My One Year Nappiversary

Welcome back to my blog 🙋 🙋

I don’t know if ‘nappiversary’ is a word, but I saw it first when I was transitioning and have always looked forward to using it when I’m celebrating one year being natural. Yep, I’m celebrating because it’s an accomplishment. I successfully transitioned to natural hair then kept it for one full year even with so many discouraging words from some people.

Few months before I big chopped

Day of big chop. First length check.

First time wearing my hair in an afro.

One year post big chop

My hair shrunken. It amazes me how much 4c hair can shrink. My hair was totally dry in
this picture

On the 29th of August last year, I cut off the remaining relaxed hair I had and became fully natural. I immediately had my hair braided because school was in session and I didn’t want to deal with my hair but I was curious to see what I’ll look like with a twa(teeny weeny afro). Plus my birthday was approaching and I have this ritual where I get my hair braided for my birthday every year.

After I took down the braids about 5 weeks later, I struggled with my hair. I decided to work with my hair so I can get used to it but exams came by and my wigs became handy. The struggle continued but I became fond of my hair. When quarantine came, my hair was some weeks out of crochet braids and I decided to just let my hair breathe and get used to working with my hair.

I manipulated my hair a lot though and looking back, I wish I reduced the stress I was putting my hair through but the good thing was that I got used to my hair. I was planning to blowdry my hair for a proper length check but I had a heat damage scare earlier on which made me have a drastic trim that felt like a haircut so I decided to do the threading method to stretch my hair and give it a blown out look but it still didn’t work perfectly.

My hair grows on the slower side so I’m very careful on how I handle my hair. We grow from 4-6 inches every year and my hair is just at the 4inches mark because when I just big chopped my hair, it was 4inches and after 1 year, it’s 7 inches which means I was able to retain 3 inches of length and trimmed of about an inch.

I just got knotless goddess braids done and I can’t wait to share the process and pictures because the hair is so pretty but I’ve not gotten any proper picture yet. I’ll do that tomorrow and work on the post.

I’ll also write a different post on my experiences since I returned natural because if I do that here this post will be too long.

Little life update: I’m currently reading a book called ‘Daughters who walk this path’ by a Nigerian woman; Kilanko Yejide. It’s a very intriguing novel based on a young girl who was raped by her cousin when she was young and how she keeps the secret and how it affects her.

Thanks for reading.

Stay safe☺️