A 2014 Reflection on Natural Hair and Style

A topic in style that continues to grow is hair, especially in the African-American community. We saw a huge growth in hairstyle shares, likes, trends, and how-to’s, especially in the natural hair online community this year. Curlbox is no longer just known for their monthly hair product box, it’s also the go-to Instagram/Twitter/Tumblr page for street-style hair styles of the everyday woman. There are many other pages that share in the highlighting of natural curls as well, and countless hashtags to go along with them! On IG, #NaturalHair alone has over 4,516,464 posts. And that’s only ONE of the popular tags! I’ve learned so much about hair this year, and all of the publicity has truly made me more excited to rock my 4b kinks. I also learned how much of a partnership exists between natural hair and fashion. I had the opportunity to attend many fashion shows featuring natural hair this year, including one event held right here in the local DC metro area entitled “The Mysterious Afro Love Affair” put on by the Naturalista Hair Show.

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I was truly intrigued by the behind-the-scenes action of this show. There was so much going on back there, and I was oohing and aahing as I watched the magic unfold – between the hair and the fashion I didn’t know where to look or what to take pictures of!

The Mysterious Afro Love Affair show was certainly a testament of mystery, hair, fashion, and love!

Natural hair is really unique, and it deserves to be highlighted. I for one, never would have dreamed of wearing my hair natural in my adult years. When my mother would finish straightening my hair as a little girl, I would tell her I had to use the bathroom and run to climb onto the sink, look in the mirror and run my fingers through my freshly pressed hair, swinging it back and forth. I loved having my hair straight. As soon as I became of age, around 11, I was the first thing smoking in the hairstylist chair to get my hair relaxed permanently. I never looked back either! That was until a few years ago when I put a color in and something went wrong; my entire left side fell out and I couldn’t get it to get healthy again. Mind you, I have Lupus and have experienced loosing my hair at least 2 or 3 times. But this time, I was certain that it was chemically related. So I told myself I would stop relaxing it for a while. And here we are almost 5 years later….and I’m still natural, and still fly!