Hair Before HoH - Behind the Blog

In my last Behind the Blog post (read it here) I promised to return with a post showing off what my hair looked like before I started Hair of Heritage (back in April of 2011). Those of you who have been following the blog for the past two years know that my hair is growing and growing. But it hasn't always been long, far from it. Here's some pics of my hair. I'm obviously not going to take you all the way to birth (a post with childhood pics may be next), but back five years...

2008

This is basically how I wore my hair for years, regardless of length. To keep my frizz edges a secret I covered them with a scarf, and the rest of the hair was in some kind of pony tail. I think my wash routing was  wash, condition, air dry, no leave in, no deep conditioner. I colored it regularly (box color) and loved the after color treatment conditioner that came with the hair color. I think people thought I was doing some kinda "back to my roots/neo soul look" when all I was really doing was hiding my hair. 

March 2008

I remember this day clearly, we went to a amusement park/zoo. I had washed my hair that morning and let i air dry during the day. This is what I used to do so I could wear my hair out, for one day. After that one day I had no knowledge or products that could revive the curls. You can also see how dry my hair is in this picture. I like the color though, maybe I should just...

July 2008

2009

In 2009 I BCed. I don't know the exact date or month, I just remember going in the bathroom and cutting my hair off one evening. This is not the first time I BCed, the first time I went short was when I was around 14 years old. But this time I went very short, I had about two centimeters (almost an inch) of hair. This is the first picture I could find where my hair was short. What I love about short hair is how little effort it takes to maintain. The only thing that really changed in my hair routine was that I washed my hair more often to get the curls look defined, I knew nothing about spritzing with water, leave ins or gels. 

July 2009

2010 

I think my last real cut was in the beginning of 2010, because this is what my hair looked like in spring that year. It's clear it was a lot healthier than back in say 2008.

May 2010

Sometime in summer 2010 my hair became long enough that I could start styling it. My favorite was this style, cornrows on the side (I actually loved it so much that I asked my friends to take this pic, lol). Somewhere in 2010 I also discovered natural hair blogs, YouTube tutorials and British Curlies. In 2010 is when I started using Kinky Curly and slowly falling in love with my hair. 

August 2010

 I started filling my friend Di's inbox with YouTube clips and pictures of styles I tried out, this pic was one of them. Far from perfect, but see what practicing can achieve. ;) 

November 2010

 This picture was one of my first encounters with the flat iron after BCing. I have no clue what I used in my hair back then, but I wanted to add this because it gives you a good idea of the length of my hair back then.

November 2010

2011

This picture is from February 2011, and I can't believe this was my hair two years ago! In this picture it was still wet, that's why it looked so flat. I was using the Kinky Curly line back then, but also experimenting with different products and of course hair styles. 

February 2011

Look at how far we have come. :) This was actually a very fun post to put together 'cause I got to look though a lot of old pics of my friends and family. I kinda wish I would have started to document my journey sooner. So if you are thinking about it, don't be like me and think for months and months, just take some pictures and start a blog or an Instagram or something!