Growing Pains

I know that we natural women can tend to be product addicts when it comes to keeping our hair growing and strong.  We comb through the magazines and websites looking for the latest tips and guides to help promote hair growth and buy the product with hopes of super long tresses. At least, I know I do.  Before my pilgrimage to the natural side of things, B.C. (before coils) as I call it, I changed my hair styles often.  Now due to the excessive pulling and relaxing of my hair, my edges have suffered the repercussions of my actions. So you can imagine that any hair growth product has received my full attention.

So on my search to find these different miracle products, I could not believe the different degrees of extremes that people are doing to attempt to grow their hair. I was shocked not only to find some of these techniques, but I was even more surprised by the following that they have gained. Alright, so I can understand hair vitamins and essential oils to help, but I was always used to the idea of tea tree oil, not Emu Oil… That’s right! Emu the bird has a lot to contribute to growing hair and this is something that I am willing to try and with hope, track the growth rate. Apparently I have a lot to learn because there are some hair growth extremes that I must admit I am a little un-prepared to deal with. So the real question is, “As natural women, how far are we willing to go to gain an inch or two of new growth? And at what point do we cross the line of “natural” techniques to grow our hair?”

I mean, we all ready change our diets and adjust our hair routines to achieve the goal of long, healthy “natural” hair, so what’s the harm in go to an extreme? I figure, for me, it depends on how extreme the task is. The most extreme, in my opinion is something that I would have never anticipated. I was informed by a close friend of mine that Monistat is the new leading trend in hair growth. So of course, I had to research this and sure enough, she was right. There is a whole following devoted to applying a diluted version of yeast infection prevention cream to their hair to gain an inch or two; talk about your multi-faceted cream.  Essentially it is an anti-fungal cream and it has been proven that too much fungal growth on your scalp can clog your follicles and lead to hair loss. So I am inclined to understand why people are trying this method. Now I am not one to judge, but I have to admit I will just need to deal with my growing pains rather than applying this cream to my scalp. To me, it does not feel organic and it kind of feels like cheating in the natural hair growth race. By the end of the year, I want to look at pictures from my Big Chop and say, “Wow, look how much my hair grew”, and know that I did not add anything to my process except patience and a different oil here and there. I have discovered that this will be enough for me, but everything is not meant for everyone and not every product, in the opinion of this natural lady, is created equal.  So in the next few weeks/months I look forward to seeing what growing pains I will encounter and how Emu oil will counteract those challenges. Who knows, maybe this hair growth extreme is the one for me.

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://www.naturalhairmag.com/wp-content/uploads/pic3.png[/author_image] [author_info]Jherica Burgess is a columnist for Natural Hair residing in the DMV area. [/author_info] [/author]