Breaking Out of My Natural Hair Shell

The original purpose of going back natural was having the freedom to do endless hairstyles. As I went through my transitioning stage, I remember looking forward to learning how to cornrow, flat twisting, and even attempting box braids. As I've adjusted to a year post-big chop, I have also wavered in my routine. Because of my intense hair care regimen, which I brought entirely upon myself, it seemed easier to twist my hair and leave it for weeks at a time while wearing headwraps whenever I left the house. 

Admittedly, I've also been hesitant to experiment with my hair. I knew that experimenting with new styles would take hours of practice and at the time, I was not ready to take on such an intimidating prospect. But I was growing sick of wearing headwraps, especially once summertime came around. Also, I reminded myself of why I started this journey. I began by practicing chunky cornrows on myself. They were not perfect, but I was glad that I was able to complete a simple style in less than 10 minutes. As I gained more confidence in my growing skills, it encouraged me to mix things up a little. 

One of my favorite styling methods became flat twisting. Not only was it easier than doing cornrows for me, but it enabled me to create simple styles that I could easily refresh. I also played around with elastic band styles whenever I did not feel like spending too much time on a hairstyle. 

Another easy style I did was cheating a halo braid using elastic bands. This style was something that I came across on a YouTube channel called Sekora and Sefari. If you don't know this channel, it's run by a mother who does lots of adorable hairstyles for her two daughters. Although the style was done on a child, halo braids are suitable for anyone no matter their age. If you would like to try this regal yet easy hairstyle you can check it out here. I am by no means an expert at parting, and parting my hair took several hours. But I did not give up because I knew that the results would be amazing. This was the result. 😍

I utilized some of my hairstyles to benefit the health of my hair as well. My hairline is notorious for growing very slowly. Lately, I've been trying to grow out my edges in hopes that they will eventually catch up to the rest of my hair. If you've ever searched how to care for your edges, the usual answer is to avoid manipulating them. However, I recently discovered how to flat twist my edges in a way that actually helped them to grow.

Back in the summer when it seemed like everyone was wearing Ethiopian and Eritrean inspired braids, I adjusted the various hairstyles to suit my skills and the health of my hair. Because I did these styles by myself, they were not as intricate as the gorgeous styles below.

In any case, my method was loosely based on their standout details and resulted in another round of simple flat twist styles. 

As you can see, my hair is kept in two buns most of the time. This sounds silly but before the summer, I was slightly terrified of styling my hair into two buns because I was afraid that it made me look even younger than I wanted to. This is coming from a 23-year-old who is dwarfed by middle schoolers on the regular. However, I slowly began to not care and learned to embrace wearing my two buns. They were cute and they were the best option when it came to keeping my hair tamed. As for the flat twists in the front, I avoided twisting too tight and as a result, my edges began to grow faster and stronger.

I experimented with a twist-out for the first time as well. In the picture above I used EcoStyler Gel, which you will see details about in an upcoming post. A journey is never really done, is what I've learned for the past few months. It's constant and the things you take with you are always of some use even if the lesson is over. Although this wasn't a long post, I hope you enjoyed reading. Have a great week, guys and don't forget to find me on Twitter!