Work with Your Damage
The first challenge I had to overcome with my journey to tailbone length is heat damage. When I first went natural, I had heat damage in the front bang sections of my hair, which is one of the worst places you can have it in my opinion. To overcome this challenge, I had to avoid doing wash and go’s but if I did, I would modify the straight sections by twisting them so they would blend with the rest of my hair. This was probably the biggest challenge I’ve had in my hair journey, but by the time I got use to working around it, it had grown out and I was free to style as I pleased.
Long Hair Has Less Shape
When I first went totally natural and decided to ditch heat styling, my hair was obviously a lot shorter in its curly state and I loved it. It was bouncy and I liked the way it fell, but as my hair grew, how it fell started to change and so did my go-to styles. It was just kind of there…hanging. Whereas when it was shorter, it looked more styled and had more layers, shape, and body. Eventually, I adjusted to it and cut a few more layers so that I could get that same effect as my shorter curly hair.
Sometimes Curls Disappear (And How to Bring them Back”>
After a while my curls just seemed to have disappeared somehow. There was hardly any definition no matter how much defining I did or how much product I used. After letting it go for a while, I decided to do something I did early in my hair journey, a protein treatment, and it worked. My curls were back and super defined. Many women wonder whether natural hair needs proteins, and the answer is yes, but not as much as chemically-treated hair.
Master the Wash and Go
I know I’m not the only one who had challenges with their wash and go’s at one point or another, and I surely won’t be the last. But in my early days of going natural, I just didn’t know how to maintain my wash and go’s for more than two days. I was extremely picky and thought I was doing something wrong. I decided to go to the holy-grail for natural hair education—YouTube—and learned how other people maintained their wash and go’s. Eventually, I discovered what worked best for me and the rest is history.
Avoid Single Strand Knots
Single strand knots are the bane of my existence and I used to get them a lot. It wasn’t until I learned of the reason they were occurring—lack of moisture—that I was able to remedy the situation.
What challenges did you overcome to retain length?
