How To Fall In Love With Your Natural Hair

It is a hot summer night and you are at your favorite look out spot with your man. You know what’s on his mind but you have a few things you want to get off your chest first.

Well really just one thing, so you decide to take the plunge and ask him the ultimate question. “Boo, we have been going out for a while now, when can I tell your friends and my friends that I am your girlfriend, like for real?’

He looks at you with his adorable brown eyes, takes your hand and says, ‘Boo boo, I don’t think it is time yet, I love you, but I am not in love with you, ya feel me? Now come a little closer and stop with all that talkin!’

What the french toast!?

Isn’t that the most confusing thing he could possibly say? Actually it is not that confusing really. It usually means a couple of things; Either he is not as committed to the relationship as you are. Or he wishes you were someone different and he’s just waiting for someone better to come along and as soon as he finds Miss Better he is going to jet like he stole something!

I know you are sitting there wondering how in the world am I going to tie that into loving your natural hair, well its simple really. That is exactly how I felt about my hair when I first did my version of the big chop.

I loved it but I was not in love with it, it took some time to get there. My hair journey was not a decision I made myself, if you know my hair story. It all started with a perm gone wrong, so I really did not have a choice in the matter.

I had to not only learn how to care for my hair, I had to learn to love it because it was so different for me after having had a relaxer since I was 13 years old. Falling in love with my hair was not easy, there were many fights, a variety of emotions, a ton of inspiration, final acceptance and then that real deal kinda love where you wouldn’t change a thing.

With that said here are a few tips you can use to bring that spark into your relationship with your natural hair:

1. Find inspiration and be an inspiration

This can get tricky, do not just pick any old inspiration, if you are a 4b naturalista get inspired by other 4b natural women. One of the first steps towards acceptance is knowing your own hair type and getting inspired by other women with a similar texture as yours.

There is nothing wrong with admiring a woman with a texture that is completely different from you but frankly there is a fine line between admiring another texture and getting completely obsessed with it to the point of looking at your own hair as inferior.

In addition to showing another woman’s hair some love, get inspired by your own hair. Start a tumblr or instagram, take pictures of your favorite styles and post them so that you can look back at them and even better, inspire others as well.

When you are inspired by your own hair, and you see that others love it too, then you will be well on your way to truly falling in love.

2. Accept what your hair can and cannot do

It doesn’t matter what that jar of curl creme or gel says. Your hair will only do what it naturally does so do not make her into something she is not. No seriously don’t do that, you will end up wasting alot of money and wind up wearing a hat anyway.

We know that NaturalNeiicey on YouTube has the fiercest wash and go’s on planet earth, and all she does is use a dime size amount of gel, smooth, rake smooth and go! It doesn’t matter how many times she tells you that it is easy and you can do it, trust and believe, you cannot!

You have to do what is best for you, so maybe you are not a wash and go kind of girl but your can rock the H – E double hockey sticks out of an updo. Tuck and roll and then do a video telling Natural Neiicey that she can do it too!

Accepting what your hair is capable of and what it does well is a great step towards falling in love with your own locks.

3. Accepting that you won’t always be able to show your full length which will allow you to truly enjoy shrinkage

Shrinkage is a beast, everyone knows that and some hair types are subject to the evil that is shrinkage more than others. Here’s the thing about shrinkage, it is easy to look at it as deceptive because your hair is actually longer than what people might think. The question is, do you care how long your hair is, or do you care how long everyone else thinks your hair is?

If you figure out that you care more about what everyone else thinks about the length of your hair then we might need a couple more sessions on the red couch.

This is not an attempt to dismiss some of the feelings that come when dealing with shrinkage because we are sensitive to them and it can get down right depressing at times especially when you cannot ‘see’ your progress.

One of the ways you can deal with shrinkage is to create even more shrinkage, this means wearing a style that is made for short hair, like perm rods* or finger coils. If you enjoy your hair while it is ‘short’ then showing length becomes less important.

4. Try a new style every week

Sometimes when you are in an established relationship and you are trying to keep that old flame going, a couple might choose to commit to a date night every week no matter what the circumstances are.

But the same old routine is not always the best way to recapture the magic. Try something new every week and commit to it, it could even be a week long protective style challenge or a bun challenge or a new updo. Just do something different that creates that wonderful feeling of goal achievement.

Positive actions lead to acceptance and eventually a new found love you never thought you had.

5. Experiment outside your comfort zone

Wear a fro sometimes! Or maybe a fro is well within your comfort zone but wearing your hair in a corn row style isn’t, try something different and see how you feel about it.

Comfort zones are safe places but they stifle creativity, experimentation and true potential. Sometimes thinking outside of the boxes we create for ourselves will allow for some personal growth and acceptance that you never thought you had in you.

Try something that you have never done before and be confident about your decision. There is no point in deciding to step out of your safe place to just hang your head down, avoiding eye contact and hating every minute of it.

Try to really appreciate your new challenge and learn from it even if you decide never to do it again.

6. Attend Conferences and Curly Cocktail Parties

I cannot express enough how helpful the natural hair community has been when it came to dealing with some of the negative emotions that came from dealing with my own natural hair.

The community is not perfect, but having a space to share and evolve is priceless and for many women down right fun! There are a ton of conferences, talks, group meetups, dinners and cocktail parties all the time where women can get together to talk hair, sip some wine and have a little fun.

Get social and you will see that you are not alone with some of the feelings you might have about your own hair and you might feel obliged to share a tip or two that might help another sista out. After sharing and sipping you will forget about all your natural hair woes because you are not alone, and everyday someone else joins the community looking for a little love as well.

7. Do not try to change your family just change you

This tip is important because so many of us are dealing with negativity from family members who do not love our natural hair. How difficult it must be to have your own doubts only for it to be compounded by the people closest to you.

Lets face it you can’t get rid of them so the best thing to do is to ignore and rock your hair proudly. This tip is the last one because it is much easier to deal with haters and naysayers when you yourself are truly in love with your hair.

If you stand by your hair then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about it. It doesn’t matter how annoying they might be, a real hater will try everything to break you, that is their goal.

However when you know something is good for you, you do not have to get defensive about it, you just have to know that you are doing what is best for you, and after that nothing else matters win win!

Show your hair some love ladies!