Challenges of growing African Natural Hair

Bad Hair Day Image by Chris Strach on shorturl.at/mqw59

In a previous article I shared about the reasons to love and grow your natural African hair, and I'm grateful to God that the article performed extremely well, whereby it featured twice in a National Newspaper and is also one of the most viewed articles on this blog.

The personal feedback I got from a number of fellow young ladies trying to rethink their hair-do's was also amazing. We bless the Lord that he heard us so wonderfully and beautifully.While growing your African hair in its natural form is freeing, among other benefits, it also has a number of challenges, which I will bring to light in this article to help everyone who is either starting or already growing their natural hair.

1. Stagnation 

Image from bglh-marketplace.com

Yes, you will get frustrated as you are trying to do from A to Z to get your hair healthy and long, you will most likely get frustrated because you have set "Instagram standards" for your hair.

Your hair is different, it might not be able to look like that Instagram babe's natural hair. Frustration due to comparison is interesting, I find people with the ideal natural hair-type wishing their hair was like mine simply because I have accepted mine and learnt to work with it the way it is.

2. Wash Day.

Image by luvvnaturalswirlss on tumblr

I wish I could do away with the fact that I need to wash my hair the right way. Detangle, shampoo, condition, deep treatment, moisturize, seal, and then style; seven whole steps! This is not fun, very time-consuming, but very nice and important.

Tip: Add your wash-day into your already-existing routine, wash your hair while you take a shower, it makes it a lot easier.

3. Shrinkage 

Thanks to Randy Burton on Pinterest 

African natural hair is very interesting, it has the ability to look very short and yet its actually very long when stretched. Some people find this a challenge since they need to show how long their natural hair is all the time.

4. Mood swings

Thanks to Meghan Turner on Pinterest

There are times when you are so in love with your hair: it's flourishing, looks very healthy and all that, and then there are days when your hair will look like steel wire on your head and you quickly look for the nearest pair of scissors so you can get rid of it. But you need to remember that that bad feeling will most certainly change the following day into a positive feeling, but your hair won't grow back the next day when you cut it off emotionally.

5. Looking for natural hair salons.

Most hair stylists are too accustomed to the old ways of hair care that have proven over the years not to be good for our natural hair (especially that those old hair care styles were invented by white people who have straight hair). This leaves only a handful of salons that can properly handle your hair, which might be relatively expensive.

Tip: please learn how to do some few things by yourself, for example, washing your hair is really simple. I love being able to style my hair myself because I can change the style as often as I want to, at zero cost.

6. A load of products.

New naturals especially find this a challenge as they need to get everything and anything that promises to make their hair grow faster or better and they end up with a lorry-load of hair products that they might not even need. 

There is a difference between well-advertised products and the products you need.

Tip: You only need about five products to give your hair basic care, including: 1. Shampoo, 2. conditioner, 3. deep conditioner/treatment, 4. hair oil (hair food) and 5. a moisturizer. The rest are nice but they're just supplements that you can simply do without.

7. Time-consuming.

Image by 

𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐥.𝐜𝐡𝐱𝐧𝐞𝐥 on Pinterest

Hair care can mean to be time-consuming, especially at the start, while later on you take less and less time to work on your hair.

Tip: Incorporate your hair care into your normal day duties, wash your hair while showering, style your hair for the entire week after organizing the clothes you intend to for that week.

Note: painful is not on this list because natural hair doesn't have to hurt, I don't remember when I last inflicted pain on myself in the name of hair.

It's been yet another fabulous Wednesday! Feel free to keep that feedback coming in through the comments as usual, and I wish you all very good lives!