My Hair Journey
Journey is a good word for it, because my god, it’s been a journey. This is a long one!
I was natural until I was 12/13. Since my mother generally did low manipulation styles on my hair growing up, my hair was quite long. My mum didn’t know how to do cornrow, which was a pain when I was younger but looking back, that probably was a testament to the good health of my hair as a child. My mum would do big plaits or twists on my hair as a child, and if I had any special occasions, my mum would pay a hairdresser to cornrow my hair.
I have always had a thick, full head of hair. It sounds like a blessing but it can also be a curse, due to the length of time my hair would take to do and the amount of pain I would be in while my hair was getting done. I remember that I absolutely hated getting it done. I would always cry and have a sore head afterwards. I remember my mum used to wash my hair in the bath with a bucket, which she would fill with water and pour it over my head. There was none of the sectioning of the hair that we would do now. I’m also sure we used a terrible, sulfate-filled shampoo and used a mild conditioner afterwards. I remember my hair would shrink up almost to my scalp afterwards, which I used to loathe massively, and then my mum would blow dry my hair with the infamous Wahl PowerPik hairdryer. Then she would apply grease, usually African Pride and plait my hair. At night, I was taught to wear tights every night to bed to protect my hair. We would use one of those detangling combs which would be sacrilege now!
My hair back when I was a child
I remember hating grease with a passion. I hated the way it felt on my head, especially before bed, because I knew the grease could seep through the tights and onto the pillow. I remember one time in primary school when we were doing a play about Robin Hood, and we had to wear these green paper hats. My mum had greased my hair in the morning for the occasion, and I remember knowing it was a bad idea. I wore the hat, but only after the play had finished and we had taken the hats off, I noticed that there was a big grease mark on the hat.
Despite all that, my hair was in good condition. It went past my shoulders, although I had never pressed it at that time so I never saw its extended length. Our routine was simple, regular and there was nothing that was yet done to my hair that would have had a severely negative impact on it.
The first damage that my hair experienced when I was younger was when I had swimming lessons. I had swimming lessons every Saturday morning, and my hair wasn’t washed properly after every lesson. My hair would be washed when it was ‘due’ for a wash, but I know it wasn’t after every swim. I didn’t even think to rinse my hair off as well as washing my body after swimming. I’m sure by then, I had already considered water to be bad for my hair. My hate of shrinkage would also definitely not have helped, and I also didn’t know then that as my hair would have been in a protective style, I would have had considerably less shrinkage. Oh, to my younger, naïve self! Naturally, my hair got really damaged because of that, and a large part of why I eventually stopped swimming lessons was because of the damage that it was doing to my hair. I was also young and craved long hair, and didn’t want to do anything to prevent that.
I don’t remember liking my hair much when I was young. I remember it always being a problem and left hairdressers frustrated and charging significantly more for hairstyles. It was thick and 4c. My mum did her best to empower me, but what could she do, with straight hair being posed everywhere as beautiful! All my girl dolls had long, straight hair. All the hair adverts on TV were of long, straight hair. Most of the black women that we knew had relaxed hair. I wanted my hair to be relaxed from a very young age, I even had the childish belief that if I would relax my hair, that would be it – no one had mentioned retouches. I remember one moment that my mum had detangled my hair for washing and I stood in front of the mirror, pressing my Afro against my face, wishing it would hang down.
My mum wouldn’t let me relax it for ages. It was only when we went to the US when I was around 12 or 13 that she finally relented, and I got my first relaxer done by my aunt. I was so excited to finally have it. I felt more beautiful and more ‘feminine.’ Since my hair is thick it also had volume, which I loved. I was taught to wrap my hair up at night with pins and wear a scarf to bed in order to preserve the straight hair. I remember using Motions moisturiser; looking back, I remember it being quite greasy on my hair but it did 'moisturise' it.
Before I had a relaxer, I had quite a harrowing experience where my secondary school Maths teacher effectively made fun of my hair in front of the whole class. She was from the Caribbean, and she could be very blunt. My mum had tried to cornrow my hair and it had also gotten messy. I went to school with my hair like that, which when you go to a school with about 80% Afro-Caribbean girls is social suicide. You will be certainly made fun of behind your back. I was in my Maths lesson, and I was giggling with my friend about something, I imagine my own misdeed, talking about someone else’s hair. The teacher turned around to me and very loudly said something about me needing to do my hair, and everyone in the class laughed at me. It was humiliating, and I left the class in tears. The teacher then followed me and apologised, but I was still humiliated. After I got my hair relaxed, that same teacher then commended me on my hair.
