Eight Reasons to Be a Natural Belle

 Big chop baby!

If you want a protective style that
gives you straight hair, try flexistrand

1. You were made that way

2. You won't be running for cover when the rain comes down. Hair shrinking back to its natural state is every relaxed-hair girl's nightmare. It's akin to a full moon in a werewolve's eyes. Ever noticed how calm real wolves look towards the end of a lunar month?


3. More people love natural hair than you realize. My roommate transitioned to natural hair a year ago. We go to a university that has a minority percentage of 19% and a black percentage of just 3%. In such an environment, it can become easy to conform to extremely western standards of beauty. Many African-Americans, if asked what kind of hair is considered beautiful by Caucasians would answer "long, straight hair or hair with loose waves". Weeks into her natural hair transition, all my roommate would wear was weaves. One day, she decided to bare her natural hair and got countless compliments, from boys and girls, on her "fro" like hair. If people outside our race appreciate the beauty of black natural hair, we should too.

Why would you relax this little girl's
hair? It's adorable. 

4. You hair won't thin as much as relaxed head of hair does. Remember what I explained about the fragility of African hair in my Leave-in Your Leave-in Conditioner post. Our hair is the extremely brittle, particularly when moisture-deprived. Relaxing your hair exacerbates that problem and that's why straightened relaxed hair is often thinner than straightened natural hair. As long as you care for your natural hair, gaining length will become easier than when you had relaxed hair.


5. You have a unique curl pattern to show off. Every natural head of hair is unique. That is even true among people with the same hair type. Stop selling yourself short.


6. No one enjoys bragging about fake hair. No matter how good it looks, there's always going to be a morsel of shame in artificial beauty. When a woman praises her weave in public, she often wants people to believe that it's her real hair.


7. There are so many different hair styles you can do with your natural hair. Think about the limitations of having a weave. There are only so many hairstyles you can do without exposing your tracks. It's crippling. With natural hair, no matter how many parts you make, where you part your hair, if the hair tied up or sleeked back, there will always be a healthy scalp underneath it, attesting to your hair's legitimacy. Think about the limitations of relaxed hair. You can't rock the afro or really curly hair on a whim without "ruining" the hair.

The beauty of relaxed hair is it can be both curly (left)
and straightened (right). The woman in both pictures
is Kim Love of Kimmaytube (natural hair guru). 

8. You haven't taken straight hair off the table: You can actually straighten natural hair to get a mock-relaxed hair look. In addition, it comes with a bonus: thicker straight hair. Should you choose to straighten your natural hair with a flat iron, a good heating serum is indispensable. That is too avoid heat damage to the hair, something that has long term consequences to natural hair-it will never be same. Flat-ironing your natural hair should also only be left for special occasions. I recommend doing it a maximum of 3 or 4 times in a year. The rest of the year, be spontaneous and try out different protective styles. Try to keep your relaxed hair stretched most of the time. Otherwise, flexistrand extensions are a good style that allows you to flaunt straight hair while protecting your fro.