My Hair Journey

Let me start by saying that a healthy hair journey is not a practice or a religion. A healthy hair journey is a way of life. I started my hair journey on August 17, 2011. Although that's just under a year ago, I have learned and grown so much in such a short amount of time. At the beginning of my journey, my hair was a few inches past shoulder length. I was relaxed and I was loving it! But the question is...why did I start a hair journey then? Well, take a look at the pictures below.

Everything was all wrong!!!! Prior to starting this journey, I had been "taking care of my hair" (or at least I thought I was) for about 3 years. I had stopped going to the hair salon solely because the stylists were scissor happy and expensive! $15 every one/two weeks is not cute guys. So, both my sister and I decided to leave the stylists alone. We had regimen: wash, condition and straighten. That's the way it went. I was this length when I left the stylist and I was the same length when I started my journey three years later. I never noticed it, of course, because I was so excited that I was finally doing my own hair. After having my mother take care of my natural hair when I was younger, to being introduced to relaxers during high school, I never cared for my hair a day in my life. Even after that, stylists still took care of my hair for me. I was hassle free! But over time, you get used to the straight, silky styles from the stylists and so you want to keep it. I relaxed my hair every 6-8 weeks (big NO NO!!). I straightened my hair every week, even during the summer! All of the stress and heat began to take its toll on my hair and it began to break off at the ends, leaving me at shoulder length.

But then, I was introduced to Infusium 23 the summer before I started my HHJ. And it changed everything around for me. Its moisturizing formula helped my hair to retain length even with all of the chemical relaxing and heat, and I began to see growth after years of trying! But that still wasn't enough, thanks to Youtube I discovered many relaxed women with long, healthy hair and I wanted to get some of that! And then I discovered Hairlista.com and so it began. With the help of many wonderful women I went from this...

to this...

...in a matter of months.

My hair has exceeded this length, and is on its way to Bra Strap Length. But beyond that, my hair is thick and it's healthy which is exactly what I want. I value health over length any day because I know that with healthy hair, the length will come.