I be the one to blame? That was sitting very heavy with me for a while and then insert 2020's big racial movement and something changed in me. I realized how much of this anti-blackness was in the Latin community for me growing up including the whole rocking your natural hair is "wrong" or that's "Black hair". Something in me starting brewing and I was so upset I grew up hearing all these awful things. My husband says I had a racial awakening and broke barriers with everything that was embedded in my head growing up. I feel different, ready to stand up for myself and what I believe in even if it's having an uncomfortable conversation with a family member or close friend.
As far as my hair, at first I told myself I was only going to try the natural thing until the end of July, then it changed to the end of the summer, then I just made the decision to make it a permanent thing. I don't care what any of my anybody has to say about my natural hair. I honestly feel different and feel powerful and I think it's because of the reasons why I did it.
I have been following so many curly girls and pages for inspo and tips and omg what have I been missing! All these natural curls look amazing! It's been 2 official weeks since I first rocked my natural curls and my hair has not seen a hot tool and I feel very confident. I thought it was going to take a while to undo everything that was drilled in my head growing up and to feel fully confident with my natural curls but I can say I feel more confident than ever. I'm no expert on properly styling, caring, or getting the proper products for my natural hair but I'm learning as I go. I feel I'm lucky and had a head start to achieve healthy natural curls since I left chemicals behind about 10 years ago to date! My curl pattern is not bad I just need to learn what the best products are for me to start undoing all the heat damaged I caused my hair over the years.
The pictures in this post was the first shoot I did with my natural hair and it felt weird but good weird. It was my first wash and go and honestly felt I flopped at it and didn't know how to tame my frizz lol. I've done so much research and I'm slowly learning techniques and what products I should be trying. My second wash and go was one I'm extremely proud of lol.
If you made it to the end of this post, you are the real MVP! I hope I can pass along this new self confidence I have found within myself to my daughter. I want to teach her to love her self no matter what kind of hair she has which was something I wasn't taught growing up.
Photos by: Armandhugon
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