My hair journey.. Hmmmm, where do I start? I guess we should just take it all the way back. Let’s start with my heritage, I am half black half white, why does it matter? Because my mom is my black parent meaning so much of me and my younger sisters’ lives revolved around our hair. My younger sister and I have completely different hair types, her curls are BEAUTIFUL, more of a 3C/4A type curl. Whereas my curls are more of a 3A/3B, if you don’t know what that means, it means hers are super tight and mine are much looser.

I’m not proud of it, but it’s part of the story …

Again, why does that matter? Because growing up as awful as it sounds, anytime we were in a fight I would go for the hair shots first. Saying things like “at least I have pretty hair, at least my hair isn’t short, [insert every offensive afro line here.] Of course that always resulted in her crying and telling my mom, oh did I mention we are seven years apart? So why was I in middle school fighting with a six year old? I have no idea, but it felt justified at the time! My mom’s response was always consistent, “You know Haley, when you are older you are going to WISH you had hair like her, just wait and see!!” Now that it’s later, she was right.

The damage we were all warned about..

Now let’s talk about damage, another thing my mom always warned me about (but y’all know kids don’t listen). First day of 6th grade, I walked into my first middle school class ever. Outfit? ON POINT. Shoes? BRAND NEW. Hair? ON THAT NATURAL CURL FLEEK. I find my seat more excited than ever, our teacher stands up in the front and starts a presentation. 20 seconds into it, the (white guy) behind me raises his hand, “um, miss I can’t see over her hair.” My heart dropped right into my stomach like I was on the tower of terror. My teacher had no idea what to say, and just let him move to a different seat. For me that was the day I decided my natural hair was the worst. From that moment on, I pretty much straightened my hair everyday. There were times I still wore it curly, but for the most part I would straighten it on Sunday, wear it through the week, wash on Sunday and then straighten it again.

There was a lot of back and forth..

Now this story is going to be a rollercoaster, I won’t lie to y’all. Once I got to high school things changed for me and my hair confidence. Did my mom finally get to me? Absolutely not. It was a friend, a white friend I should add. She had curly hair just like me and wore it curly everyday with no shame. She was really the reason I started wearing my hair curly again. To my surprise I had no damage to my hair from straightening it all these years, which of course made me feel invincible. So naturally, I decided to damage it a different way. I dyed my hair in every way you could think of. I would decide I wanted black hair, then highlights, then I would want to bleach and dye a strip of hair a color like pink, GENIUS. Did I mention all of this was box dyed at home by myself or friends. Again here comes my mom telling me that I’m going to ruin my hair, but of course at that time I was convinced she was trying to ruin my life, so I wrote her advice off as her trying to dim my cool light anyway she could.

It was starting to get better, but then…

Alright y’all we are getting to the end I promise. Wearing my curls and loving them was my new thing, until..

I was a junior in college and met my husband, dad if you’re reading this stop here. Once we started having “sleep overs” I wouldn’t want him to get scared and run away by seeing the real me, obviously. Like most curly girls, I wake up with a birds nest on top of my head, BUT if I straighten my hair I wake up with that cute kind of messy hair. So all over again I started straightening on sundays, going a week, and repeating the process over and over. Now, don’t get me wrong I still loved my natural hair at this point I just didn’t want to deal with it. After a while I decided he could get over the beast, but this time my curls were super damaged, fried, and dry, but I still wore them.

I did a thing…

Years passed, I still box highlighted and used heat often. My hair was bad, but it still hadn’t seen it’s worst yet. March 2016 I decided, let’s just do the worst thing possible. Dye it ALL blonde, yes from root to tip. Now I wasn’t a complete dummy, for the first time in my hair life I had some actual sense and had that done by a professional. I absolutely hated everything about being blonde. The saying is a whole lie, blondes do not have more fun, in fact keeping up with my blonde hair was WAY harder than keeping up with my curls. My blonde hair looked awful curly, because my ends were dry, my hair would barely curl at this point, and you could see more of my dark roots wearing it that way. So again, straighten on Sunday, and go the week. I’m sure you’re thinking ok, there’s absolutely nothing else this girl can do to her hair.

It’s baby time…

Well, you’re wrong.. BOOM, Baby time. I got pregnant with my first child in May of 2016. While pregnant, my hair actually started to look a little better. It got thicker, my curls were coming back (a very little bit) and it was actually growing, thanks extra estrogen! But, after that little perfect human popped out of me, is a whole other story. My hair started falling out, I was shedding full handfuls of hair in the shower.  My edges, What are edges? Didn’t have those. My hair was so bad that people started referring to it as “wavy” hearing my hair being described that way was the punch I needed to get my life together. I threw away my straightener, I don’t know why I’m so dramatic. I went a year without straightening my hair, and it was better, but still nothing like it was naturally. I also had a second child within that year.

I found a solution…

Flash forward to 6 months ago, when I found my saving grace, Monat. Monat is a hair product sold similarly to how mary kay is sold. So naturally, I thought there was no way these products being sold by a white girl with straight hair would be good for my curly hair. On top of that she was asking me to spend over $100 on hair products! With that being said after months and months of her telling me how good the products would be for me, I caved. Mostly because I was at my breaking point with my hair, it still wasn’t curling right, and there was not an edge in site. My life changed after my first wash, my hair was curlier than it had been in years! On top of that, I used a QUARTER size of conditioner and finger combed through my hair. Believe me when she told me to use a quarter size amount.. *que immediate eye roll* I’d been using handfuls of conditioner for my entire life, there’s no way! So when I did that, I decided to start selling the stuff, I needed all of my curly girls to know about this gem I found.

All of that to say, there’s hope Mommi’s..

Moral of this long story is if you’re young and haven’t learned it yet, your mom is always right. Mommies if you’re reading this and going through the same thing with your little girls, they’ll learn. If you’re a Mommi that is struggling with your hair, I got you girl. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Which means I had to go through the ringer with my hair. Should I have listened to my mom when she told me over and over I was going to ruin my hair? Yes. Am I envious of my sister’s tight curls? 100%, but If my hair never got to the point it did, I wouldn’t have found this company that’s given me way more than amazing hair and an extra paycheck, but we’ll save that story for another blog. Happy hair week Mommi’s!

Mommi Haley