Loving My Natural Hair Gave Me Confidence

Let me start off by saying being a natural girl is hard. Every curly girl out here can agree and say that it is more challenging being natural then just slapping that creamy crack on your hair. I've been natural for about 5 years and I'm still on the natural hair journey.

Now this might sound extreme but hear me when I say I struggled the whole 5 years. Every time I grew as a person my hair struggles grew with me. I didn't understand it. When I first move to LA, I remember sitting in my fairly empty room with just a bed, saying "I need some weave ASAP." Everyone out here is fabulous and I couldn't compete with that. That's what I thought at least. So I did just that, I got some weave. Not that straight Indian goddess weave, I got some kinky curly weave to blend in with my natural hair. I wore my natural hair clip ins religiously for a year. You couldn't tell me nothing. I was more confident than I've ever been. I was doing photoshoots with my clip ins and managed to convince people that this was MY hair and not weave. I felt good about myself. Oh but when I took those clip ins out, I was back to hating my hair. I didn't understand why I hated my natural hair so much but I refused to get a perm. I would call my mother crying and complaining about my hair and just feeling like I wasn't pretty cause my hair just wasn't how I wanted it to be. Blah blah blah.

Fast forward to January of this year, I went to this natural hair stylist that I met on a photoshoot and she changed my life. I told her I wanted a blow out and a trim. I only could do my hair if it was blown out because it had less shrinkage. So she did what I asked (more of a cut though #blacksalonproblems) but I still loved it. I was like okay I can get with this hair cut. It's becoming and I like it. I made a vow to myself that I was going to show my natural hair some tender loving care in 2016 because I wanted my hair to flourish like the girls on Youtube. I had hair goals guys. So I found out what made me love my hair and I've stuck to it. Stretching my hair out so I can have length is key for me. I just wanted my hair to be lengthy. My shrinkage is so real that it made me feel like my hair was never growing. Now that I have mastered stretching out my hair, I love it more than ever. I have a new found confidence knowing I can wear my own hair, get compliments and it not be clip ins. It's a wonderful feeling. For me you can't wear weave 24/7 and claim to be truly confident about yourself. You're essentially covering up something that you don't like. It's a battle to let go of weave, I know. I met a grown woman the other day tell me she finally feels confident enough to start wearing her natural hair and that I inspired her. I had to tell her it took me a while to get to that point but now that I'm here I'm more confident with my hair than ever before. I still have some work to do but at least that battle is over. The fake confidence I had is officially out the door. Now if I wear weave I know I can take it out and be just as beautiful with my own natural hair.

Any woman can buy hair and look good but when you can rock you own hair and look good....girl friend, you got it.