But, I’m not a professional and sweat a lot in my head when I work out.  I missed the convenience of just jumping the shower, running some product on my wet head and heading out the door.  So when I went back to natural, I went back to my old routine of DIY hair care.  After a few months, I realized, I’d outgrown that, too.  

The fact is, I’ve really grown in how I come to care for my hair and how I understand my hair. My mother has a totally different hair texture than I do; my thick curls are courtesy of my paternal grandmother — the one who is always asking me when I’m going to do something with my hair.  When I was younger, mother’s solution to my kinky curls was to perm often. Whereas she might have had her hair straightened every 8 to 10 months, I was going every 8 to 10 weeks.  Crazy, I know.  But she didn’t know what to do and I learned to care for my hair by watching her do my own.  Here’s how clueless I was. . .I had no idea you could buy a perm kit at the drugstore and do it yourself.  When I was in need of touch-up to my roots and didn’t have enough money, I just told the stylist to cut it all off.    It was just hair. What’s the big deal?  I had about an inch of curly hair all around and the only thing I did was add some gel and roll.  As it grew into a more fuller afro, I would have my brother or my dad trim it up with their clippers.  Seriously, I was about as low maintenance as you could get. I didn’t know anything about curl types or sealing moisture into my hair with oil or satin pillowcases.  I don’t know what I was busy with, but it certainly wasn’t my hair.  

This time around, though, I decided the best way for me to get the results that I wanted:

So, I talked with some friends about their curly hair experiences.  I listened to other curly girls expound on their love and loathe relationship with natural hair, everything from botched cuts from professionals claiming to know how to shape and cut to that one day when the stars aligned, the humidity was just right and the curls were perfect.   I started a Pinterest inspiration board, teeming with images of awesome natural hair, so that when my resolve started to crack, I could bolster myself up.   went to websites and looked up curl types, best hair brushes, highly recommended de-tanglers and so forth. I tried different products. . .many different products.

I found a stylist in a local salon who, after a lengthy conversation, said she would be able to trim out the rest of the relaxer and get me on my way to my curls of yore.  When we met, I discovered she wore her hair naturally (bonus!) and was really listening to my concerns and needs about my hair.  She was the one who told me that in truth, there wasn’t much relaxer left in my hair. The scraggly pieces I was seeing was how my natural hair responded to the relaxer over time.  Whether or not the front would match the back would remain to be seen.

From that appointment on, I have been more pro-active in what I do to my hair.  There’s more detangling involved. More parting my hair into quadrants and applying product on tedious section at a time, but I’m beginning to see more of what I want and less of what I don’t.  I invested in a Denman brush that I quickly gave to the girls, and a Tangle Teezer, which is fan-freaking-tastic. I got my hands on another set of products called Komaza and thus, adequately armed, jumped back into the natural, curly girl fray.  Here’s what happened.

Took off the sleep cap to reveal this Medusa-esque tangle of hair.  Into the shower, I go.  

Not a bad start. There’s room for improvement and I’m talking about my own technique. I plan to go back to the salon, have my ends trimmed to keep things healthy and just take the rest one day at a time. I’ve also decided to stop calling this experience a “hair battle”; my hair is probably taking offense at that and I need everyone to cooperate.  

And now I’m off to Sephora to remedy this hot-death-warmed-over look I’ve got going on. . .