Napptural Beginnings

      Sooo... this post comes so many years (10 to be exact) after I've had much time for reflection on my decision to go natural. I know I've explained to family members, clients and close friends my reasons, but I have never had the opportunity or rather thought it necessary to share this in an open forum. Well here you go!  In a nutshell... One day it just clicked, why do I continue to abuse my hair over and over, getting the same result, that I was totally unhappy with???       It was 2004, the end of my sophomore year in college, and I was awakening to a few things about myself. One of them being, how much hassle and time I spent doing my hair, on the daily, with very little to show for it. There were always those few times, where I could whip my hair into submission, but those times were few and far in between... A good hair night, after a lot of heat, I made the relaxed look work.      What's...

                 Generation Napptural By L. Cherie Before Kevin Federline made cornrows cool, or Christina Aguilera made that blonde ‘fro famous, there was just plain old kinky, wiry, corkscrew-curled, nappy hair. The thick, and most times rough and tough afro-puffs were never a very popular as a style outside of the Black American community, and before long this look was smoked out by the likes of hot pressing combs, flat irons, and chemical relaxers, which burnt and processed those unruly, textured tresses into submission. In retrospect I can remember those long hours spent in mom’s kitchen/salon, hiding my napps by having them transformed into rows of beaded braids. Not to mention the even longer hours trying to get rid my napps via the hot comb burning into my roots, while beads of sweat dripped down my neck. The burden of being born with naturally nappy, untamable, hard to manage locks for ma...