Maya is a YouTube star, involuntary curly hair guru, and an overall inspiring woman whom, we’ll just come out and say it, we girl crush on pretty hard in the NaturallyCurly offices. This is the second in a three-part series that Maya is writing for us, in which she shares the reasoning, the experience, and the reaction to shaving her curly hair off. To read the first part of this series (and a before picture!”>, click here.
The Shave
I didn’t think much about my shave until the morning of. I was nervous about how I’d look without my hair live on YouTube for the world to see. So I did what I always do when I’m fearful, scared, or nervous and just prayed. “It’s not a big deal Maya. You are not your hair.” During my shave I was nervous as hell. I think mainly because I was doing it live in front of thousands of people. I’d like to think it would have been less nerve-wracking had I done it alone.
My cousin, Jeigh was shaving my head for me and we sectioned it off because I planned on donating my hair to Locks of Love, which is a charity who makes and provide wigs to children who suffer from clinical hair loss. Once he finished cutting one side of my hair I saw what I looked like with a mini fro and immediately felt less attractive. “What am I doing?!“ He continued to buzz half of my hair off without me seeing anything.
MORE: Why I Shaved My Curly Hair Off | Shameless Maya
I went through so many emotions and thoughts. A combination of not being attractive along with my personal life since quietly out of the public eye I was going through a divorce with my husband. Once I saw the initial shaved side simply put I was shocked. I no longer recognized my reflection. Once we started cutting off the sections on the other side I all of a sudden was over it all. I was no longer scared, shocked, choced up. I even started shaving my own hair, before handing it back to my cousin. By the end of the shave I overcame my fears of inadequacy.
I did the thing that scared me and it no longer had a grip on me. For the rest of the day and few days following I completely forgot my hair was gone most of the time. It wasn’t until I saw my reflection where I kept saying to myself “who is that person”. I really couldn’t recognize myself. I’ve had shoulder length hair for 10 years and have never seen myself without hair. So visually I did not recognize myself. I even completely forgot I shaved my hair the next morning and went to brush my teeth and didn’t recognize my reflection! It really is a trip. It’s a completely new experience to self-discovery. Every week I am seeing myself transform because my hair is growing. And every week I’m like, “what is it going to do now?” It’s really interesting.
