3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Transitioning To Natural

I initially decided to go natural because my relaxed hair was super unhealthy, and getting relaxers every couple months was not helping the cause. It seemed like a great idea to embrace my natural kinks and curls—and it was—but going natural came with a whole new set of responsibilities and problems I wasn’t aware of.

I transitioned a whole 2 years before cutting off my relaxed ends, and at least half of that time was spent in trial and error trying out different products, methods, styles, and regimens. I eventually got the hang of it but the first year was a disaster! Considering the time I started my transition, there wasn’t a ton of resources and tutorials available like there are now, so I had to just go for it.

Now that I’ve been natural for quite a few years, there are tons of things I know now that I wish I could go back and tell my younger self. However, there are 3 major things I wish I knew before transitioning to natural.

Dealing with two textures at the same time is no joke

When I was relaxed, I would throw some grease or oil sheen in my hair, quickly run a flat iron* through it, wrap it up when it was time to go to sleep, and then touch it up once or twice during the week. While I was transitioning and dealing with two textures, all of that changed. Not only did I have to give up my beloved grease and petroleum all together, but I discovered the not-so-wonderful occurrence of shrinkage and curl reversion.

Girl, listen. My hair had curly roots and straight ends and it drove me up the wall. I tried to get my relaxed hair to curl—or at least wave—up like my roots and it looked like a hot mess so I decided to keep my hair oiled and pinned up into a frumpy-looking bun; which also proved to be the epitome of  a hot mess.

After 3-4 months of pure struggle dealing with my awkward stage of hair growth, 3 inches of type 4a hair with relaxed ends, I finally had my epiphany: just go get some box braids. By the time my box braids were ready to be taken out, I had researched and mastered some very cute and manageable protective styles.

Even though I’m transitioning, I still need to trim my hair

A lot of women (myself included) dread even thinking about cutting their hair, so transitioning is the much needed alternative to the big chop. However, if you want healthy hair, you are going to see those scissors one way or another; maybe it’s not as major as the big chop but it’s still a little nerve-racking. That’s right ladies, I’m talking about trimming your ends!

I never thought I needed a trim because I never really paid attention to the ends of my hair. In my mind, anything that meant I had to lose some length was bad, so I avoided trims at all costs. It wasn’t until I started to notice my hair looking unkempt and frazzled at the ends no matter how I brushed it that I knew something needed to change.

I did some research and found out that I indeed had split ends and if I didn’t get them trimmed immediately, they could split all the way up to my roots and I’d have to cut off a lot more hair than I’d like to. This scared me enough to go to my hairdresser and get my ends clipped.

Unfortunately, they had already split pretty high so I just cut off the remainder of my relaxed ends—causing me to go through with the big chop a whole year before I was planning to. Bummer.

Advice is not “one size fits all”

Any woman at any stage of a hair journey knows that advice will come, and it will come at you fast. I was told everything from “washing your hair every week is bad” to “weaves* will stunt your hair growth”, and I believed it all. Don’t get me wrong, none of the advice I received was bad advice, I just wish I would’ve understood that advice is by no means “one size fits all”; meaning that what works for others, may not work for me.

I tried every new natural hair product and regimen under the sun and only a handful provided me with what I was looking for. At the end of it all, I felt like I wasted my time trying out all of these things that seemed to work for others but not for me.

Putting a mask made out of eggs in my hair didn’t give it any strength, deep conditioning* overnight definitely didn’t work for me, and braids didn’t make me bald; all of this advice was falling through and I was frustrated! But in hindsight, I realize that if I never went through this trial and error period, I would have never found what worked for me. Now that I am a lot more knowledgeable, I listen to others’ advice a lot less and instead, listen to what my hair is telling me a lot more.