As relaxer stories go, after a few weeks after each touch up, my hair was limp, my natural hair would grow in and then my hair would look awful. That moment when your hair no longer lies flat on your head when the roots grow in. I hated it. Due to me needing to sometimes take financial responsibility over my own hair, I had to save up the £45-£50 for the retouch and my own lack of knowledge about how to do my hair in between these times meant that I would sometimes pay for my hair to be washed, conditioned and straightened in a hair salon.
In spite of this, my hair got damaged eventually. I then wore braids, which effectively transitioned my hair back to natural. During this time, I still didn’t know much about my hair. I still hated it, but loved the braids as it meant that I could be lazy with my hair. I would only moisturise my hair when it felt itchy (I still can’t believe it myself).
I would continue to have braids on and off, well into the sixth form years. I remember once I had my natural hair out and my friend’s dad saw me, and laughed that ‘I needed to do my hair’ to his kids. They thought it was hilarious, I found it humiliating. With that experience and also due to my hairdresser at the time, I relaxed my hair again.
During all these times, I would have washed my hair once a month, maximum. I wouldn’t really have moisturised my hair and scalp properly at all in between. I know I had dandruff, because I remember my hairdresser started making me use Sulfur 8 – everyone knows that smell. My hair care practices had improved somewhat, as I had started to use a deep conditioner; the ORS Replenishing Conditioner, the OG. To this day that is still a fantastic conditioner and it is very affordable. I also had started to use ORS Carrot Oil and Olive Oil moisturiser interchangeably.
Not long after, I had had an epiphany in to the black hair online world because I had decided upon myself that I would take swimming classes, and I wanted to know what to do with my hair. That’s when I found the ‘Anti-Hair Slave’ blog, where she gave tips about how to care for your hair when swimming in chlorinated pools. I started getting my hair wet before getting in the pool, or added an oil beforehand. Afterwards I would either co-wash or shampoo and condition my hair, which drastically improved the health of my relaxed hair. This was due to the fact that my hair was getting hydrated every week, as opposed to once or twice a month. Through the Anti Hair Slave, I discovered pre-pooing, the joys of Jamaican Black Castor Oil, Ayuverdic hair practices, regular moisturising, co-washing, Dominican hair salons (oh yes, even here in London), relaxer stretches and more. My hair started to thrive under her guidance. I bought a shikakai shampoo and oil to use, as well as my ORS Replenishing conditioner, and for a short time, my hair was happy. It grew longer and looked healthier. I was also incredibly happy; it was a miracle! I even bought one of those heat thermal wraps – you heat the gel packs up in the microwave (or you can boil them in hot water) and you place the packs in the wrap and wrap it around your head. They don’t sell them anymore but that was a game changer for my hair.
I even got a cheeky dye done - I had a Groupon voucher for a reduced cut and colour - but since my hair is naturally black, it didn't really show up unless I was standing under a bright light. I was going for red.
I started going to a Dominican hair salon in London, it’s actually still there, in Oval. I loved going there, to this day I say that the owner was one of the best hairdressers that I'd ever had. She would relax my roots of my hair, shampoo it, condition it and then I would go under the hooded dryer for the conditioner to penetrate. Then it would be washed out and then she would put my hair in rollers, and put me back under the hooded dryer. Then my hair would be blow dried with a diffuser attached, and she would use a round brush to straighten out the hair. Depending on the look, she may go over your hair with a straightener to make it extra sleek. The result was bouncy, lively hair. I used to love it, I would leave the salon feeling like a princess.
Then winter came. I had no idea that you had to change up your hair routine in the winter. My hair got dry and damaged, and since I was still swimming at this point, it didn’t help. I remember once combing my relaxed hair and my hair had started to snap off. I also had an incident with an egg during this time. Looking back, it was so embarrassing and well naïve of me to have done this to my hair. Still it taught me a valuable lesson – don’t get hair tips off WikiHow. From my blog perusing, I had realised that I needed to incorporate protein treatments into my regimen. It didn’t occur to me that 1), it was very likely that I needed more moisture in my routine, 2) the ORS Replenishing Conditioner effectively was a protein treatment, and 3) don’t get hair tips of WikiHow. I then had found a WikiHow article which showed a mix of olive oil and egg, which I thought seemed like a good idea. I did this on a few occasions and suffered breakage each time. Back then, I tended to wash my hair in the evening, and once I didn’t use cold water to wash the egg out of my hair. The egg/olive oil mixture hardened in my hair and I couldn’t get it out. In the end, I had to comb the mixture out of my hair and I lost a fair bit of hair in the process.
