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Sanaa Lathan hair

Source: Dominik Bindl / Getty

In 2017, actress Sanaa Lathan chopped off her hair for her role in Netflix’s Nappily Ever After. The moment was captured in the film, with the star taking an electric razor to her strands. Three years later, her hair growth has been pretty astounding.

The 49-year-old took to Instagram on Thursday to share an unfiltered look at her hair now, seemingly blown out and sitting freely on her gorgeous head. She gave the secret to how it’s managed to grow back like a weed in the time since she did the big chop, citing “Protective styles, braids and almost no heat.”

She told Entertainment Weekly after shaving her hair that not only cutting her hair off for the role, but just playing the character of Violet in Nappily Ever After in general changed the way she viewed her own strands.

“I am loving it. Even though I was intellectually aware and knew that my natural hair was on par with any European hair, I still am a victim of the conditioning,” she said in 2018. “There are days — I have a short, what I call #twa tiny, weenie, afro and there are days when I wish I had hair. Then there are days when I’m loving this. It feels so me now. It feels so the new me and I’m still a woman, I still have insecurities and doubts about myself at times, but I definitely feel like me doing what they call ‘the big chop’ has kind of seeped into my outlook on life, my perspective on life in terms of kind of taking more risks and stepping outside whatever boxes I have put myself in or society has put me in. It’s definitely kind of started that conversation for me internally.”

Now Lathan not only has a changed perspective, but she also has big, healthy hair again. Check out the star in the protective styles that gave her hair the space it needed to grow, and in her growing afro, by hitting the flip.

Sanaa Lathan hair

Source: Paras Griffin / Getty

Soon after Lathan cut off her hair for the role, she showed off a crisply shaven head while celebrating the film in Atlanta.

ATLANTA, GA – SEPTEMBER 30: Actress Sanaa Lathan at “Nappily Ever After” wrap party at Suite Lounge on September 30, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images)

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