DeluxHair – The Big Chop – Delux Designs (DE), LLC

Photography Provided By Giphy

Remember back in March of this year when I told you all about the beginning of my natural hair journey? Remember when I mentioned my Big Chop during the year of 2012? Well, that’s what I want to talk about today for our next post with DeluxHair. My Big Chop experience was an unexpected one. Due to poor management of my relaxed hair overtime throughout college, along with health issues that affected my hair’s healthy state, I was forced to cut my hair off. Now, I had already desired to go the natural route, but never really had the courage to go through with it until I was pushed to do so. During December of 2012, 5 years ago, I began to prefer a lot of weaves in my hair. Mainly sew-in’s and long heavy twist protective styles. This seemed to be easier and better for me as I was a full time college student, working a part time job and running DE. Boy was I completely wrong all the way around.

May 2012. Relaxed.

December 2012. Big Chop.

My weaves were always on point and I mainly wore the curly sew-in hair, along with the long marley twists. Those were the most convenient for me, as I could manage the curly sew-in’s faster than the straight ones with me being on the go a lot at the time. The marley twists were even more convenient as I really didn’t have to do anything with them other than keeping my scalp cleaned and oiled. But this is where I was also wrong again. Over time the prolonged wear of these type of hairstyles was slowly killing my real hair underneath. I knew how to keep them up enough so they would look good on the outside, but it was what was going on underneath them that mattered the most that was being neglected. The last straw for my hair was during the second half of 2012. As shown above, I put in some marley twists and left them in for about two and a half months. Typical time usage for some, but longer than normal for me. Really I got so caught up with school and work that I extended my normal timing for them being in my head for an additional full month. By the time I took them out, my edges had decreased dramatically. With the weight of them hanging all the time along with me constantly pulling them up in buns all the time, this placed a big wear and tear around my edges….including my back edges as well. Again, with me being on the go a lot during that time period, I didn’t even notice the hair loss at the time at first glance.

Once I realized that I was doing more harm that good with my protective styles of choice, I began to become more frustrated with my hair. With that frustration, it led to me resulting to using more heat in my hair to make things easier and more manageable. This was my next beginning mistake. With constant heat applied, it led to major breakage and just overall damage all throughout my new hair growth. Curls would not hold properly as needed so any progress I was making between 2012 and 2014 was wasted. This was the most unenjoyable part of my natural hair journey. I never truly got to experience those shorter natural hairstyles because I still kept my hair straight and altered from its natural state.

October 2014. Damaged Natural Hair.

Once I realized what I was doing wrong with my natural hair, I set out to complete the no heat challenge in an attempt to get back on the right track. This challenge was introduced to me through other naturals online. At first, I was skeptical as I kept doubting myself to complete it. But in June of 2015 I decided to go ahead and pursue it. This was the year where I straightened my hair for the last time with a professional blowout to begin my official transitioning period during my natural hair journey. Yes, I had to go through the transition phase of being natural after completing my big chop because my heat damage had gotten so bad. This felt like a major set back for me but it was a necessary one towards me having a health head of curls.