Help Me Transition: Kendra's Transition Story

What inspired you to stop relaxing your hair?

I can't pinpoint a certain reason I stopped using a relaxer. I was flat iron crazy so I think my hair was so heat damaged that I was able to get it super straight without a relaxer anymore. So I didn't bother. My last relaxer was about May 2008. However, I continued to straighten my hair all the time.

Below is my hair straight without a relaxer in December 2008:

This was taken when Brendan and I were dating. As you can tell in the picture, my hair was freshly dyed and straightened. But I hadn't done a relaxer in a long while. I had "trained" my hair (aka heat damaged it).

Who inspired you to start wearing natural styles?

Two people. My hubby, who was my boyfriend at the time saw my hair curly once and told me I should wear my hair like that more often. He thought it looked beautiful. Of course, I had no intention lol. Not initially anyway.. It took me until about April 2009 to start wearing natural styles. In my mind natural hair meant afros and nappy unkept hair. So I had to have some barriers broken first.

Which leads me to person number two, Misha. She told me she was going to go natural and referred me to a few videos of styles on YouTube. I remember her showing me a video of a bantu knot out. I thought the curls were amazing. Now anyone who reads this blog knows that my hair is always different. That has always been my thing lol. I saw the new style and I thought, that is really different and cute. I can do that.. So the real transition began.

Misha got impatient and shaved all her relaxed hair off ! This was still all before we got into truth. I was furious with her lol... but I was like, hey natural hair is very pretty. I started wondering what my hair would look like all natural. Although I vowed not to cut mine off-- at the time it was purely for vanity.

What styles and products did you start your transition with ?

I wore a lot of braid outs and Bantu knot outs. It was easy and it was something to help me learn how to get used to my natural hair while still working with relaxed hair. I liked the volume and body those styles gave me.

I loved that I could just throw it up with a headband and call it a day. I used horrible products lol. I washed and conditioned with Pantene Pro V for women of color, and I used grease to "moisturize". I had no idea what natural hair care meant. You all are blessed to have all the information out there now!

How did my hair change as it started growing out?

I had a lot of issues with dryness! My hair was like a tumble weed that was highly flammable. Lol!! But seriously I was growing out relaxed hair, heat damaged hair and chemically dyed hair all at the same time. Plus I didn't know what products to use so as the natural hair started coming in, I was overwhelmed! I cried a lot, complained and told my hubby I was going to just get a relaxer again. Obviously though, I knew this wasn't the right choice. By this time I was in church and I wasn't looking back. So I decided to just grit my teeth and work through it.

When "natural methods" did I start with?

Cleansing: I used baking soda. I would make a paste out of baking soda and water. Then I would scrub my scalp and distribute it through my hair. This worked for a while but eventually I started getting headaches. I soon found out that baking soda isn't that good for constant use because of its chemical make up. You can read about my "discovery" here.

One side effect of using baking soda is that it loosens your curl pattern over time. Because its a base (regarding its pH balance, it has a similar effect over time of a relaxer). You can see in the picture below that my curl is pretty loose at my roots.

Moisturizing: I used carrot oil. It took me about 3 months to figure out why my scalp was rebelling! Duh Kendra, you are allergic to carrots!! So yeah, carrot oil didn't work out so well. So I started using olive oil and that worked much better. If you notice in the picture below, you can see straight ends on my twists!

What styles did you wear while transitioning?

Curls, braids and twist up do's were my best friend. My hair is about 1/4 of the way grown out in the picture below. As you can see, my roots are much darker than the straight and dyed portion of my hair. I would twist my hair, bantu knot it for some volume and pin it up all over. That was a signature style.

September 2009

In order to get my twists to have any volume, I had to bantu knot, braid or twist the twists overnight so that the straight ends looked hidden. In the picture below you can see my hair down.This was a few months after the picture above.

December 2009

I started trying to experiment with styles. I did a "curl hawk" with flat twists on the side and a bantu knot out in the middle. I was excited about the volume. It was evident that my hair was growing and becoming more "natural".

March 2010

This was the first time I did individual braids and I loved it. I left the ends loose to "curl" but that didn't quite happen. There is a loose wave to them because my ends were still relaxed and dyed. But as you can clearly see, my hair is growing out more and more. I only had a couple inches left at this point.

May 2010

What was it like transitioning in Pentecost?

I had a really hard time with wearing my hair natural to church. It was hard for me to have short hair in the church. Plus, I was the only one at my church with natural hair. So lots of people said hurtful things in ignorance. I know they didn't mean to hurt my feelings but I was ultra sensitive about my hair. I remember the first time I wore my hair out to a church function, it was a youth get together, everyone kept calling my hair an afro (it was my natural curls) and later in the evening there was a huge joke made about my hair.. I was so hurt.

A wash and go in 2010

But with time I started to adjust. My husband played such a large role in me learning to love my hair. I had so many days I would get so frustrated because I couldn't do the same styles as other ladies at church. Isn't that kind of sad? Upset that I stood out lol. But its true. No one wants to be the odd ball. Brendan would tell me how beautiful my hair was, and that he was proud of me for wearing it natural. When people would ask him what he thought about my hair, he spoke nothing but encouraging words about it.

October 2010

I found it interesting that everyone wanted to know, Kendra when are you going to straighten your hair? I was like, um is something wrong with it the way it is? That was my take on it. I wasn't against wearing it straight but I definitely was against doing it all the time.

Straight hair updo 2010

When I did straighten it, I remember my husband's best friend Steven was like, WOAH you have a lot of hair! lol. It was funny but it was a major inspiration to me that my hair was growing!!

How long did it take you to transition?

About 14 months total. That was around the time that I noticed that all of the straight ends were gone!! My hair was 100% natural. At that point, I really started to embrace having natural hair!

Finally ALL natural!

How did this blog help your experience?

By the time I started this blog, I was almost fully natural.

But I was able to share with others, create a platform for people to share their experiences and be an overall encouragement. With time, more and more people started to accept natural hair in Pentecost. I am not saying that my blog is the only reason why, but I met a lot of beautiful ladies who wanted to transition as well. And through time, I have come to know MANY women from all over the world (yes, the world. Not just the U.S.) who have been inspired by this blog. It is so exciting to me to go to conferences and people know about this blog. Not because I want them to know me, but because I want as many women as I can convince to love themselves for who they are. Every color, every nationality.