My hair has been relaxed since age 4 which means that I never knew what my natural hair looked like until I actually decided to stop relaxers 5 years ago.
I am progressively discovering my hair and myself at the same occasion. I better understand what my hair needs, slowly but surely.
I’ve come a long way – I had my hair relaxed but also wore sewed-in weaves because of which I ended up with holes on my head.
I obviously had to find a solution and started to look for information and inspiration from black UK and US Youtubers whose hair would grow longer that I could imagine. It sounds silly but for me black women’s hair would stop at shoulder length.
When I decided to go natural, my family didn’t get it. My mother used to relax my hair because she saw it as an easy way to “fix” it, so when she saw me going natural she simply believed it was a phase I was going through.
She ended up accepting it after seeing more and more people in the streets wearing their natural hair.
It’s interesting to now see that most of my family members wear their hair natural. It’s satisfying and I also feel proud, knowing that I was the first one to go for it.