Transition Over!!! Now Officially natural.

Whhhhooooopppppp!!!! As you can see from the title I am officially natural Whooop Whooopp.

Trimmed Hair {I trimmed in twists}

Oh wow!! My transition from relaxed hair is over. I started transitioning around December 2013 when I decided that I wanted to "go natural". I was trying to get my hair healthy and stretched my relaxer, thinking it was best to give my hair a break from the chemicals while it recovered and grew back. The stretch got longer and as my new-growth/regrowth grew I didn't want to relax and then I just realised I didn't want to use the chemicals on my hair at all. My scalp is so sensitive that I would get burns and I couldn't actually keep the relaxer on for processing, it was literally applying the relaxer, combing through and rinsing it off... sometimes I couldn't even get to comb it through too well as the burning was so bad.
It didn't matter if I used a 'gentle' relaxer or a 'children's' one. It was the same.

I was tired of it, the pain, the mess, the smell.... Even when relaxed, my hair would choose to do it's own thing when it wanted, how it wanted. I would style it and it would frizz or curl or wave.... I would have to straighten/flat iron it or tong it for it to act how I wanted but that wouldn't even last for more than a few hours so it really wasn't worth going through all the hastle of relaxing.

I made the decision not to use relaxers any more and chose to transition rather than big chop. I wasn't brave enough to cut all my hair off, so transitioning was the way to go. To be honest, I didn't even know what I was doing or have any plan.... I didn't actually know what I was doing had a name lol, I just wasn't relaxing my hair any more. Looking back, things really would have gone better if I had a plan or knew where to look for information when I started out. Along the way I found the info I needed and a lot was trial and error.

During my transition, my hair went through many stages, some easy but some very frustrating and down right annoying lol.

I used protective styles and low manipulation styles to help me along the way and learned to "listen to my hair" it sounds all airy fairy but truly... I have come to realise that if I want things to go well with my hair then I have to follow my hair - if it's dry? add moisture, too soft or 'acting' up? add protein, not styling a certain way? just style it differently lol, and that's just a few examples.

I trimmed my hair when I felt ready to at each stage and only trimmed as much as I was comfortable with. Sometimes it would be a very small trim and other times I would get brave and cut longer bits. This last trim I had quite a bit of split and frizzy ends so I knew I would be trimming quite a bit off and knew it would make sense to just trim off all the relaxed ends that were left at the same time. I twisted my hair and trimmed it that way, you can see THIS post (opens in new window) to see the style and trim video.

From the above picture, you can see the trimmings that still had relaxed ends (circled in pink). The bit at the top was quite long!!

It's a great feeling to be done with the transitioning and now I have started a new chapter in my Healthy Hair Journey - Growing my Natural Hair.
I know that seems odd to say considering I've been growing my hair all along, but for every inch of growth I achieved, it had to be trimmed off to get rid of the relaxed ends. So now the growth I get is all mine *queue cartoon villain laugh*


I just want to encourage you fellow transitioners, it does get easier and you will get there xxx