In the beginning...

I didn’t get a hair relaxer until the age of 18, just prior to enlisting in the US military. The thought was the relaxer would make it easier for me to take care of my hair while in basic training. My hair was so thick and was well below my shoulders when I got my first relaxer. Boy oh boy, do I remember that day! My mom’s friend was the beautician of choice at that time and I remember sitting in her living room as she poured and mixed the crème and activator together. Because I had so much hair, she had to go out and get a second box to ensure all of my hair was covered. If she used protectant on my scalp, you couldn’t tell, because that cream burned my scalp so badly! So bad I could remember feeling as if my head was being weighed down with the pain of it! Days afterwards, even after arriving for basic training, I remember having scabs throughout my head! I’m sure I continued the process out of pure habit after basic training because I can’t think of one reason why I kept doing it. Now, fast forward 23 years later….

It was August 2008, and as I’m sitting in a beauty salon watching the oldest of my twin daughters receive a torturous relaxer touchup, (I’d received mine a week earlier) and watching her trying to put up a brave front for “the cause”, I begin questioning the “whys” of this tedious routine. Yes, she’d begged me for almost two years to get a relaxer and after having finally breaking down to her request the year prior, I was still having my doubts about the “wiseness” of this decision. We’d sat in the salon for a couple hours already and we were still only half way done! When the beautician asked her if “it was burning yet?” (yes, she did!), I decided right then and there to never put my child through this again. I swore to myself to never put another relaxer in my hair or my daughters’ hair ever again! Immediately upon returning home, I begin intensely researching the internet, reading everything I could find on transitioning (growing out a relaxer to a length you’re comfortable with before cutting the remainder of the straight hair off) and the care of natural hair. After less than three months of transitioning, I did my BC (big chop)! Thus, my journey began….

*still had a little of the relaxed ends..