Finally, I can hold my natural hair in a ‘puff’

After a year of playing around with my natural hair –waxing it, roughing it up with detergent, not combing it for days on end, plaiting it, trying out all manner of hair treatment, I have been rewarded. I can now pin all my hair at the back, and I don’t need a dozen pins to do it. In fact I can even hold it back with a small hair band so firmly that I can laugh or sneeze as hard as I want without it coming apart. In short, I can now hold my hair in a puff! Tiny though it is, I am so proud of it. And this is pride any African girl with kinky hair can understand.

And how did I get here? It took experimenting with some styles I got from blogs about taking care of natural hair, trying out several hairdressers (some of who had the worst advice, which thankfully had reversible consequences), learning the texture of my hair, what works for it and what doesn’t, and bucket loads of patience.

The patience came in handy when the hairdresser said she couldn’t do a certain style with my hair because it is still short. Or when I watched my friend’s natural hair bounce off her shoulders. She was quick to remind me that she has had her hair for six years, and that relaxed me.

Now, it’s time to look up more styles for my new hair length and see where it takes me. Here is to a more fruitful journey for my nappy hair and I.