Kiya's Kinks

Quick (well, not really) history of me & mah Hair.

When I was little, my hair was usually braided in two cornrows down the side of my head - I wore a headpiece most of the time, so it wasn't like I really NEEDED a style. And considering the fact that I HATED getting my hair done (combing through all my curly twisty goodness HURTED) - neither me nor my mother were really interested in experiementation.

I got my first relaxer over Christmas break of '95 (my freshman year of college - or freshwoman, as we called it at my allfemale, 99% black college), and my hair was below my shoulders - and I promptly chopped it all of to a pixie cut. I lived with the pixie cut for about 4 years - getting the occasional perm, but more often, getting my hair braided with artificial hair. I never really LIKED my permed hair - I have almost baby fine hair (and a arseload of it) and when I had a perm - I looked like a wet cat. I couldn't keep a curl because of how fine my hair was, and I quickly got sick of slapping lye on my head - and it was always the 'extra strong' stuff because of how nappy my hair is - despite the fact that it's fine as all get out.

I got my last perm in Feb of 99, and started keeping my hair braided almsot all the time. Sometimes, I could put them in double strand twists - but it was a PAIN. I would have to give up a day almost every weekend to undo, condition, grease, and redo my hair. I knew I wouldn't go back to the perm, and I knew that I was sick of spending 300.00 every two months to get my hair braided - and if I was going to keep it braided ANYWAY - why not just get locs?

So, November of 2001, I started locking my hair. I loved it - in the beginning. It was wild and wooly and EASY to manage and bouncy and - just - the bee's knees. But as they got older, and as I dyed it, and as my locs got weighed down with more shed hair - they got skinner and skinnier, and harder and harder - until there came a point when I realized that I didn't LIKE my hair much anymore. So, I started taking the locs out (cuz there was no way in hell I was going to cut all my hair off).

May 2006, I had loose hair for the first time in five years. It's - it's seriously amazing stuff. I'm in - awe, almost - of my hair. A lot of the awe is from ignorance (I've done more research on hair in the last month than I've done my entire life!) I realized that taking care of extra kinky, super fine hair is something - unique - really, and I have to learn what it - needs, what it likes, what helps it grow. My goal - eventually - is to have loose, natural hair that goes about to the middle of my back. Not loc'd, not permed - just - my hair, out and natural.

*sigh* My hair grows FAST too - in the 2 months since I've dyed it, it's grown at least an inch and a half - which is on the high end of the normal range - however, the challANGE! for me is learning how to take CARE of my hair, so that I keep all that length. One thing that I'm going to have to do is stop dying it - I KNOW that's causing my ends to dry out and break off and just generally do things that are not conducive to lots and lots of hair. However, I stubbornly refuse to live with fading red hair (ie, orange!) so - I'm going to start using henna (all natural, no funky metals) to dye my hair. I have a friend in Nashville who has some of the most GORGEOUS red hair - and she's been using Henna for years. Her hair also goes to the middle of her back - so it certainly doesn't IMPEDE growth.

So. That's my hair ramble. I've gone over bits and pieces of this - but I wanted to write it all down - so that 6 months from now, when I'm bitterly cursing all this damn hair, and want to chop it off, I can read this, and remember how - glorious - my real hair really is.

I'm so happy to have found the Long Hair community - funnily enough, I stumbled across it a LONG time ago - which got my started on oil cleansing for my face (which I SWEAR by). And I'm thrilled that I can make a journal here, because I DO need someplace to track all of my wonderful hair exploits and pictures.