ByAliaHey there! I go by the name Elozino but most people just call me Zino. I lived in Nigeria until I moved just recently (2019) to Melbourne, Australia where the weather can switch up on you at any moment. I’m currently a Highschool Science student in year 12.
I find this story a very interesting one to tell because it had a huge impact on my lifestyle, I became natural just about two years ago and one may wonder why… Well after I spent 15 years with relaxed and badly damaged hair I decided to make a change. In Nigeria it was a common thing for parents to relax their kids’ hair because it was “easier” to handle and much faster to get kids hair done since they hated sitting down for hours. Alternatively if the parents couldn’t handle the hair at all they would make the child cut off their hair for their own convenience. My parents relaxed my hair all my life and my hair never grew past nose length (I kid you not), this made me have a nonchalant attitude towards catering for my hair because I felt no matter what I did it would never grow and so many other children at that time shared this belief, the belief that Nigerian hair couldn’t grow. This idea changed when I found a Nigerian Youtuber @seunokimi on Instagram and Youtube, who helped me realize that my hair could actually grow and made me love my hair and that was when I finally decided to go natural. Although it was not easy at all, I do not regret a thing.
OMG! Yes, I’ve cut my hair thrice in the span of 12 years. I got my first haircut when I was about 3, my mum did this because she was very busy at that time and the easiest option for her was to cut my hair, I looked adorable though! The second time I cut my hair super short was when I was about going into a boarding school and because it was a boarding school there were no hairstylists around so we were asked to cut our hair before coming to school, in fact it was a requirement to get into the school but after a year there I left that school to go to a new school which allowed me to let my hair out. After some months of letting my hair grow out, I began to miss the feeling of being lightheaded and just that fresh air that soothes your scalp so I decided to get my haircut again. After that, I never cut my hair again, fast forward 4-5 years later I decided to transition to being natural. It was so hard. I fell into the temptation of perming it but after enough encouragement from my friends, I overcame it. The biggest problem that I had was trying to keep up with my routine wash days and also buying hair products, they can be so expensive! And frankly speaking, I don’t think I would have been able to do it without the support of my mum because I simply wouldn’t be able to keep up with buying the hair products for myself. The funny
thing is I never did the big chop, my hair just healed from the damage I had done to it and it became fully natural after a year and a half. Ever since then it’s been all groovy for me 🙂
I have very thick, low porosity and high density hair. Finding this out didnt come as a shock to me being that i already knew I had type 4C hair and my coils were very tight and the battle of trying to make them look defined like type 3 hair was so tough, it took me so much time to love my type 4 hair and accept myself the way that I am, but once I began to love my hair each difficulty that I had overcome seemed to be worth it for the confidence that I now had. Yes my hair is “poofy” as some would say but that poofiness is part of what I represent, it tells a story and unknowingly inspires more people to want to wear their natural hair out more often.
I’m a lazy natural as some would call it, I use the Cantu shea butter sulfate-free cleansing cream shampoo which has worked really well for me. I condition with the Cantu shea butter for natural hair hydrating cream conditioner and also use the Cantu for Natural Hair Leave-In Conditioning Cream. Now I know the Cantu brand has been quite controversial in the natural hair community but it really works well for me, I don’t do many natural hairstyles because I’ve found that protective styles add some inches to my hair and it gives room for less manipulation. The most I’ve done for styling my natural hair is wearing it in a high puff or an afro, for the high puff I use the ‘eco styler’ gel and the ‘she is bomb’ edge control to lay my edges, and for the afro, I just use a wide-tooth comb to create volume.
My favourite hairstyles include a high bun and wearing it in an afro. As for the high bun I find it easier to do and it doesn’t take a long process to get done. It’s really handy for those days where I’m in a rush.
The things that had the most impact on my natural hair journey would be the “African chebe powder” and protective styles. As I previously mentioned, I love protective styles and basically, that’s all I wear most of the time because it gives room for your undergrowth to come out properly and it helps me exercise patience which I think is another key thing every natural need to have. The African chebe powder can be really messy and doesn’t really have a wonderful smell but the length it added to my hair is remarkable. It can be gotten from any natural hair shop and it goes under different brands just the way the African black soap is.
A major NO NO would be using coconut oil on my hair, I’ve heard it works for some people but never has it worked for me, and another thing for me is that leaving my hair out in its natural state for too long makes my hair break, I lose quite a lot of inches because it isn’t in a protective style. In my opinion protective styles are just the best for our natural hair and let’s not forget our hair also deserves a break too, too much of a good thing can also become a bad thing 😉
You can always message me for more in-depth advice on natural hair issues and any further questions you may have. You can find me at @kah__ren on Instagram.
