Me circa 2006

Me and this hair of mine have been on a mighty bumpy ride over the years. As I’ve written about before, I’ve been on a loc journey for almost 10 months and the whole experience has been eye opening, frustrating at times, but definitely worth it. To see what my hair is capable of doing without me meddling in its growth is captivating to me, and after years of doing too much and too little to my hair, I’ve realized that locs are perfect for me. Why? Well, in these early stages, aside from retwisting a few fuzzy locs, when I get up in the morning, I don’t have to do much at all anymore. And that makes me happy, because I can be extremely lazy. And I think it was that laziness that was the downfall of my hair for all these years that it was struggling to grow past my shoulders.

I’ve been natural for almost two years now, and before then, I had put every form of chemical in my head that you could think of: regular relaxers, texturizers, permanent hair color, etc. Tell people that I was using that creamy crack like that these days and they’ll be sure to give me the boo boo face and point out all the negative things it allegedly did to my hair. And by all accounts, while shiny and straight, my hair was struggling. Hair at the nape of my neck was broken, my hair wouldn’t grow past a certain point (once again, my shoulders), it was often dry, and I was shedding like a dog just trying to figure out a hairstyle. But when I look back on the tiring experience of trying to keep a relaxer in my hair consistently and trying to keep my hair in tact after the fact, I honestly believe that the reason my hair was broke, busted and disgusted was because of my own lack of serious maintenance to it.

While having a discussion about hair with my coworkers just this morning, I reminisced about my many bad hair days and I noticed that the ongoing trend in each of my hair stories would be that I was doing too much or too little to my locks. Let me keep it real: After a week of rocking freshly relaxed hair, I would wear a ponytail damn near five days out of the week. The ponytail might have stopped at a different place (higher when I was trying to be cute, lower when I was just trying to get out the house on time, to the side when I was doing THE most), but it was strapped tight on my head and covered in half a tub of Pro Styl brown gel. If I was trying to do something different, I would wet my hair and then put gel on it to play like I had wavy locks. I would have those ponytails in so tight that they would leave a ferocious dent in my hair every night. And even though my mother consistently warned me that the continuous ponytail look would be the death of my hair, I had no time (in my opinion) to try anything more elaborate.

When I did try to jazz things up, I just made things worse. During my early years of high school I was single-handedly trying to bring the flip curl back, so every morning I was in the bathroom, curling iron on FLAME as far as temperature, curling the end of my hair, and throwing some bangs in the front. To top it all off (and break it all off too), I would spray some holding spray on my head and hit the streets. I had every kind of high powered curling iron, flat iron, crinkle iron and more, and every morning I could smell my hair burning as I rolled it around the barrel. Healthy head of hair? Anything but.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, not only were the relaxers I put in my head not done consistently, as in every six weeks (child please, I relaxed my hair three times a year, maybe four if I had some extra money), but I would often do nothing to protect my hair at night. When I wasn’t rolling around with my bare hair falling out on a cotton pillow, I was putting on a gel-stained cotton bandana that was doing just as much damage. I barely knew how to wrap my hair, and when I was feeling really lazy and didn’t want to figure out what direction I would wrap my hair in, I would just put a few rollers on it and hit the sack (of course they wouldn’t stay in).

As you can see people, when it came to my hair, I was living foul.

When I think back on all those years of gel, and spray, and heat, and deadly ponytails, I was doing more damage to my hair than any perm could really do. Half of the battle to healthy hair is maintenance, and mine consisted of Blue Magic and hoping for the best. I was doing length checks for hair I was half -a**ed taking care of, but expecting better and longer results. Honestly, the last time my relaxed hair was done and done well was by the hands of my mother waaay back when, and I can attest to the fact that when she was taking care of it for all those years before I got experimental and then bored, my hair was draping–and healthy. I cared so little about my hair as I grew up that it was no wonder I didn’t mind when I made the decision to cut it all off and start over.

I could sit here, and others can sit here and bash relaxers for days based on their personal experiences, but sometimes you have to be honest with yourself about the part you actually play in the damage that’s done to your head. It’s very possible to have long and luscious relaxed hair, but it takes more effort than walking out of the salon and hoping the layers and neat-ness of it all will stay in place for more than just a week. The beautician can’t do it all. And at the time, I wasn’t ready nor willing to put in the effort necessary. But after years of watching my hair struggle, I decided to stop hoping my hair would work itself out on its own and actually decided to do right by it. I’m a reformed hair slacker, and while my hair isn’t perfect, it’s in a MUCH better place than it used to be. *whips locs*

At some point or another, many consumers have experienced combing through store aisles in search of a specific product. Not necessarily the shampoo that you always use, but a different product that you’re sure will do more effective wonders. For Landra Johnson and Kristi Booker — sisters and founders of CARA B Naturally — this was the case back in 2005.

“When the idea blossomed there were lots of baby products on the market that were organic and natural. However, none of them spoke to my needs as the mother of an ethnic baby,” said Johnson.

In search of all-natural hair and skincare baby products that were void of toxins, gentle and that had more moisturizers, Johnson found herself in a promising position.

“I couldn’t find it, so I decided to make it and here we are today,” she said. “We are the first and only natural line of skin and hair care for the ethnic market, “ Booker added. “Our product line is designed with babies and children in mind so we wanted to create something that was effective for our children and certified by the Natural Products Association.”

The Natural Way

CARA B Naturally, an acronym for Children Are Always Beautiful, Naturally —produces skin and hair products for babies and children including shampoo/body wash, leave-in conditioner, hair moisturizer, lotion and bar soap. All of the products are made without the addition of harmful chemicals. Though the founders claim not to be scientists, they do stay up-to-date on studies that relate to chemically infused products — one of them being the controversial 2011 Johnson & Johnson Quaternium-15 campaign.

Thought by the World Health Organization and others to be connected to leukemia; the formaldehyde-releasing toxin drama is encouragement for Johnson and Booker to do without skeptical ingredients. Interestingly enough, when it comes to explaining how difficult it is to run a business like CARA B Naturally, Johnson draws a parallel to raising kids.

“For all those that are mothers, we know that being a parent is very demanding; having a business is like having yet another child. The only way to maintain your business is to be passionate about it,” added Johnson. ”We had challenging careers prior to starting our business. You cannot be a successful entrepreneur if you’re not all-in.”