I was pissed. I never used egg in my hair ever again. With my relaxed hair, I didn't really know what to do it with it once the regrowth was on a rampage. When the roots would grow in and my hair would no longer lie flat, I used to just put it in a 'ponytail' and tie a scarf around it to make it look presentable.
My hair also suffered a major blow when I went to the salon to get my hair done. I was experimenting with relaxer stretches at that time, so my hair was in a weak state. It was at a point that I wanted to retouch my hair because the new growth was too much and I didn’t know how to handle it. I went to the salon on a weekend without booking an appointment – which was my first mistake. The salon was naturally busy but the hairdresser insisted that she could do my hair. It wasn’t my usual hairdresser, which should have been a red flag for me. I know she would have probably told me to come back another day. I sat down and she made a start. Whilst she was waiting for the relaxer to do its ‘magic’ she went and did some other clients’ hair. This should have been a second red flag, but I had faith. When she finally washed the relaxer out my hair, the nape of my hair went with it – it was one of the worst days of my life. I remember crying in the salon and uneasily handing over the money. I swore to myself that I would never relax my hair again.
And I oh, I didn’t! I applied Jamaican Black castor oil to my nape daily to try and get it to grow in. I also just wore braids, constantly. I never went more than a few days between each braid stint too. My edges loved every moment. I didn’t even consider them, even when I would experience breakage there, especially if it had got to the point where the braid was hanging on by a few strands of hair. There was one particular messy time where I thought my hair needed a lot of moisture so I put on carrot oil daily. I was on holiday in Croatia at the time, and the humidity and heat teamed with my daily cream applications and minimal washing meant that when I finally took out my hair, it was damp with product.
I had a minor oh – I let myself be convinced by a hairdresser to texturise my hair and also get a keratin treatment done. There was formaldehyde in that treatment. It stunk up the whole salon, and I had to the most to make sure that I didn’t breathe through my nose. Try as I might, I still felt the stench of the treatment take over my soul. Then my hair was straightened, and my hair was smooth. I didn’t really like the result. It didn’t leave my hair as smooth as the relaxer, so I wasn’t impressed.
Around this time, I was moving to Spain, so I got my hair braided and kind of left it as long as possible. Luckily, I found a braider, and she was amazing. For about six months of that year I had my hair constantly braided, until the summer time when I went to au pair in a different town and I couldn’t get my hair braided. I remember taking out my braids, and wondering what I was going to do with it. My hair was also strangely cleaner than normal. Usually I always have some residue but it was just black. During the summer, I had swum almost daily and had constantly washed my hair afterwards. Sometimes co-wash, sometimes shampoo and sometimes I would just rinse my hair after. So my hair was getting constant hydration; although at this point, I couldn’t see how vital hydration was to the health of my hair.
I somehow got the idea into my head to twist my own natural hair after I took out the braids, which is what I did for the rest of that summer. They were initially hard to keep in because of the straight ends due to the texturiser and keratin. I also started to trim my hair. After that, I would go from twists to twist outs, to braids, to twists again. When I moved back to the UK, I still alternated between the styles. My hair still wasn’t growing though in the way that I wanted, and I did not have much length retention.
My hair grew, but I couldn’t retain length.
Then I found YouTube and got a real education. I also joined a few hair groups on Facebook, where I really started to learn about taking care of my natural hair. I know that the area that I live now, has hard water which was not good for my hair. I had constant split ends, even though I would trim them, the following wash day I would see the splits back at it again. I read on a hair blog that a reason for this could be hard water and a way to alleviate the effects of it was with an ACV rinse. Our water (Bristol) is a weak alkaline. It has limestone in it, and even with normal dishwashing, once the water dries, you can see a white deposit left behind on the dishes due to the hard water content. Once I started using ACV this was a game changer and I stopped developing split ends as often. My hair was also still dry. I would only wash it once or twice a month. I then started to incorporate co-washes every other week, which meant that my hair was getting washed weekly.
I will do a separate post about my current routine. I am so proud of how far my hair has come. I'm finally at a point where I feel like I understand my hair and I am no longer afraid of it. I try and work 'with' it now, rather than 'against' it.
P.S. Sorry about the squiggles on my face - not ready for the world to see me fully yet ;)
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