Questions that Make Me Go Huh?

I find it interesting when somebody asks, “What grade hair do you have?” I pretty much just say, “I don’t know; I never gave it one.”

The reality for me is that I didn’t grow up with a hair grading system. In fact there wasn’t much chatter about hair. People didn’t talk they just did and people who did sometimes taught their children how to do it too.

Going natural for me was just a decision I had been postponing. I had done it once, got tricked into relaxing again (long story but I’m sure I’ve told it before somewhere) and then once relaxed again I figured I cannot keep growing the relaxer out again and again. Once done I stuck with it even when I started mixing in doing it myself with having my mom do it for me. She did it because I didn’t do it as well as she would have liked (long story but it comes down to sucking at parting straight).

But once I decided on leaving the relaxer behind again I realized I wasn’t this little girl who would have her mother to do her hair for her like she did way back then. No, this time the natural hairstyling thing was all on me. I had been doing my relaxed hair for so many years that I figured it would be all about the same but my natural hair is way thicker, healthier, and more demanding of my time.

To make a long story short I will say I decided to do a hair challenge that started as 90 days of protective styling that had to be done week by week. So put it up, leave it up and don’t take it down for a whole week. Yeah, that didn’t work for me as I sleep all over the bed so the only way I figured it could work was to go under the wig again. I like wigs so no problem there…until I extended my challenge to a, “oh go to the end of the year” type thing when we were in like end of January I think. Yeah…I did okay but at some point I started missing being wigless.

So with about three weeks left on the challenge I am thinking of all the things I want to try. While I was excited about this a few months ago I am now thinking of all the things I’m going to have to do to my hair…all the work and the planning and the work.

I work on my hair but braiding it to go under a wig and styling it to wear out is going to take a lot more work. Why did I decide to make this challenge end on my birthday? I don’t know 😦 but I did so it does and so my birthday will see me spending an entire day doing the end of challenge hair day which must be straightened for the length check.

Since I grew out the relaxer from what I can tell my new growth is the same length as my hair was with the relaxer when I just pull it a bit to stretch it. The relaxed hair broke off and what I thought was, had I kept the relaxer my hair would be so much longer right now. So being older, and somewhat wiser, I see that the lady who told me of how long it would be with a relaxer wasn’t lying, she was just trying to delude me into thinking my hair was growing so fast and would grow faster with the relaxer so she could stop having to do the   work on my natural hair. Note to self, never let my brother talk me into letting one of his friend’s wives do my hair again.

Stay Beautiful