Growing up in a Dominican family, getting my hair done at the salon every week was natural to me. I lived through my childhood and teenage years straightening my hair at least every two weeks. Recently, however, I decided to quit altogether.

As I grew older, I became conscious of my compulsive habit and realized it was disgusting and detrimental to the health of my hair. Nonetheless, the decision I made back in March was hard for two reasons – I no longer had curly hair, so whenever I attempted to literally wash and go I would get a dull, puffy and knotted mess that not even I wanted to see; and not going to the salon every week was almost a sin in my family. I wanted to explore a bit with my natural curly hair; and greatly admired the perfect curls I saw on the Internet, thinking I just didn’t have “that type of hair”. After too many YouTube binge sessions on curly girls’ channels, I finally mustered the courage to try something new, and not give up until I got the results I wanted.

So without further ado, here are the top 8 reasons why I decided to go natural:

• Hair salons are extremely expensive.
• I spent $25 (including tip) at the salon every week – that’s $1,300 a year – not including purchasing my own products and hair trims in between. Had I saved all that money, I would be in a resort in Punta Cana right now.
• I seriously do not have time.
• Going to the salon meant that I had to sacrifice my only day off – wake up early and spend the whole day there – just to come back home hours later and feel bad about how bad my hair came out anyway, or how damaged my hair actually was under all that silky straight. I’d rather spend my day off sleeping in first of all, and then doing more productive things, other than sitting in a hot hair salon full of women losing their minds about the newest keratin treatment none of us could afford either way.
• My hair is WAY healthier.
• The last two to three times I visited the hair salon, my hair looked and felt very dull. This worried me a lot, because I had never seen my hair so tired of heat. My hair has always been a fine smooth and shiny, so I knew I was in deep trouble. It turns out that now my hair looks and feels even softer and healthier than before, not to mention how fast it is growing – which leads me to my next point:
• Heat damage is the reason why I was not reaching my length goals.
• Every little girl wants her hair down at her waist. I was so obsessed with that goal that I planned how my hair would grow every month and how often I would have to trim it to reach my goal. After a few years, I realized that I was never going to reach my goal if I kept frying my hair with heat tools.
• Bad weather? No problem.
• This one might sound a little silly, but if you ever go natural you will remember me. Sometimes it’s raining out and I forgot my umbrella, or it’s foggy, or humid, and it will not be a problem at all. My hair will handle the weather due to all the anti-frizz products I have to use anyway.
• Why not be a little stubborn when it comes to social norms?
• I must say I’ve always been stubborn about everything. The more you pressure me to be a certain way, the less likely it is for you to reach your goal. So I pretty much got fed up by the “requirement” to have perfect hair all the time.
• Life is too short to have boring hair.
• Seriously, who wants to look exactly the same every week? Definitely not me anymore! I have fun just thinking about all the different hairstyles I can do with my hair now that it isn’t always flat and essentially volume-less.
• I wanted to challenge myself to try something new and stick to it.
• I’m usually a quitter – at everything. I had tried going natural a lot of times, and literally gave up just after getting that ugly mess twice. I am very proud of myself for holding on for three months!

Going natural has certainly been a very hard process. My family and friends still ask when I will straighten my hair again, especially when there’s a special event that I should look “on fleek” for. Some days my hair is so frizzy that I just want to wear a hat and go on about my day. A lot of my hair has also fallen out because of the two different textures I’m dealing with. Some days I wash my hair and don’t see the curls I crave so deeply. I have thought of giving up lots of times, but then I remind myself that commitment is sticking to something even after the original feeling you had when you made that decision is long gone.

Challenge yourself to try something new today, stick to it and you will eventually see results. Persistence is what cuts through the rock!