No one was happier than my mother to see my “can’t you comb it, don’t you try it hair” disappear with the help of chemicals. My return to the relaxer coincided with her 80th birthday.
My moment of insanity in the stylist’s chair turned into a wave of tears at my next appointment a few weeks later. I couldn’t believe my stylist had allowed me to do something that was so stupid. Didn’t she remember that I was a reformed “creamy crack” addict who needed tough love? Didn’t she know that she should have kicked me out of her chair, locked the salon, and put garlic up over her door? Her response, “Girl, I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen to me.” She was right, and I was to blame for my relapse.
So, there I was, beginning the transition phase all over again. I vowed the second time was going to be different. In the words of one of my favorite singers, I had “a brand new bag.” Fools would not be tolerated.
Here’s what I did: I treated my hair like a research project. It may sound strange, but I’ve always been very good at researching things that I don’t know or understand. There was no doubt that my natural hair was stranger to me. I went to my local bookstore and purchased what few books that I could find on natural hair.
I turned to the internet and started searching for information on natural hair. Eureka! I found an entire natural hair sisterhood that I hadn’t known existed. Women were sharing the joys and the trials of their natural hair journey. I quickly learned to sort out the good information from the bad.
The tutorials that I found on YouTube nearly made me weep. Women were testing products and hairstyles. These video vixens weren’t your traditional kitchen beauticians. They were bold and brave, allowing their successes and failures to be “caught on tape.” They were also bathroom chemists, mixing products with things from their pantry. Some of their experiments made me cringe and others left me slacked-jawed. Who knew olive oil was for more than pasta and salads? Not me. It soon became a staple in my curly-girl arsenal.
While watching the tutorials, I made note of products that many naturals recommended. If I couldn’t find the products in salons, beauty supply stores, or health food stores, I purchased them online. I became a product junkie with bags of different gels, creams, butters, essential oils, shampoos, and conditioners. I spent a small fortune on these products, but I knew that if I found the right product my hair would go from being the bane of my existence to a glorious mane of defined curls. At least, that’s the way that I had imagined it. I still had to learn that natural hair was not one-size fits all.
As much as I longed to achieve the same results of some of my favorite YouTube vloggers, it wasn’t going to happen on this side of reality, may be in some parallel universe, but not here on Earth. I had used many of the same products and had followed the same steps, but always my results were slightly different. One of the primary reasons for this was hair texture. At some point, I like every other natural before me I had to make peace with my hair texture. If I didn’t, I would continue to suffer from hair-envy.
Let go and let hair was easier an option.
Along with acceptance, came my search for a natural hair stylist. Every time I spotted a woman rocking a natural hairstyle, I’d asked her about her stylist. These encounters took place in grocery stores, shopping malls, doctor’s offices, and even in church. I once passed a note across a few pews to a sister with a beautiful chunky afro. Several parishioners, including family members, gave me the “evil-eye.” Really, I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t listening to the pastor’s sermon. Some of them were already discussing their dinner plans for after church, but I had broken a golden rule: never draw attention to yourself when you’re not listening to the sermon. So, I got the “evil-eye.” I didn’t care. At the time, all I could think about was this could be God’s way of answering my prayers. It was not. I eventually found my stylist by literally chasing after a woman in a grocery store. She must have thought at the time, “Bless her heart. Let me help this child with the hair like Don King.” She hooked me up with some women who were hosting a natural hair event. I met and interviewed my stylist at the natural hair show.
During my first appointment, she went through my bags of products, and told me which ones to keep and which ones to donate to charity. She also showed me the proper way to apply some of the products that I’d been using to achieve the results that I wanted.
I wasn’t ever going to have curls like Tracee Ellis Ross, but I could rock what God gave me.
And that’s a natural’s blessing.
Forever Me, Naturally 