Beauty... According to Aly: Not Your Typical Natural Hair Journey Story....

If you are familiar with the natural hair community, then you have seen all of those wonderful stories. Girl spends years using the creamy crack. Girl hair is damaged. Girl gets fed up. Girl either transitions for 6 months (Where did you find that type of patience from because I need some badly. lol) OR Girl just gets bold and cuts her hair off like Demi Moore in GI: Jane. I can assure you, this story that you are about to read is not one of those stories. It is much different and well, definitely a move that I will pull.

So, picture it, Sicily, 1912. My hair is relaxed and it is time for my 6-week touch up. I was relaxing my hair myself (Bad Idea #1), and I had a slight dilemma. I was having a serious breakout with my eczema and it was all in my scalp. So, I thought that if I just put a bunch of Vaseline on my head that I would be able to relax the naps without burning my scalp (Bad Idea #2). Welp, that didn't workout at all the way I planned it. 75% of the hair I had on my head at the time fell out! Like on the floor. You remember that scene in What's Love Got To Do With It when Tina (Angela Bassett) was getting her hair done and it started coming out in clumps? Yeah that happened in real life. So, I was forced to do a big chop and wear wigs to hide my bald head. At the time, I was highly insecure. I was afraid of what people would say about my hair. I definitely didn't want to be made fun of at the time. That was January 2014. Fast-Forward to that October. I had been going through a lot at that time mentally and was very stressed out. Well, my hair fell out again because of that. This time, it was only lie 30% of my hair. But it was a significant amount. This time, I decided to big chop all of my hair myself. Instead of buying pre-made wigs, I made my own. I wore my creations for 8 months before I upgraded to crochet braids and box braids. My hair still wasn't at the length I wanted it to be. I was still slightly insecure about it. Eventually, I gained confidence in my natural curls. Almost a year to date to the Second Big Chop. I say this because it was then that I truly fell in love with my natural curl pattern. While I loved my wigs and loved making them, I felt like I didn't need to do it as much. I knew that I would want them for stand-by purpose. Because lets be honest here. Natural hair maintenance is a choir. You have to pre-poo, then real poo, then post-poo, the condition, then rinse, then style. I'm sorry, that is a whole lot of pooing (insert immature giggle here). Although my wash day routine takes forever, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. I honestly love my hair the way it is. I even dyed it the color I wanted it to be. I will still make wigs and rock protective styles. Winter can be brutal here in Chicago. I would rather protect my kinky curly tresses and cover them then to risk another fall out episode. Not this go around no. I am going to make some wigs with hair that I will be purchasing from www.beyoutifulhaircollection.com soon. I have a coupon code for you to use if you want to purchase a few bundles. The code is alyjae. I will be leaving some pics below of my wig creations and my actual natural hair!

Until Next Time My Loves,

Aly