My Hair Strory: Why I Decided to Let The Relaxer Go pt.1

I came from a family who always had a relaxer every six weeks, blow dried and flat-ironed straight religiously. My mom had a relaxer for more than 20 odd years; her hair was long, black and soft. That’s what I remember. I also remember wanting the same thing, until my fascination was killed by her cutting her hair shorter and shorter and then eventually getting rid of her perm and also having the desire to going natural. Her then long straight hair was now replaced by Kankelon braids which, she also rocked the hell out of. Except, I wasn’t into the natural hair anymore, I never got to do any styles with my hair, all my friends had straight hair and I wanted it too. I was in between trying to fit in and looking like the ‘old’ mom. As soon as I hit my 13^th birthday I snuck over to my next door neighbors house; who was an aspiring hair stylist and got my first chemical relaxer.

For a long time my hair was still shiny, ‘healthy’ and looking good. I would get it washed and set every 1-2 weeks. However, after I moved and no longer had my aunt as my hair dresser, I decided that hair dressers were too expensive and I could do things for myself. The day I picked up the take-home box of Olive Oil perm was the day my hair would never be the same. I was over processing my hair (because “I felt those roots”) , I was coloring my hair, straightening it every day, wearing weaves, wigs and cutting it shorter and shorter every few months because, “ I hated long hair”. Yes, there probably was some truth to that, but the real reason was I couldn’t get my hair to grow past my shoulders; it was becoming very thin and brittle so cutting it into styles was a better way for me to keep up with trends without people noticing I was starting to have not so healthy hair.

I will always remember this one experience that I had with my relaxer where I had just taken out my kinky twist and decided I was going to perm my hair, even though the box had warned me not too. Even though I have experienced this before I couldn’t begin to describe the burn that I was feeling this time around. The relaxer had only been in for 10 minutes or so; I held on and was adamant on keeping it on for the desired time. As soon as the time was up I couldn’t get into that shower faster, as I began to wash the relaxer out my hair, not only was the chemical washing out, but my hair was too. Clumps and clumps of hair were now inside the palm of hand. I was literally crying about how much hair had actually come out of my scalp. After I came out of the shower I noticed how thin my hair had become in less than an hour. It had no life, no movement, and no shine. It was dead.

Stay tuned for part 2 and what happened after that...
~Nu'Khara