A Brief History of My Hair

I have curly hair, and like most girls with curly hair that I've talked to, there was a point in my life where I hated it.

I straightened my hair consistently from age 11 to 23, giving it little breaks here and there. And when I say breaks, I mean that my hair was curly, and then I would proceed to use a curling iron on certain sections of my hair to give it bigger waves. Yes, I put the curling iron on my wet hair. Yes, I feel terrible about that decision now.

See those bigger curls? That's the result of a curling iron :(

Then, at 23, I randomly came across this YouTube channel. I thought to myself, I should totally let my hair go curly.

So I did. And I started a blog about my journey from heat damage to beautiful curls.

Here's a bit of what I was working with when I first stopped flat ironing my hair:

That wave though.

A little bit better. But still not great.

Day two hair. The curls are starting to take shape.

I applied minimal heat to my hair for two years, and let me tell you, it was a long two years. My hair went through some seriously awkward stages, but the curls finally started to come around.

Ahh, success. 

Then I graduated college and started teaching and really felt like I needed straight hair again because straight hair=professional?

Honestly, there are a lot of reasons that I straighten my hair, and I'm currently working on an essay about it, so more to come later on that subject.  But I will admit that when Chris Rock said, "When your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed" in Good Hair, he was totally right.

Anyways.

I started straightening my hair again pretty regularly for a few years, but luckily, I never allowed my hair to reach the level of damage that it had in previous years. Sure, it wasn't really growing, but it also didn't lose much of its curl pattern like before, thankfully.

I kept telling myself that if I had longer curly hair, I wouldn't straighten it as often.

Well, thanks to social media, I once again found myself envying another curly girl's hair, especially it's length. Imagine my surprise when I found out that her hair was actually shorter than mine and that she used extensions to fake the last few inches.

So, it was settled. I'd buy extensions.

I started looking for hair places online and made the commitment to buy them as a birthday gift to myself. We went to the store in LA last week, and even though I found a bundle that matched my curls perfectly for only $89 (a steal, honestly), I held off on buying them, telling myself that I would get them later after price checking them elsewhere.

When my Super Awesome Curly Haired Bestie told me that she thought I'd probably need two bundles, which would cost around $180, I decided not to go through with buying them at all.

What I want is longer hair, but I'm not willing to spend close to $200 to get it, especially since my hair will grow on it's own.

So instead of buying hair extensions, I've decided to invest in products and practices that will help me achieve my goal and grow my hair out.

Here's what I have on the list so far:

-Vitamins (biotin, folic acid, and iron)
-Cowashing
-Homemade hair masks (applied weekly) & Coconut Oil
-Reusable shower caps (for the masks)
-Satin pillowcase (because cotton=rotten)
-Scalp massages
-No heat
-WATER!!

All of this, let me add, is way less than $89, so it looks like I'll also be buying myself a few dresses for the unbearable California heat. I am pretty much winning at life right now.

So this is my hair today:

Selfies aren't my thing.

 I'm hoping that by following the regimen above, I'll see some growth within the year.

Thanks for reading! If you have any hair growing tricks, please comment below!