Monday, April 30, 2012

To BC or Not: The Fight Within??

Since coming out and deciding to transition and then deciding not to, lol, I have received emails and comments from others confessing that they are torn between what to do? This post is dedicated to them, and those of you who are secretly fighting this battle as well. I'm no expert but my first suggestion is to ask yourself:
Why do I want to transition??
Is it because everyone else is doing it?
It's trendy (right now)
I'm curious to see what my natural curls look like?
Relaxers aren't healthy!
Want to feel free!
Then look at the reasons why you don't want to? Decide out of the reasons to do it, vs why not do it....which is most important to you.

For me personally, I think the answer to why did I want to was simply bc it was trendy, everyone else was doing it, and I liked the natural hair styles...I found the reason in how much it took to straighten my hair....looking at those two factors I chose the HEALTH of my hair over styles or trends. You may wonder how I equate relaxing to health huh? Well simply put, I don't like curly hair...not 3AB or C not 4AB or C...that is not to say that it is not beautiful because it is, BUT I just don't like to have that look alll of the time or even most of the time. If I were to go natural, thruth be told my hair would be in it's natural state more often than not simply because I am lazy when it comes to styling lol. Knowing that fact about myself, straight hair...FOR ME...is more versatile, I can wear it straight whenever I want to, if I want kinks or curls I can manipulate it into those styles as well. But if I were to go natural my hair would either be straightened consistently which is unhealthy to my strands and would increase breakage, or I'd stay in weaves, which I didn't want to do, or walk around with boring curly hair, which would more than likely result in me returning to relaxers.

I think the thing is you have to be honest with yourself, sure I see all of these gorgeous natural hair care models or women in hair groups and YT, but how much time and effort do they put into their hair, and how much time am I willing to put into mine? I have a husband, 3 children, a dog, I work and go to school both full time...truth is, I don't want to put jack diddly into my hair lol.
I don't think being relaxer free makes women feel "free from bondage" unless they felt bonded, are you only relaxing your hair to be beautiful or feel accepted? Does getting relaxers cause you anxiety or stress? Have you always wanted to be natural but was just self conscience? If so then yes I could imagine how elated you'd be, and I congradulate you. I myself, I have never put much thought into hair. I have stretched for 6 months, know my pattern pretty much, and I do feel like I'd be GAWJUSS with my natural hair, but no more beautiful than I am with relaxed hair....my facial features are just that, features, my beauty lies in my personality and my heart, that hasn't been and never will be changed. When making any decision regarding yourself, you have to look to you Look at yourself, block the rest of the world out and follow what you really desire.

Being natural vs being relaxed really just boils down to this:
How do you want to wear you hair? Curly, textured or straight?
and
Do you want chemicals in your hair?

People can and will act like relaxers are death, but permanent hair dyes are chemicals as well!! Are naturals who use permanent color, any less natural? Naturals who "heat train" their hair, they are free from an chemicals? Are they any less "proud" or "free"?

You get out of your hair...and life in general what you put into it...after doing research and reading you willl find a plethora of hair care blogs specifally for relaxed hair and you will see that YES RELAXED HAIR DOES GROW PAST SHOULDER LENGTH!! and BEING NATURAL DOES NOT MAKE YOUR HAIR GROW FASTER (just had to throw that out there) lol.

So aside from all of those hair myths, what is it that you would like out of your hair??
Relaxed or natural you can obtain it!!!

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