Welcome to My Fotki Page!

I am pleased that you decided to visit.

I decided to transition 15 Aug 04. That was the date of my last relaxer. My initial reason to stop relaxing was not that deep at first. I started working out real heavy so I sweated out a relaxer real quick. I moved two hours away from my stylist (read: mother), and I didn't trust anyone else to put chemicals in my hair.

But then I started reading and reviewing on how to care and style natural hair. The woman who really bought it home to me was Carolyn Gray and her book "The Black Woman's Guide to Beautiful, Healthier Hair in Six Weeks". Amazingly enough, this is a book geared towards women with relaxed hair! But as she talked about her troubles and issues with stylists, about how she can go 16 weeks without a relaxer, about her growth problems, and her reasons for not going natural, I wondered "why not just go natural FOREVER? What is so wrong with black hair that we can't enjoy it like other races?"

Then I found nappturality.com, blackhairmedia.com, naturallycurly.com, yahoo! groups blackqueens, places that praised natural hair and told the history behind it. This "natural thing" became so much more than a way to escape the inconvenience of relaxers...and I'm now a happy natural! I know without these resources (especially Carolyn Gray's book, which helped me through my 18 month transition), I could not have made it. I did the Big Chop on 23 Apr 06, and I haven't looked back!!

So that's my story. Enjoy your time here. Please feel free to browse all the albums and leave comments. I also have a few videos in the video section and my routines and other helpful hints in the journal section (not sure if it's supposed to go there, but it's my fotki!).

If you have any comments, please post them in the albums and sign the guest book.