It was definitely a journey getting to the point where I absolutely loved my natural hair. I was previously a "slave" to my hair. After getting my hair "fried, dyed, and laid to the side"done, I would sleep in a chair and/or wake up with a crook in my neck just to save my hair style for the next day. As I got older/wiser, I realized the importance of sleep and how unimportant "saving" my hair style was in the grand scheme of things. After over processing my hair and having to cut out the rest of the perm leaving my hair shorter than I wanted, I thought going natural would be easy. I was wrong! I sweat in my hair, so once I started on my journey, my hair styles would only last a day or two in the summer and maybe three to four days in the winter without snow.
After repeatedly going to my stylist, my hair became "trained" and began to last two weeks. The "training stage" was hard, but I made it through.
Now I'm at a different point in my natural hair journey. I am learning to embrace my hair being curly, out and free. I am now learning different natural hair styles to try and different products to use. I love two strand twist, bantu knots, and now curly and free. I havent tried a lot of products because once something works for me, I keep using it. However, the products that I have tried and respond well to my hair are: Mixed Chicks, Miss Jessie's, Uncle Funky's Daughter and Shea Moisture.
Natural routine: Wash, condition under dryer and style.
The hardest part of my journey was getting through the training stage, and my proudest moment is when I wore my hair out curly for the first time and didn't feel self conscious about my hair being "big."