My 5-Year Hair Timeline

I’ve written about my hair tons of times on this blog (you can check it out here) but thought it would be fun to do a 5-year hair timeline post. I got inspired after posting this TBT post on my Instagram and Facebook—funny because it SURE doesn’t feel like that much time passed since I first took this pic but yep—it’s been FIVE YEARS! And then yesterday I wrote about a fun challenge I’m taking to combat dry winter hair, so I thought it would be cool to take a lookback at my hair over the years:)

2011:

I stopped relaxing my hair in July of 2010 and swore I was going to do a long transition. At first I was heat styling the new growth and then I met my hairstylist Gabrielle Corney who introduced me to the world of weave…lol.

But when I couldn’t get to Gabi for a bit (she was being all fancy flying off to do celebs) and I had a weave in passed its prime, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I took the weave out and then decided to clip off all of the straight ends.

I didn’t even cut the hair properly so I went to Supercuts to get a proper cut. The stylist there was SUPER sweet and I loved what she did with my hair.

I LOVED my TWA and it was the easiest hairstyle I’ve probably had ever. I do wish that I experimented more with cute haircuts. I would have appreciated my hair more and probably might not have gotten bored with it once it started to grow out.

Also I had a BAD experience doing my own twist out before a press trip where we also had individual photoshoots. I was lucky to have a stylist who knew how to do textured hair like mine, but she didn’t have a ton of time to really fix it. I HATED how the pics came out (everything including wardrobe and makeup was suspect) and I vowed then that I’d never put myself in that position again.

I think it’s also important to say here that while I’m great with maintaining my hair (washing, deep conditioning, moisturizing, etc.) I SUCK at styling it no matter how I’m wearing it: natural, weave, natural heat-styled—I pretty much suck at it all…lol. Though I’ve gotten better over the years.

One of my early 2011 transition styles—yep, this is weave!

2012:

Boredom and more on-camera work led me back into weaves. This is cringe-worthy to even type out but I just thought it was easier to just have weave. I had WAY too many bad experiences with terrible on-set hairstylists (how people get these jobs is beyond me and will get my blood pressure up just talking about it again…lol) for things where I’d be seen by the public. You don’t know the pressure of being the token Black girl in some beauty video or production and having bad glam. This is why I NEVER make fun of Black women in any kind of video, ad, or whatever where someone messed up her makeup or hair because I totally understand how that can happen. 2016 me though is more prepared to NOT have situations like that happen (I know WAY too many hairstylists and makeup artists PLUS I make sure I negotiate ahead of time), but 2012 me was worried about getting work and not seeming hard to work with. SIGH. I could write a book on this stuff :/

So weaves it was because I didn’t know much more about styling my hair than the bad on-set stylists did and I couldn’t have Gabi with me all the time.

But one hard lesson I learned in 2012 was that I am not to maintain weaves on my own. NOPE. The investment of getting a weave doesn’t stop at the hair and getting it installed—you need to MAINTAIN that bad boy. I remember one time I had a wavy textured weave in and didn’t go to the salon beyond the install. This was summer time mind you and I have natural hair—I’m probably a mix of 4s but I think probably mostly 4C. I don’t know—that hair typing thing can be weird. ANYWAY. So with weeks of trying to maintain this weave on my own, I then had an event to attend FOR A WEAVE COMPANY mind you (hahahaha) and Gabi was there. I told her about my struggles to maintain the weave and asked her if it looked alright. She took me to the side and politely whispered to me that I needed to take “that mess” out of my head…LMAOOOOO. It was THAT moment I knew she and I would go together FOREVER.

2013:

So I was loving to experiment with weave—going longer than ever in length and trying different textures. Around April I started to feel like some of my hair had broken off in my nape but I had weave in so I was hoping it was just the nape. NOPE. I took that weave out and there were patches of hair missing in random spots on the right side of my hair. I don’t know WHAT happened. When I was a kid I had some sort of scalp disorder that took my hair out in a similar fashion that I remember my mom taking me to the dermatologist to treat a bunch of times so I thought maybe that was it coming back. But I hadn’t had breakage issues like this since I was a kid. Who knows. But the big thing about this breakage was I was hired by a hair brand to try out a new launch. UM, how was I going to try out a new hair launch and my hair was looking like the big side of a cheese grater…lol. So I was in the house pacing back and forth panicking and then when I finally calmed down I looked up pics of Kate Lanphear who at the time was an ELLE magazine editor I was obsessed with. I saved the pics in my phone and went to see Gabi at the salon a few days later. She looked at the damage and then slowly suggested I just shave the side all the way off. SO FUNNY because I was looking at those Kate Lanphear pics thinking the SAME thing. This was another moment that I knew Gabi and I would go together FOREVER…lol.

