Question of the week: Will you always be natural?

I received this comment from a reader and it keeps ringing in my head. This was posted under one of the Henna topics but it really reflects the question of the week. This lady has been natural for 10 years and it was intriguing for me to read this commentary (bear in mind 10 years of naturaldom).

"My hair never really held a perm so I just stopped trying to force it to do something that it was clearly fighting me on. But I have thought about getting a relaxer or texturixer MANY times. It's not because I hate my curl pattern. I actually love my texture.But just being realistic: it's difficult hair to have to manage on a daily basis. I have bossy, opinionated hair. We fight battles all the time and I often lose.

My hair is super thick- like many people I've broken combs, hair clips, elastics, etc. I've worked up a sweat trying to get it into a ponypuff. Some days we just don't get along and sometimes I think about how nice and easy it would be to work with something more manageable.I wouldn't presume that someone has self-acceptance or self-esteem problems if they didn't want to fight that battle. Maybe they do but there are so many other reasons. I go back and forth myself."

On a personal level, I reached hair nirvana in about one tenth of a second. I knew I was not ever going to relax again because relaxing was problem filled for me. I really didn't think that after 10 years of being natural that hair would still be an issue for some . I am going to rap my own knuckles for that because it obviously has no founding.

I do think that the author really did give us all a real pearl of wisdom in the first line. I would like to play the devil's advocate and ask, is your hair difficult or are you being difficult to your hair? Maybe your hair doesn't like that comb or maybe those clips are too tiny or maybe your hair doesn't want to be pulled back? Fighting your hair is not the way forward. The curlier the hair, the more gentle you should be to it.

I really would like relaxing hair to be an option not a remedy. I know we don't always have good hair days but the remedy for me is to tie a pretty headband and/or clip not a relaxer. Relaxing is especially not a remedy if you had problems with it before going natural, what will be different this time?

While I'm busy being not politically correct, I may as well say that some people really treat natural hair like the dreaded word - weight loss. So often when people need to lose weight, it is simple maths, eat less, exercise more but struggles appear when people try to skip out on the exercise or on the 'eat less' part. Equally with natural hair, you need to understand your curls, the curlier you are, the more you need to moisturise and the less you need to manipulate. It really is quite simple.

I am a ride or die natural so I don't envision that everyone holds my opinion. Are you always going to be natural? Do you think of relaxing as an option? Are you on the fence? Or is natural hair actually just an option for you? Or are you a never say never person?

You can also check out some related super extra juicy discussions on the fab blog BGLH here and here.