The reality is, everyone won't stay natural...and that's perfectly okay.

Good morning! So I've noticed lately that there has been buzz from different forums, youtube channels, blogs, and various other forms of media, that the whole team natural vs team relaxed is causing "separation" in the black community. I'm sooo tired of hearing, reading, and talking about this with people. This is a slight rant and I surely don't want to bore you with my thoughts but I have a little something to say about it. We (as in our ancestors, our community, the generation we grew up in, etc) black folks have been struggling for so long, with so many things, just by "being" in our own country. I won't go there, but with this hair care revolution that's going on, the information we have is from our own research, our own digging, our own question asking, our own concoctions in the kitchen, our own barrier breaking, etc. No one gave this confidence to us, we gave it to ourselves! Wake up people! We are giving it to each other when we say to a fellow sista "love your hair!" or when that 55+ year old grown black man in a business suit, walks by me, while walking down the corridor in my office building at work, and says "Love the hair!" Sure, Madam CJ Walker did an abundance for our hair community. The conk, hot comb, 70s black pride movement, jherri curl, relaxer, etc, have given us the foundation for what our hair can do, can't do and what we shouldn't do to it, depending on our goals of what we want for it. I have been researching our hair care for going on 15 years, and I'm not bored YET. What I am bored with, is the constant, "we need to stop doing this and start doing that", "Nobody needs to go back to the creamy crack", "why would anyone relax their hair?" All the while being natural for five minutes and now you are an expert. I'm sick of it. HEALTHY hair care is my passion, I don't give a dang how one chooses to wear it. Find what works for YOU and yours. What we need to do, is what suits OUR lifestyle. What we need to do, is stop allowing the media to shape our opinions of what WE should do, be, look like, etc. What we need to do, is teach our little girls that wearing a weave is perfectly fine, but make sure your hair underneath, is moisturized and doesn't look like a bird's nest, relaxed OR natural. What we need to do is teach our little girls some self confidence and not that you can't leave the house because "yo hair ain't done". My hair is natural, yes, however, I texturized (relaxed) my hair in 2009 because it's what I wanted to do. I started transitioning again in 2011 and in Feb 2015, I will be 4 years natural again (previously natural from 2001 to 2009). The youtube/twitter/facebook media wasn't as big back then, as it is now, and the only sources I and many other women had, were my books, printouts, and fellow forum friends. Those books, printouts and forum friends helped me to understand(way back then) that there are those who want chemical free natural virgin hair, and there are those who want relaxed straightened smooth hair. My good friend is texlaxed and she loves it. Not only has she learned how to take care of it,and it's thriving (currently bra strap length, thick and healthy), but she has learned that she doesn't have the time in her life right now, TO experiment with transitioning, going natural, etc. She and I talk on a regular basis about this stuff. Because of the nearly 15 years of info under my belt, she's not intimidated by the conversation of haircare, relaxed or natural. Because we work together every day, we have lunch together, we keep each other's kids, etc, hair becomes part of our convo. The average person, however, would hear us talking and immediately are like "that's too much", "ain't nobody got time", "this natural hair stuff is too complicated". And I agree! The whole media take on it has made it just that, complicated. Cray cray part? It's not. It's so simple that I could just cry at everything I'm seeing going on. Hence my blog name. I love history and if there is nothing else that you remember from this post, remember that history ALWAYS repeats itself and those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I say this because we have SO MUCH good information out here about hair care, in 2014, but there's still plenty of bad info. We still have product junkyism, people still looking for the magic in a bottle. People trying to achieve the perfect twistout, braidout, etc instead of rocking that chunky fro, non-defined hair, or low kinky bun or puff. People who are relaxed have learned that wearing a no heat, flat twistout and/or braidout is the BUSINESS...just to see wand curling irons fly off the shelves like those curls are going to last longer than 5 minutes. Many of us who started out on hair forums, were trying to figure out how to stop spending so much money and not to mention time, in the salon, etc. We wanted to find ways to wear our hair without the use of so many heat tools, etc. Before the age of internet video, we had to endure the bad hair days, experiment, making it do what it do. All we had was curl activator, gel, shampoo, simple conditioners, etc. Now there are so many "natural" hair puddings, custards, souffles, butters, etc that I can't even keep up. I sometimes feel bad for many of those who knew nothing before youtube. Don't get me wrong, I am a youtube fanatic, but some vids are just too much. About 7 or 8 years ago, we used to joke that the beauty supply stores would start selling our own kinky texture to us and we would buy it. Sure enough, there's more Marley hair, kinky straight, etc, on the shelves, and the prices are ridiculous! I could go on and on about what I see these days, but I won't. Maybe I'll write a book about it lol. It's way too much to type right now. I need for us to pump the brakes, breathe, and think about what we want and what fits our lifestyles in regard to hair care. I love healthy hair, relaxed or natural. I'm even thinking about changing my blog name. I need for us to know that this hair thing doesn't have to take over our lives. Our options are endless. We can weave it, cut it, grow it, color it, do it everyday, do it once a week, leave it alone, etc. We need to understand that there are SOOO many other things that we need to be focusing on. Our hair is BEAUTIFUL thing, no one can feel that more than me. I just need for us to KNOW that and stop trying to "fix it" because of what someone else is saying about it, whether that be "us" or not "us". I'll say it and keep saying it...DO YOUR RESEARCH, don't buy something just because a guru has it posted all over their website, blog, facebook page or youtube channel. Wear your hair the way it fits your lifestyle. If you live in Arizona, extra dryness will be factor. If you live in California, not so much. If you have 3 kids and are a stay at home Mom who home schools, you may not have "experiment time" and may need to rock protective styles, depending on if you are growing your hair out, or keeping it short, relaxed or natural. If you exercise 5 out of 7 days in the week, you WILL need to wet your scalp more to keep the nasty sweat and drying salt out of your hair. THINK people, please just sit back and THINK. (post all over the place, lol, hops off soapbox and wakes up the toddler)