So I shaved the side off and added some clip-in extensions on the opposite side for edge. The clip-ins didn’t last long before I just wore my own hair like you see in the pics above. I LOVED the shaved-side ‘do. Funny thing was my mom even loved it and she hates a lot of stuff…lol. I loved the cut but it was a pain in the neck because you have to be on it with the upkeep. My hair was growing in fast so it was like I needed to get “lined up” every week. Plus I wasn’t planning on making it a long-term hairstyle so I went on the road to grow it back.

See how I grew out my shaved side cut here

2014:

Back to weave because growing out a shaved side cut with natural hair can be a bit of a challenge because at that point the only way the style looked good was keeping it cut down and that was counterproductive to growing it out. It’s actually not that hard to grow out a shaved-side cut and it does grew in pretty quickly. Gabi snipped off length from the left side so there wouldn’t be that drastic of a difference between the two sides.

My hair once the sides grew in:

2015:

More weave. I had already become more comfy with weaves (because people can make a lot of assumptions about you when you wear them—I had grown not to care not only about that but A LOT of stuff…lol). But between traveling, working out regularly, and taking swimming lessons, it was just so much easier for me. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my own hair—when I take weave breaks and have my hair out I can’t keep out of the mirror and can’t keep my hands out of my hair. But with all the things I do, I love my hair enough to not subject it to a bunch of manipulation.

I got my first closure in 2015 which took some adjusting—I wasn’t feeling it at first but realized it was the way it framed my face that was throwing me off. I got another closure right after that and I’ll be getting another one next week…lol.

I also slowly started to learn how to style my hair more on my own. It’s much better than before but nowhere near perfect at all…lol. I still heavily relied on Gabi.

My hair with clip-in extensions that were custom-colored for me by Gabi

My first closure

2016:

I’m currently on a weave break but like I just mentioned, I’ll be getting another one next week. Like I said, I LOVE my hair but have really come to realize I’m a SUPER low maintenance kind of girl when it comes to styling it. I primarily heat style it straight when it’s out but this week I skipped the blow dryer and flat iron and I’m rocking with my natural texture. I love it, but it’s been more than I want to do. And I’ve realized I’m truly a salon girl. So it’ll be styles where I can go to the salon to get and then it lasts like two weeks before I need to go back to the salon to get it redone. So if not weave, then twists, a high bun stuffed with textured synthetic hair, etc. and then ultimately just growing it out so when I can’t get to the salon and can’t be bothered, I can just put it in two big braids or a loose bun.

What I’ve learned:

It’s been a fun five years! Here’s a few things I’ve learned:

1. Having a great stylist is MAJOR. Not only is Gabi great with weaves, she’s also amazing with cuts, natural hair, color, AND she’s also super knowledgable and practices great hair health. I wouldn’t have a five year timeline to speak of without her :)

2. I’ll always be a salon girl. When I stopped relaxing in 2010, there were already so many natural hair gurus showing all their DIY styling tips and tricks that I somehow thought that was the ONLY way to do natural hair. NOPE. At least not with my attention span and slow skill set when it comes to styling hair. I can maintain my hair and know what I need to do to keep it healthy, but am I slaying a two-strand twist or braid-out on my own? Nah. Would I go to a salon to have my natural styles done for me? You bet!

3. Style over length. My main goal after my big chop was to grow my hair out as long as possible. That meant I wasn’t trying to cut anything—trims, yes. Cuts? Nah. But I’ve quickly learned that my hair looks SO much better cut into a style. It also cuts down on style time. Boom!

I could lament over the fact that if I followed some super strict natural hair regimen that over these five years I would have MAJOR hair length, but I won’t. I learned a lot through all the mistakes and cuts :)

Hair & Outfit Info:

So as you can see there are a lot of images in this post and as you can imagine, it would take a long time to give details on EVERYTHING especially stuff from five years ago. But good news! Every pic here was posted on the blog and if you have questions about a certain weave texture used or an outfit item, I’ve already blogged about them. You can find my hair posts here and my outfit posts here.

What’s your five year hair timeline? Tell me about it in the comments!