How To Go Natural: Big Chop vs Transitioning

Source: Seventeen.com

Hey guys! How has your weekend been? 

I've gotten a few questions from people who want to go natural so I want to give a summary to anyone who is thinking of going natural and isn't sure how to go natural or which way to. 

There are basically 2 ways of going natural. You can either transition or big chop. 

TRANSITIONING 

Transitioning means growing out your natural hair before cutting off the relaxed ends. 

You can transition anywhere from 3 months to 3 years, it really depends on you.  While transitioning, it is important to trim your relaxed ends as often as once a month so as to reduce breakage, split ends and tangling. 

You also have to take extra care of the line of demarcation/ separation, which is where your relaxed hair and your natural hair meet as this part of your hair is very prone to breakage.

Source

Pros: 

1. If you're not ready to have short hair or you don't think you'll like short hair, transitioning is the way to go. 

2. I think one of the pros of transitioning is that the hair that breaks is your relaxed hair and not your natural hair so a lot of people who transition end up retaining a lot of length by the time they finish transitioning. 

Cons: 

1. You have to learn deal with 2 different hair textures. 

2. You need to reduce heat usage so as to avoid heat damage. This can be hard especially since you have 2 different textures and you want them to blend. 

You can read some tips for transitioning here & here


BIG CHOP 

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This means cutting all your relaxed hair off. I big chopped after about 4 months of transitioning. 

Pros: 

1. You will only be dealing with your natural texture with no straight ends.

2. You can get to know your hair and learn how to take care of it especially if you have short hair. 

3. Having short natural hair saves time and is quite low maintenance.

Cons: 

1. You can't do a a lot of styles with really short hair.

2. You might not like how you look with short hair. If you don't, you can just wear a wig or get a protective style like braids or twists until you 'fro grows a bit. 

I hope this helps anyone who is trying to decide or has made the decision to go natural. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!! 

Oyime :)