Choosing a Natural Hairstyle – For Black Women

What are some of the natural hairstyles for black women? There are so many out there: just going to YouTube will reveal many and sometimes leave you confused after hours of watching videos. The style that works for you is another story.

The style or styles could depend on one or more of these three things: Depending on your hair type, where you are in your natural hair journey, and your day job, the styles available to you might be a whole lot or just a few.

Let’s talk about Tonya. Tonya’s journey started when she did the big chop around 4 years ago. She’d always worn a perm, and now was preparing to manage her own natural 4C hair. According to the scale on black hair textures, 4C is the most curly and kinky of all the types. Although it’s the most challenging to manage, it has the most density and body.

As Tonya’s 4C hair grew, she started watching these videos for inspiration. Tonya wasn’t the type that did her own hair, so her transition to doing the basics like twist-out braids and cornrows were a bit challenging. Over the months, her hair had grown long enough for short twist-outs, but the results didn’t always turn out how she imagined or saw in the videos. Braiding her hair almost every work night and taking it out and styling it in the morning was no small feat.

Tonya was a consultant at a technology company and so she wanted her hair to look good each day for customer visits. Her choices were:

Some Natural Hair Style Choices

• Keep the hair short and well moisturized with natural hair care products
• Keep growing it with twist-outs and getting used to feeling like the result could be better
• Keep it short and color it blonde- this was probably not a very good idea at the time because she was worried about how she might be perceived by her clients
• Braid the hair with hair extensions- she thought this was going to be ill received
• Wear wigs till her hair grows long enough for more styles

Are there more options for Tonya? Sure!

There are always many options available. But then again, her hair texture, her journey, and work might limit what works for her.

Do you have an option that Tonya could have tried? Maybe there’s another person reading hits post that could benefit from it.