My Healthy Hair Life

I think the problem started somewhere in primary school where we picked up from SOMEWHERE that strait hair was better than curly hair and the IRON was pulled out every weekend to straiten out (and fry) the natural beauty that was our childhood hair.

Then we got access to hair dye, bleach, hair strainers and crimpers and curlers came in. There was a shampoo and conditioner make for EVERY possible issue you were facing, dry hair, oily hair, strait hair, curly hair, coloured hair, damaged hair. If your hair doesn’t grow or is too thin, buy extensions.
Then serums and treatments, toners and coloured shampoos. I never had enough money to get into all this but as an observer (with destroyed bleached hair) I always wished I could …. Because I NEEDED this stuff to ‘fix’ my hair.

I treated my hair like crap for 20 years. But I was treating it the way the magazines and specialists were telling me I should. But it wasn’t growing (it was breaking and getting shorter) I was buying all the stuff when I could, I was massaging and using the heat protectors and the special shampoos and I just never got anywhere.

I was horrified when I started to see my natural strawberry blond coming through because every hairdresser id been to had told me I needed to use a toner to get rid of the golden tones. I had been called a ginge and all sorts and this was just a part of my natural self that it seemed - had to be hidden.

Just before I went to my yoga training in 2015 my hair straitener broke. I spent a month in Bali and didn’t wash my hair. I started learning alternative and natural hair hacks from people and places and of course the internet. And it was one of the first of many things I would realise would be my solution If I leaned in and did the uncomfortable work to get to a sustainable solution.

I stopped using strainers and any heat treatments - it was rough because my hair was fried and it took a while for it to remember its natural wave that the heat products destroy.

I avoided hair ties which would cause more breakage - scrunchies are a great alternative and totally on trend.