Welcome to the soul of natural hair. The positive expression of black aesthetics by Lady Kinnks. Visitors may surf our site and blog to celebrate natural hair.
Get Your Exclusive Kinnks Tee...
Next entry: Naturally Me
Previous entry: This Week's Web Finds…
I meet Ms. Shawnta on Twitter. (The internet is a beautiful thing.) Her story enforces the fact that there are no rules in how you should go natural, or limitations to any style, even locs. Shawnta can be described as a queen foraging her path in life, student sometimes… work all the time, internet junkie, a writer, a mother, a book-a-holic, a shop-a-holic, an artist, and loving life! She has been on all sides of natural rockin the ‘fro, locs, taking them out, wearing twist outs or even a flat ironed wrap. Wow! You may visit her youtube channel or blog, Peace, Love and Namaste.
________________
I’ve been natural now for almost 8 years now, and I don’t plan on ever going back to chemically altered hair. Our natural hair gives us so many options if we just treat it as we should. I will admit that when I first went natural, I had some unrealistic expectation of what my hair would do. When I would read about Kelis or any other natural celeb in the black hair magazine they made it seem like all you needed was a leave in conditioner and a diffuser and your hair would be that gorgeous! Reality is a little different than that but it is mine and has been a wonderful lesson in patience and self discovery. I had always felt very limited with my relaxed hair, I never colored it because I was afraid of damaging it, I didn’t change stylist even though you were in there for 7 hours at the least because I thought someone else might ruin my hair. I was scared of gel and the wind lol! All I ever did with my hair was a wrap or a ponytail.
I had attempted to go natural since the age of 16, but I was afraid to be without my signature long hair and transitioning always ended with me giving up and going back to the relaxer 6 months into the process. I went through that off and on for about 3 years until my pregnancy with my first child. My family is very hard core about not coloring or relaxer your hair during that time so those 9 months was the longest I ever had made it with transitioning. I pressed my hair or rocked cornrows for most of my pregnancy. I enjoyed how my coils felt, but once my daughter was born, back to the relaxer I went. Fortunately I didn’t stay that way for long! I honestly feel that having my daughter broke me out of a lot of insecurities I had regarding other people’s opinions. She was my world and as long as I was doing right by her, who cared what everyone else, thought of me. I wanted her to be strong, independent, and confident. I wanted her to know that she didn’t have to do anything to herself to be beautiful, because beauty was already hers. I realized for her to grow up to be the woman I wanted her to be I had to be an example. So November 26, 2001 I cut all of my hair off to a short TWA.
My family of course thought something was wrong with me and that maybe I was suffering from post partum depression, but I was as happy as I could be! As the months went on I learned about my hair and its texture centimeter by centimeter. I found the online community Nappturality, and made connections with my fellow sisters on the natural hair path. I learned how to do many styles like afro puffs or two strand twists, and best of all I could maintain my hair all by myself!!! No more days wasted at the beauty salon for me!
Almost a year to the day I cut my relaxed hair off, I decided I wanted to loc. 
I had an appointment on November 20, 2002 to get my hair two strand twisted that day, but when I woke up that morning I decided to tell her these twist would be the start of my locs! I always knew I would loc eventually but I had thought it would be when I was older like in my 50’s and 60’s. It also surprised me that I wanted locs so soon in my natural hair journey because I was typically the person that had to redo her hair a couple of times a week because I missed playing with it. I could never keep extension braids or my two strand twists in for longer than two weeks, but my locs made it to seven years!
My loc journey was pretty uneventful as I was in ‘mommy mode’ and didn’t have much time to fuss over my hair or be overly concerned with how they were progressing.
I retwisted them every two weeks but basically left them alone. Around the 3rd year of locing, they really started to show some length. I started to play around with styles more in the 5th year and started my Youtube channel showing how to do some simple styles in my 6th year of locing.
I had some life changing things happen to me the latter part of 2008, so I felt I needed to make some changes in myself to go along with this new start I had to make. I was to the point where another big chop would not have been a big deal to me, but I wanted to see if locs could be taken out and how much length would I retain. In May 2009 I started picking out my locs. It was a very slow process, taking almost three weeks, but when I was finished I had quite a bit of hair in pretty good condition. I’m sure I will loc again, and it is exciting to think about what method I will use to start the new set; however for now I am really enjoying playing in my loose natural hair again. You can see more of my hair at my blog Peace, Love, & Namaste or at my YouTube channel Shawnta715. I hope to get back into the regular swing of things blogging and Youtubing very soon so keep a look out for updates.
Shawnta
________________
Shawnta, Thanks for sharing your natural hair journey!! ~Lady Kinnks
Read other Guest Bloggers
Styles • BC (Big Chop) • Locs • herStory • Why I Went Natural • Permalink
I enjoyed reading this post!
Shwanta is such a beautiful woman and her hair is simply fab locked or loose!
Thanks for sharing your story!
Another inspirational journey :o)
i remember when shawta first began her journey. her hair is absolutely beautiful!!