My Transition to CurlieE

February 2012- The Beginning of My Transition

This picture was taken the day I cut my bang. Obviously, I had no plans of going natural, rather, I was still working on making straightened hair work for me. However, I had made the decision to stop relaxing my hair because I remember I time when my hair was not processed, and I remember it being stronger, longer and healthier. However, over the 15+ years of relaxing my hair, it became very hard to keep moisturized (porous). Therefore, it broke easily. These two facts made it difficult to grow my hair past my shoulders.

How did I plan to keep the straight look without using a relaxer? Well, a few weeks prior to taking the above picture, I had gotten a Coppola Keratin Treatment. And it seemed to work wonders. Straight hair without using a relaxer- AND it is advertised to actually be good for hair!! I was planning to get the relaxed look, without relaxing by replacing relaxers with keratin treatments.

As with any hair endeavor, I started to research keratin treatments like crazy. I was reading blogs on how to make them last longer, how to do them myself, and how great they are for hair...However, I also started noticing blogs popping up about how the treatments were casuing some women's hair to fall out. These blogs, in addition to articles about the danger of formahyde, scared me off of keratin treatments as well.

I had received 2 keratin treatments over the course of 4  months before I stopped. Luckily, the keratin treatments wear off and the treated hair returns to its pre-keratin state (if the treatment is done properly and the hair does not suffer heat damage).

So I found myself with 4 months worth of new growth and no relaxers or keratin smooting treatments in my future! And the transition begins...



I started wearing lots of buns to hide the two textures, but my bang couldn't fit, so I continued to flat iron them.

 

Bun using tracks and bobby pins.




Bun without weave.



...Eventually I got wiser and stopped using heat altogether.

Check out the protective/ low-manipulation styles I come up with throughout my transition on the "Protective Styles" and "Low-manipulation Styles" pages. Also stay tuned for the ups and downs of my transition as I experience them, tips, my progress/ growth, and tons of pictures!!!

And please, offer feedback, tips, and ups and downs/memories of your own transition. Let's GROW...