curly journey...

As many of you know I embarked on my curly girl journey a little over a year ago. I haven't talked about it very much & I'll admit that I was a little hesitant to start. I have never really been comfortable with my curly hair & often felt like it was out of my control or wouldn't conform to the picture that I had in my head of how it should look. Let's be honest, I'm a bit of a control freak in more than one area of my life. There is a reason why people make jokes about my OCD tendencies. In high school when my previously stick straight hair became curly, straightening my hair always gave me a sense of control in at least one area of my life. It was a false sense of control though. It's been a long time coming but I actually think that God used this experience to illustrate to me just how controlling I was trying to be, how little I actually had control over & how in reality He is in complete & total control over all things.

In addition to the lesson over control (or lack thereof) I wanted to be an example for Ashlyn, who also has curly hair.

God blessed us both with curly hair - why would we not embrace the design of a Creator who is unable to make mistakes? What are we saying to Him when we force our hair to do something it was never meant to do just so that we can conform to some idea of beauty that we got from the world? That's not to say that straightening your hair is wrong. I'm also not saying that I will never straighten my hair again. I'm just trying to accept how God made me & show Ashlyn that her curly hair is beautiful. My mom has modeled this for me my entire life.

Starting out I was extremely overwhelmed with the wealth of information out there about curly girl method approved products, techniques to style & encourage curl patterns, dew points, hair porosity...& the list goes on & on. There was a lot of trial & error. You find out very quickly that what works for one person's hair may not work for yours. 

I think I have finally "figured out" my hair. It still feels out of control sometimes but that's what hair ties are for, right?!  

From the start of my curly hair journey in October 2018...

to February 2020 (& in these pictures my hair doesn't even have any product on them! who knew my hair could be this curly all on its own?!)