Crown of Glory

Back in a previous post, I promised that I would explain why I had to shave off my hair twice. So here goes…. Well firstly, I’d like to clarify that in circles of napptural women, we use the words “Big Chop” (BC) which means clipping off all relaxed hair and leaving only the natural roots. A BC can be done several ways. One way is to transition by growing out natural roots while discontinuing the use of relaxers. The longer the transition period, the longer the natural roots will grow. I’ve heard of some women transitioning up to 2 years, keeping the hair in braids/wigs or “transition styles” such as flat-twists and braid-outs. Once it is decided that it is time, the BC is performed. Sometimes relaxed hair is cut off little by little during the transitioning period so that there is not a dramatic cutting of the hair in the end (for those of you who can’t see yourself being nearly bald). Some women bypass the whole transition period and cut off relaxed ends from the beginning, saving themselves the hassle of having to deal with two types of hair.

For my original BC, I decided to transition in 08/2003 and I had my relaxed ends cut about 3 months later. My decision to BC that quickly had to do with the fact that I had very little patience dealing with both the permed and natural hair on my head. My impatience = problems with the areas within my hair where the two textures met. This is called the line of demarcation, the weakest part of a hair strand with multiple textures that is a hot-spot for hair breakage (for more information on transitioning, see Transitioning How-To). Needless to say, once I was free of all permed ends I loved my hair of course. So my hair flourished and grew very quickly. I also think that doing the BC earlier on versus transitioning long term contributed to my hair growing quicker than it would have otherwise.

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Childhood/Relaxed Hair/TWA/Wig

As you can clearly see, I have gone through many, many hairstyles. I began my undergraduate studies in 2003 and that’s when I decided that I no longer wanted to perm my hair. I could not stand running away from the rain, spending loads of money and TIME at the hairdresser just so that my hair would look flat/dull in just a few days (and long for the “fresh perm” look again in 4-6 weeks), and countless other reasons. I had always wondered what my natural hair looked/felt like and what was so bad about it that it needed to be covered up.

So I started researching and ended up finding nappturality.com. After visiting this site, I learned about how versatile my hair could be (despite being told that the only thing you could do with natural hair is wear dreads or go around wearing an afro 24/7). I was ecstatic! Soon, I did the Big Chop and started rocking sexy a TWA. It eventually grew out as you can see and YES, our hair does grow (especially without the Creamy Crack, lol). Occasionally, I would wear a wig over my natural hair when I wanted to change things up a little. But guess what? I was still HOT! I ended up shaving my hair off again in 2005 (I’ll explain some other time bc that’s a post in itself).

Sisterlock Beginnings

I always knew that the epitome of my napptural journey would be locking my hair. Once I discovered sisterlocks, it was a done deal. I had them put in September 2007 (it took 15 hours and they were done at Johadeni Nappi,�Address: 1638 9th St N, St Petersburg, FL 33704,�Phone: (727) 823-9899). These are photos of me taken not too long after they were put in. The length of my hair is from about 2 years worth of growth. I have a roller set in each of these photos.