Going Back to My Roots

Growing up I always hated my hair. Let me rephrase, not while growing up this actually ended in November 2016 when I started realizing how gorgeous girls looked with their natural hair. On university I always admired them. Their hair looked healthy, shiny just extremely beautiful now this would make me sound envious. Well maybe I was, but it made me realize if they can love their hair this much, I can too. Okay let me take it back a notch.

On Christmas day in 1998. My hair is back in a ponytail. At this stage I was still natural thanks to my mom and it was healthy this was prior to my grandma cut it all off.

This was at a camp in Bainskloof in Grade 5 cant remember how old I was at the time. It was neatly braided because my mom knew I wouldnt be able to look after my hair myself.

My mother took care of my hair very well she didn’t relax it much and it was always neatly plaited for school and church so my hair was growing healthily. When I was about 5 years old my grandmother took it upon herself to take a hair clipper and cut my hair because at the time I had sores on my head but my mom told me she was about to take me to a clinic the next week when she got off work. Meanwhile she was using a cream to ease the itch and resolve the problem. Long story short my hair was gone and my mom struggled to get my texture back to  the way it was. Anyway, as I grew older I noticed other girls’ hair those girls in my class and my friends with the sleek hair and I wanted that leading to me relaxing and blowing and dyeing and straightening to the point where I even used an ordinary clothing iron to straighten my hair. I was obsessed. I wanted hair like those girls and I was going to go to all lengths to get it. While I was never aware of what I was doing to my hair, my authenticity, my culture, my self esteem, my ME!

Christmas day last year 2016.

Last year sometime 2016.

I made myself believe that my hair only grew to a certain length (not very long as I thought), because when it reached that length it would stop growing. Aah that was a big lie, what I now know is that my hair was breaking faster than it was growing. I used to live by my pony tail on high school even at university which lead to my hair breaking off so bad at the point of its growth. My aunt owns a hair salon and she does my hair like no one else can but I was always afraid to go there not because she’s a horrible person (LOL XD ) but because of how I damaged my hair I would have a recurring appointment with her and she would bring my hair back to life and I’ll just mess it up again in the comfort of my own home.

Early 2016, I bought myself a flat iron GHD an original one at a hair salon a beautiful gold one meanwhile I don’t know how to use it so it never made my hair the way I wanted it to be. However, when my aunt and sister used it, their hair came out beautiful so it’s just me. Anyway I stopped using this GHD that I paid so much for because now I was on a new journey. A journey of self reflection and finding myself.
My mind set changed completely since I saw various natural products make headlines on my Facebook LOL! It was always there but it just started catching my eye. I told my mother about it and she just said it’s your hair do with it what you want (she says I wasted my money buying a GHD when I now want to keep my ‘kroes kop’  looking like that). XD
I decided I will do the big chop for my sisters wedding I went very short but the problem is the damaged hair was still there.

The day after the big chop.

My sister had a  beautiful small wedding and I as her maid of honor was proud to witness it.

My sisters husband, my sister, myself and my cousin.

Myself, my mom, and godmom.

My mom, sister and I.

With that being said now my hair is still not what I would like it to be and what I know it could be so I have decided to go shorter. I don’t really care what people say about how I look I care about myself and my own well being. I do expect to get bad looks on those bad hair days but I’ll clap back with my hair on fleek days hehe! 😉

I’m not expecting my natural journey to be sunshine and blue skies but I’m ready to do the MAJOR CHOP and get it started I’m sure my hair will love me for it.
Thanks for taking time out to read my first introductory blog (long I know LOL sorry) I hope you will enjoy sharing this journey with me 🙂 ❤

‘A girl who cuts her hair is about to change her life’ ❤ – Coco Chanel

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