Natural hair update! 2 years post relaxer
February 11, 2015
On the 31st of January was 2 years since my last relaxer. In hair blogger language I am 24 months post relaxer!!! hurrah!!! it seems like only yesterday that I announced to you that I was transitioning to natural hair. If you missed on that you can read about it here My transition announcement
Two years down the line I am fully natural and loving it. I love my relaxed hair and I love my natural hair too. Contrary to many women who feel that going natural brought them a feeling of liberation, mine did not I am the exact same person I was when I was relaxed. To me Afro hair is beautiful no matter how you choose to wear it as long as you keep it healthy. Your hair your choice!
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| My hair before washing and conditioning |
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| My hair blown out/ blow dried |
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| Hair blown out. I was so tired already but the hair looked good!!! |
I decided to straighten my hair just to see what it looked like straight and in the process I learned yet another lesson. While my hair was still relaxed it was much easier to get straight. Natural hair needs a lot more time!! It took me a total of 5 hours to wash, condition, blow out/dry, flat iron and trim my hair I was so exhausted afterwards that I could not even take pictures. Too bad because my hair reverted a little bit during the night. My hair desperately needs a good trim but all in all I am very happy with it´s overall condition. I love the thickness and have enough hair to play around with. I love having hair to play around with and that is why I settled for a long term transition instead of a big chop. I ended up chopping off the rest of my relaxed/ texlaxed ends at 17 Months post relaxer you can read about that here just in case you missed out on that Long term transition update!
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| Flat ironed hair at 2 years post relaxer |
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| flat ironed hair at 2 years post relaxer |
The journey has had it´s ups and downs and I am really grateful to God for giving me the strength and patience to get to know my hair and learn to care for it. I am still learning though because this hair is just full of surprises. I have three different curl patterns on my head and I am still learning how to care for each because they behave very differently.
I have finally found a hair care routine that works well for my hair. If you would like a blog post on my latest hair care routine, please comment below.
My goal for this year is to get to mid back length when my hair is stretched/ straight. This means that I will be on a very strict hair routine until I achieve my goal :)
What is your goal length for this year?
Thanks for reading and God bless you!
Joanne
Welcome to Grow African Hair Long (GAHL) 
7 comments
Hi there!! i am Tanzanian lady living in Dar es Salaam. I loooove your hair and admire it. You have trully convinced me that natural african hair with its curls is great. It is real and so beautiful!!! I discovered your blog two years ago and have been reading each and every post of yours. I tried to start my hair journey but my relaxed hair did not respond well. I retouched my hair in November, 2014 and Guess what, i am also transitioning to Natural. Your posts will will surely guide me. No Big chop. I will do a lot of braids (cornrows) without extensions. Thank you sooooo much Joan.
ReplyDeleteHere i'm again, from Dar es Salaam. Please share with us your Haircare regimen. God bless you and your sis for this.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the encouragement we really appreciate. My regimen blog is coming soon.
Delete7 months ago I decided to transition from textlaxed to natural. While I am getting to know my hair slowly, I have a big problem with split ends and mid shaft splits. No matter how much I trim my hair split ends never seem to cease. Did you have this problem while transitioning?
ReplyDeleteHi Pincelo, sorry for the late response I cannot recall having too many split ends while I was transitioning but maybe this will help. make sure that the scissors you use for your hair is very sharp. this will give you a clean cut that keeps the splits from recurring easily. Next make sure that your ends are well moisturised and sealed with an oil or butter this will protect them from weather and other factors that may cause splits. this should reducs the splits but you will not be able to stop them completely since as the hair ages it will be prone to splitting and thinning. another thing you could look into is how you detangle your hair. while I was still transitioning I sometimes had knots in my hair and sometimes I got so impatient that I literally ripped the hairs apart instead of using a pair of scissor to cut off the stubborn knots. this definitely causes split ends. hope this helps :)
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