With all the damage that we cause to our hair with heat, color, and other harsh chemicals it’s surprising that most of us even have hair. But if we think about it those products and chemicals that we put on our hair can’t be healthy.

A relaxer or perm, for instance, is strong enough to completely change the texture of your hair. It basically alters your hairs' ability to form in its natural state. The way I think about hair is if you wouldn’t put it in your body, why put it on your head?

Natural hair allows you to be as creative as you want with your hair. If you wake up on Tuesday and decide you want your hair straight and by Wednesday night you want it curly again you can do that. Even hairstyles like braids and weaves are easy on natural hair because there isn’t a safe zone wait period before you can do something new.

When you have a perm, it is often recommended that you wait at least 2 weeks before you do any protective styles on your hair, but with natural hair you can get braid one week, a lace front wig the next, a silk press 3 days after that, and a quick weave in the next hour and it would still be safe for your hair as long as you are properly taking care of it.

The best thing about being natural is you can wake up, fluff your afro, and walk out the door. There’s no need to straighten your hair or touch up anything to keep it looking nice. In my experience when I was permed, hair stylist would charge somewhere between 65 and 85 dollars to perm my hair.

That’s the cost of trims and styling. Then considering I’d still have to buy hair products to keep my hair moisturized and healthy, it would almost cost 150 dollars to keep my hair looking nice for maybe a week. Since I’ve been natural, 150 dollars would buy me enough products to keep my hair nice and healthy for months.

This is my absolute favorite reason to go natural. I’m one of those people who just like to spend money just because, so I often find myself buying things that I “might use one day”.

Instead, I’ve started investing in quality hair products and my hair progress well reflects it. When I first went natural, my products were about 6 dollars a piece give or take a little.

Recently, I’ve been purchasing items that run about 15 dollars apiece. Usually, a complete collection of natural hair products would cost about 135 dollars. Being that my hair is short, and the texture is a 4b/4c those products will last me somewhere around 4-6 months. Other natural girls usually admire those you invest in hair products so there are brownie points too.

No one’s hair is the same as yours, it’s one more way that makes you unique:

Own your hair. Yes, there are many benefits to going natural and it is one of the most unique and beautiful qualities about you, but don’t do it if it makes you insecure or self-conscious. It is something that should be embraced happily, and no one should feel pressured to change anything on their own body.

Also, remember that your hair belongs to you and it is perfect no matter what texture is and no one can make you feel insecure about something that God handpicked for you.