Having Natural Hair Is Serious Y’all…No Lye!

A young lady, who’s online name is Acting drama just posted the vid on the next page on YouTube. It’s a wonderful testimony to the feelings many of us have struggled with as we’ve made the decision to go and stay natural. Some folks’ decision may have been easier than others but make no mistake about it, many, many, many women agonize over their decision to stop slapping lye on their heads every six weeks to keep their hair straight. And with this, in many instances, these black women are ending a life long routine of conforming to a European standard of beauty that says straight hair is the epitome of beauty. For most women, and I’m comfortable saying this and am also including myself in this observation, the nappy stuff growing out of the heads is not “JUST” hair. That’s because first you have to make the decision to do it, then you have to deal with society’s perception (and it mainly comes from within our own community) that nappy hair is bad, ugly, unprofessional, unkempt and a whole lot of other ridiculous notions that have been drilled into us since slavery and still persist to this day. When you look beneath the surface, and really analyze and discuss these feelings and issues, you’ll find that from a broader perspective the scaring and the hurt and down right shame of having kinky hair runs gererations deep. So then I ask, how can anyone say, “It’s just hair…or it’s not that serious?”

Run For Your Lives…My Monster Puff is on the Loose!

   

Ok… So my twistout only lasted a couple of days and I ended up with putting my hair in a puff. It was sooooo huge that it made me chuckle as I looked at myself in the mirror. I simply couldn’t believe how big it was. I have about 12-14 inches of hair all around and that makes for a really massive puff.  These pics were taken later that evening, this past Friday, and even with shrinkage my puff was huge. Someone on my forum, cNappymeNow.com has a little saying in the signature of her posts “I rock ruff and tuff in my afro puff” or something like that. Well I changed it to say, “I rock ruff and tuff in my MONSTER puff.”

Rock Your TWA! Cute You Tube Rap Vid

Tracie Mae, is such a cutie pie and has quite a talent for creating rap videos on You Tube that promote natural hair. She’s simply adorable and trust me, if you’ve got a TWA you can’t help but feel really, really cute and rocking to the catchy little refrain “Rock Your T-Double-You-A.” Beware to those of you who have set your sights on a long transition out of your relaxer, after watching this, you might just run and get the scissors and chop off all those limp ends just so you can rock your Teenie Weenie Afro or your TWA! Enjoy!

2008 BSL Challenge

Ok… If y’all frequent nappturality then you know that back in December I started a Bra Strap Hair-Length Challenge. Basically, I invited anyone who was in striking distance of growing their hair (kitchen/nape area) to reach their bra strap within the next year to join me in charting their progress toward this goal. To my surprise there were a lot of women who joined the challenge, and I was delighted to have the company.

At first I thought I had six inches to go to reach this goal, but turns out I was only like two inches away. With 1/2-inch growth per month, I figured I my hair would reach bra strap length by April. I had intended to do updates every two months. But I’m antsy about this so I’ve been doing updates every month.

Midwinter blahs lead to Gorgeous Twistout!

Man I have the midwinter blues with my hair. Bored to tears. I’ve been wearing a head full of twists for over two weeks now. And they still looked good but I was sooooo itching for a change. So after agonizing over the practicality of taking down a perfectly good head full of twists, I impulsively took them down today with noooo idea what I wanted to do with my hair. I grabbed a brush with the intent to detangle and probably pull it back into a puff. But then something told me to see how a twistout would lay. And dang if it didn’t turn out soooo incredibly cute. Since I didn’t have to work today, I got up and ran some errands just so I could rock it out in the world for all to see. Although I have posted pics of full-head twistouts before, I’ve never worn them anywhere because I ALWAYS found something toooo wrong with them or because it was just too humid out to wear and expect to maintain definition. So really this is my twistout debute! It was so cute, and I just felt cute and free. I don’t know if it will last throught the night. I bought a hair net to see if it will allow my hair to breath and hold my hair in place. I twisted the top where I lost so much definition. I’ll let y’all know if that works.