"… Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle…" 
Pablo Freire

I did it!

More on hair…

I just cut my hair, really short. Took off all of the relaxed hair on the back and only have about an inch or two of relaxed hair on the front. I can sit here and say I feel natural and beautiful, but why lie. I am just now LEARNING how to love, like, and appreciate my coiled, nappy, kinky, curly, coarse hair because I’ve been TAUGHT all these years that a beautiful woman is one with long straight hair. I feel like a boy, I feel ugly, I feel strange. All of these feelings that I am not at all proud of, but have admit them in order to work on them. I am a product of my society regardless of the fact that I am trying to fight it. Deep inside I feel liberated of years of painful itchy relaxers, hot blow dryers and flat irons. The irony of this all, if there is even any, is that I am still CAROLINA and I never stopped being me, my HAIR does not define my personality, my character, or who I am. Through going natural however, I have learned how to love everything about me the way it is.  

My new growth

It has only been about 3 months since I last relaxed my hair. The new growth is not much, but the more of it that grows the more I understand how to care for it. The two most important things to keep in mind during the going natural process is to keep the hair very hydrated and moisturize and to treat it with deep treatments at least once a week. Right now I am using olive oil to moisturize it and I am using a regular Pantaine Pro-V deep treatment. I plan to change these products to others including the Kinky-Curly products, Mix Chicks products, and the Enjoy products, all of which I will be reviewing and giving to tutorial on how to use them later on.

I went under the knife again...

Well scissors to be exact. My wonderful sister got me the entire set of Kinky-Curly products, which I will be reviewing in later blogs. My friend who is visiting from the states brought it today. I decided to cut the hair shorter because I felt like I would waste good products on the relaxed hair. I also feel like having the relaxed hair makes combing and styling very difficult. Cutting it is honestly the best decision. Hair grows back and the more you cut it the more natural hair is left on your head and the more you begin to become accustom to loving, caring and appreciating you hair. I particularly enjoy having long hair and I am looking to get that length back, however the short hair is very practical in that it is easier to detangle and style, is a wash and go kind deal. I am not thrilled about how short it looks, but I do enjoy the fact that I have less relaxed hair.

My Good Hair

The First Step

After deciding that I wanted to go natural, I went ahead and cut my hair. This was the first real step for me because I have contemplated and tried to go natural a few times before, but always ended up relaxing my hair. As a way to reaffirm and commit myself to this, I went ahead and chopped off a bunch of relaxed hair!

I want to make something clear right away, I am not an anti-relaxer/straight hair hater, I actually enjoy having my hair STYLED straight at times, it is more than a relaxer and it is more than going natural.

I am Dominican and I am going natural

I am a Dominican American woman who has decided that after many years of relaxers and Dominican hair salons it is time to GO NATURAL! I am doing this for many reasons, mainly because I am very curious of what my real hair looks like. My mother began to relax my hair when I was 9 years old and to be completely honest, I don't remember what it looked like. Every time the new growth came in I would touch it and wonder why it felt so foreign.

I am currently residing in the Dominican Republic a country whose inhabitants are mostly blacks, but don't recognize it or want to admit it. Having my hair in its natural state, is in one way or another a political statement and a way to embrace something that is constantly being rejected by society. The kind of hair I have is considered literally Bad Hair, or Cabello Malo and of course the opposite is considered Good Hair, or Cabello Bueno. I am determined to at least bring to question the subject at hand in the circles that I associate myself with. I know I can't change an entire country with a racist discriminatory history that is too deeply rooted to be touched by only one person; however, I hope that with my actions I can not only learn how love myself, my hair, my blackness even more, but that I can inspire other black women to break free from the terrible notions of Cabello Malo v. Cabello Bueno.

I will be uploading pictures and videos of my process. Natural hair, here we come!