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Tips on transitioning
relaxed hair to natural hair
Lisah Muroyi
015 is over and you might have
noticed a trend, natural hair.
Looking at it very well, natural
hair has become more of a mainstream movement rather than a rarity
that it used to be.
Transitioning to natural hair simply
means growing out your natural hair
without necessarily cutting the relaxed or
damaged ends.
The truth is you are going to face criticism from family, friends, boyfriend and
workmates; well those are societal pressures the choice is all yours, because it
looks like the trend is here to stay anyway.
If you are planning to rock your natural hair next year, this is the time to start
working on it. Find out what to and what
not to do.
1
Don’t set a date
Begin your journey to natural hair
today, don’t say on this date l will have
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to shave my hair to grow natural hair,
instead start growing natural hair today.
Let it grow under the relaxed hair to avoid
the “big chop” and when it’s long enough
that is when you can cut the relaxed ends.
2
Maintaining two different
types of hair
Now that you have grown natural
hair and relaxed hair at the same time,
the challenge might be maintaining this
blended hairstyle.
However, try tying a bantu knot, protective hairstyles or keeping your hair
braided all the time. If you decide on
combing it every day do that when it’s
wet using a wide tooth comb to avoid
breakage.
Be gentle when detangling, you might
end up losing your hair if you don’t treat
your hair carefully.
3
Reduce heat
Somehow others might try to make
their natural hair look the same with relaxed hair and apply heat using all sorts
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of styling tools.
Heat is not advisable during this stage
of your journey because your hair is fragile and these tools might straighten your
hair permanently, which is what you are
trying to avoid.
4
Condition and moisturize
There is a common belief that
black women do not grow long hair, well
this is the secret to long healthy natural
hair. Deep condition as often as possible .Use light conditioners as heavy ones
might damage your new hair that you are
growing. It makes your hair more manageable, because transitioning hair is a
pain in the back.
Moisturize your hair more often as
well using water based moisturizers.
5
Trim your hair frequently
If you don’t want the big chop,
and you hate to see your hair curly then
straight on the ends make it appoint that
you trim your ends at least once a week.
TP
December 2015