Matlhodi’s Natural Hair Journey….

Ok I’ve always been crazy about natural hair since my high school days….well let me rephrase that; from the 1^st day I laid my eyes on a chick called Lauryn Hill. From her blow-dried fro on ‘Killing me softly video’ to her beautiful locks, she always left my jaw on the floor & confirmed to me that black natural hair is really beautiful. Did I mention her headgear and whoop earrings? Boy oh boy…dear miss Hill.

Back then I was in high school and natural hair was still frowned upon. Also the only way I thought  was possible for a black person to grow natural hair was through locking it. Dreadlocks were welcome; I remember my friend Tumi started hers while we were doing matric (Senior); while I still had my insecurities and kept relaxing my hair & cutting it into a cropped bob. Did I like the way I looked… the fact that I don’t have pictures to show should answer that question.

Then I went to tertiary after my matric…hello freedom!! When I got there (year 2002), I tried growing my hair long (with the creamy crack of course) until the following year when I said to myself… “That’s it, I’m done, goodbye to the lye”… and then started with the transitioning in January 2003. By June that year, I did the BC (Big Chop) started growing dreadlocks and never looked back. Four years later, this is what they looked like:

Ahhh… never felt so free, confident & HOT before!

Seven months after, after I had my 1^st baby in 2007… another big chop, which I still regret to this day. It must’ve been the baby blues…I loved those locks. My hairstylist ko Mapawu hair salon screamed at me when he saw me after the chop; not only for choppin them off but also for not selling them to him.lol. Talk about business-mindedness.

From there my hair was either in braids or plaits but I just knew that I’d never put the creamy crack on my hair again.

Then I fell preggies with my 2^nd angel last year (2008) and this time around, my hair started falling off. I was literally bald at the back of my head & knew that shavin it all off was not an option (funny head-shape.lol). So it was back to relaxers (a cropped bob). 😦

Everyone kept complementing on how fabulous I looked, but I thought otherwise. My hair was weak, thin & continued falling off until I decided to cut it short, but like I said, I don’t look that good with very short or no hair, so I opted for a weaaaaaaaave…

I still can’t believe I paid R650.00 for that. Never again…I hope.
Not too shabby at all though. I looked good…I think.lol

And then it was braids, braids and more braids right through my maternity period. When I took them out…aahh, you can imagine that feeling I felt back in my dreadlock days:

Even better, my little nunu had arrived. What a beautiful creature God blessed me with. Bonus, she had a head full of hurrrrrrrr!lol

This was taken 2 nights ago. I’ve come too far huh…

I just love da kink in my hair. It’s versatile, beautiful and most importantly, healthy. I love the attention I get wherever I go. My hubby lllloves it. I like it when he runs his fingers through it. That’s why I wanna start her young:

Isn’t she just nunus? I plan to let her know every single day how beautiful she is. I was reading Chris Rocks interview about his movie “Good hair” and there’s a part where he says he was driving his daughter & her white friend in his car & heard his daughter going on about what beautiful hair her friend had. So he assured her daughter that her hair was just as beautiful. That made me think. I wanna make sure that my daughter grows up knowing how beautiful her natural hair is. What if she asks me to relax her hair when she grows up? I’ll cross that bridge when I get there but seriously doubt we’ll ever get to that.

So here are some of the styles I play around with:

Twists

TWA

Blow dried (a li'l frohawk)

Bantu knots

wash 'n go

and my personal favourite (both my mom & mother-in-law’s least favourite), a wash ‘n go:

Love it. Every natural gym bunny’s best friend.lol

You gotta love our hair baby!! Stay tuned for more….

Feel free to comment & ask questions.

Comin right up… Nangi’s natural hair journey…

Love,
M