Welcome!

Well, well, well. Here you are. In our beautifully curled space. We are glad to have you and invite you in to learn more about us and our journey behind our website, Beautifully Curled.

Have a seat. Grab some tea. Kick back and enjoy your stay for a little while. If you cannot hang, it’s cool. You can sign up for our newsletter (and receive a cool freebie!) to catch up next time!

The Head Momma in Charge

Let me start off by saying that I, Kristal, am very informal, introverted, and laid back. I enjoy crafting, reading, educating, researching, and finding solutions to problems (the biomedical engineer in me). Crazily, I have been on the natural hair scene since 2003 so I have goofed up my journey SOOOO many times.

I have tried this and that with natural hair including product junkism and playing around with all kinds of styles. I have gone both extremes of shaving my hair low and growing it past my waist. Yes, I am risque! I have literally done it all…just waiting for all my hair to pepper over to gray.

My poor hair and I have had a wild journey over the years on top of coping with a hair disorder that has set me back more times I would like. (more about that below).

As far as my hair these days for this busy SAHM of 2, you’ll likely find me in a head wrap or bun on any given day.

The Inspiration Behind it All

My little sidekick, Z, is my free-spirited, humble, and very bright young daughter. She bears with me patiently (along with binge tv and snacks) as I try out new styles and techniques on her hair.

She is actually who inspired me to start beautifullycurled.com back in 2013. Z was a preschooler back then, and I had absolutely no idea how to take care of her natural hair. Definitely check out our humble first post HERE when you get a chance. So reminiscent because I had no clue how far we would come in our mother-daughter natural hair journey. The journey countinues as we share natural hair care going into tweenhood.

Over the years (starting in blogger.com), I have posted about natural hairstyles we’ve tried, our natural hair regimen, techniques to properly manage natural hair, our length check progress, and so much more. Beautifully Curled was definitely our digital hair journal open to the world.

It has been our wish that through our trials, errors, and successes that we can encourage moms and girls to embrace their own natural hair journeys together as a team! As moms, we have a responsibility to educate our children on proper self-care from head to toe.

No matter how rough things get, stick with the process. Healthy natural hair is definitely worth the time and investment of tender, love, and care. We are here to help!

A Brief Rundown of My Natural Hair Journey

• Relaxed around 8 years old (on that Just For Me and Dark N Lovely kick religiously until college)
• Had last relaxer in 2003 (when my hair was at its shortest–chin length. And it wasn’t from a cut…pure breakage and buffoonery)
• Transitioned for 11 months (via wigs and microbraids **whew chile, why those?!?**)
• Big chopped in 2004
• Colored, highlighted, cut, fried, straightened, burned, damaged, cut, re-grew, damaged, trim, cut, abused, scorned, and tortured my hair from 2004 to 2009
• Birthed my daughter in 2009
• Suffered from major postpartum shedding and decided to go on a one-year wig challenge {see results here}
• Enjoyed my success for a few months before life changes lead to stress and anxiety. This triggered several bad cases of trichotillomania (a hair pulling disorder I have had since 12 years old) in which I decided to cut my hair completely off
• Re-grew hair mainly wearing wigs
• Decided to take charge of my hair regimen and my daughter’s; started Beautifully Curled in September 2013
• Fast forward to now, and we are still learning about our natural hair, trying new styles, and simplifying our regimen as much as possible to achieve maximum results

My Moment of Vulnerability

 “You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”

-Brene Brown

I have conjured several draft posts over the years in an attempt to explain this painful but yet humbling thorn in my side. I just never had the courage then to put myself out there fully about my disorder in fear that maybe, perhaps, it could go viral.

My 30 something–year old self can now say “oh well”. Let’s go.

Besides I figured if you made it this far on this page, you are really invested in our journey. So I thank you for your interest!

You Have What?

So this disorder I mentioned above is called Trichotillomania (linked to the Wikipedia page) or trich. Pretty much it is an obsessive-compulsive hair-pulling disorder that is currently classified as a mental health illness. Typically people pull from the head, brows, lashes, or body (or any combination of those areas).

