And then...

T.here W.as A.fro!  Well not really.  First there was skin, then there was the TWA! LOL! The thought of transitioning for a few months and then performing a big chop never crossed my mind.   Although I wish that it had, then I could have avoided the whole wig era.   I shaved my head bald during the start of my natural journey and I did not take pictures to capture the moment in stills.  I truly regret not doing so, however,  being pregnant at the time and placed on bed rest by my doctor from my fourth month until delivery at 38 weeks was an extremely difficult time for me and taking pictures wasn't anything I was remotely interested in doing.  Still, I wish I had captured images. 

Although, I don't have any images to share, I do have a few style tips to pass along that you may be interested in.  When my hair began to grow back and once it grew to about 1 1/2" long I began to roller-set my hair on perm rods.  At the time I did not know what else to do with it as it did not look the same dry as it did when wet and I did not know anything about wash-n-gos, comb coils, etc..So, I did what I knew how to do and that was a roller-set.

I used the items pictured above to create my roller-sets.  I used a rat tail comb to part my columns and rows.  The tail was used to create the parts and the fine teeth were used to help smooth out the strands prior to my adding the end papers at the bottom of the sectioned hair.  I then applied a cream to my strands.  I used end papers to keep my ends together and smooth to cut down on my ends frizzing while my hair dried.  At 1 1/2 inches I would use the gray rods (not pictured), then as my hair grew longer, I would use the next larger size rod.  When rolling each section, I was sure to hold/pull my hair taught while rolling it on the rod in an effort to help "straightened" the hair.  After completing the setting of all sectioned hair, I would sit under the hooded dryer for about an hour then let my hair air dry over night.  I was pregnant at the time, thus my hair grew like weeds, so I wore my hair this way up until my 7th month then I created a new style to sport (later post with pics).

 I was not familiar with hair care products for natural hair, so I would purchase and use cream after cream found within the black hair care aisle at the local BSS hoping for that miracle product.  Many that I tried left my hair gummy or stiff or both. Others left my strands oily and crisp.  How does that happen?  Needless to say this was not at all what I was aiming to achieve for my tresses.  My hair was coated, but was not actually moisturized.  But shopping in the black hair care aisle for products was all that I knew at that time to do and I had to make it work.

After carefully removing the rods and end papers, I would then gently finger comb my curls, or use a plastic pick similar to above to blend in the curls.  Knowing what I know now, I could have created spiral curls with these rods and would have ROCKED it!  Instead, I created a curled afro bush with my roller-sets.

My son's hair 4 years ago.

Now, if I only knew then what I know now, I would have rocked comb coils as well. Above is
a picture of my son's hair a little over 4 years ago.  I would create these coils using Mane Attraction Hair Butter and nothing else.