World Wide Web...thank you!

In 2002 it was during my search on how to style my natural hair that I decided to use the world wide web for help.  I wanted to obtain immediate knowledge that would actually be of good use to me.  I had, like many women, purchased a book on natural hair prior to surfing the Internet, but the book I purchased didn't seem to offer very much in the way of what to do with regards to actually taking care of natural hair.  The techniques and styles illustrated in the book seemed incomplete.  Some recommendations and finished looks were either not to my liking or seemed unrealistic.  I am so thankful for the WWW and to many women who were willing to "snap and share" their natural hair journeys by publishing their stories on-line.  Because of their sharing, I discovered styles such as twists, braids, afro puffs, etc.... Also, a dear friend of mine turned me on to shea butter!  I in turned began sharing my natural hair journey with others and I loved the "extended family" that was created between myself and others.  Giving each other support and encouragement to stand firm in our decision to go natural and to love every minute of it!

The first style I attempted was two strand twists!

Everyone needs support and words of encouragement to continue this journey

As you can see, from my pics above, my initial twists were not the best.  See my ends...they're straight. The style above is set of twists done on wet hair.  No matter how much I would wet my ends, they would not curl up.   It became apparent to me that this was a result from my straightening my natural tresses regularly for the past two years. Unbeknownst to me at that time, pressing my hair over time was "breaking down the hair's hydrogen bonds found in the hair's cortex, which cause hair to bend and become curly. Once the bonds are broken, hair is prevented from holding its original, natural form, though the hydrogen bonds can re-form if exposed to moisture."  However, my "hydrogen bonds" did not reform for my ends.  So, whenever I would set my hair in wet two-strand twists I would have to use perm rods on my ends in order to "curl" them.  Notice the top right images above.  My hair on top has a looser texture and thus suffered the most from not being able to revert.  You can see the "curled" ends created using the perm rods.

Having to deal with my straight ends was quite frustrating for me as this was not the look I was going for.  I wanted to have a uniformed look for my twists and my twist-outs.  Who doesn't... right?  But, at the time I wasn't mentally prepared to remove my straight ends (cutting) and proceeded to attempt my next style and that was wearing a twist-out.

Not sure what I was trying to attempt with this style at the time, but this is a
wet set twist-out gone bad with straight ends.

Notice the top image above.  My ends on top of my head look like antennae!  The back of my head was was even worse.  My ends were horrible and my hair had no shape.  While pressing my hair I aways worn it in an up do, so I didn't realize that I had different lengths going on all over.  So, I decided to begin shaping up my strands. I began clipping my ends gradually and then later gave myself a full blown major cut (tomorrow's post).

Twist-out with newly clipped ends.

 Now my twist-out above wasn't half bad, but I still had the problem with my straight ends (just not as bad).  At this time, I still had not removed all of the straight pieces, but I was truly enjoying the fact that I could wear my natural hair OUT.  No more wraps, scarves, hats.  These items were no longer "needed", but were only worn if I "wanted" to wear them.  Guess what?...I didn't want to.