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), I only pull from my head. And does it hurt? No. Not at all. It feels like a stress reliever. I cannot even remotely help you make sense of it so I just won’t. I do struggle with generalized anxiety so often the two go hand in hand.

To my awareness, I picked up on the habit at age 12 although my dad recalls how I would fiddle with my hair as a toddler.

Triggers

I do not pick 24/7 but mainly during down times when I am at the computer or reading. I currently am not taking any medications or doing any special behavioral therapy to cope with trich. My main management techniques include covering my head during idle times and keeping my hands busy.

Trich is such a mental draining disorder, go figure. Having to train myself to be aware of triggers is challenging when my mind so often can zone off to the millions of things on it at any given moment. However, I try to just make the best of the disorder now with the hope to educate about it especially in the black community. It is not a super common disorder, but more spotlight has been given towards it over recent years.

Unfortunately, though, more white people have shared their struggle with trich while I have only come across a handful of black women via social media with the disorder. I just know there are more of us who battle with trich. {waving hi and sending a virtual hug} I do know, as well, that the stigmatization of mental health issues in the black community is heavy.

“Oh so you are going to invest all this time and care to your hair just to pull some out down the line?!”

Yeah, I get your rationale. Totally. I am not offended one bit.

I typically have certain areas I pull from rather than all over my head. After all this time, no one has ever stopped or noticed anything unusual about my hair so my management has been decent. When trich gets bad, I simply wig it out or head wrap it out for a bit to get out of a pulling rut.

If push comes to shove, I will do this again…

Even with trich, I have successfully been able to grow my hair longer than I thought possible.

I just got to make lemonade out of lemons and keep going!

Before You Venture Off, A Disclaimer

The information presented on this blog is not designed to be the holy grail of natural hair care for women and children. We simply want to share with you our trials AND errors encountered on our natural hair journey and provide tips you could potentially use at your own discretion.

These days, a wealth of information is available including hair tutorials, videos, and product reviews. Sometimes it is actually overwhelming to see how much a simple Google search under “natural hair care” generates.

Our goal for our hair journey is to filter through the excess to get down to fundamental aspects of natural hair care. In this phase, we have no desire to try everything out there, to become a product junkie (again), to hop on the latest trend bandwagon (too often).

Life is busy, budgeting is more important than ever, and my mantra is Keep It Simple, Sis.

A life less complicated by the stress of hair care is a life more enjoyable for the caretaker AND child. As a mom, I want Z to truly love HER OWN beautifully and uniquely curled hair. My desire is to become an expert of her hair so that I can appropriately pass the expertise down to her as she matures and take ownership of her own hair care (without having to be thrown into the water to figure it out all by herself like I did).

Our Overall Vision for Beautifully Curled Starting Spring 2019

Initially, beautifully curled was created simply as an outlet to share the trials and errors of our natural hair journeys.

Now, that we have matured and are accustomed to what works best for our hair, our updated vision is to create an inviting and safe place to share ideas about natural hair care AND NATURAL living without the excessive materialization thrown in our faces daily. We want to build strong self-care foundations, share inspirational hair and wellness journeys, pass along healthy recipes for busy black families on a budget, and more.

Regardless of our expanded focus, we will always continue to strive to be authentic to you, the reader. We enjoy sharing via blogging because we have virtually met some really great supporters who have actually helped teach us along the way.

Ultimately, we desire to encourage you to be beautifully unique

• in who you are,
• in the way your hair is curled (or kinked or bent),
• and in the way you contribute to the world via your lifestyle.

We simply want you to have the courage to love you. Be you. And always stay true to who you are in a world that can seem so fake.

You will never INFLUENCE the world by being just like it.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy!

Love,
Kristal and Z

Like our natural hair, the path of life is hardly a straight line. Despite the kinks and bends, both our hair and lives are beautifully curled.

-Kristal C.