Love Your Black Hair Story

-- Take it from ESSENCE Beauty Director Aretha M. Busby:
You can braid it, relax it, twist it, shave it, curl it, press it-
as long as you rock it with confidence --

"In a world where the ideal standard of beauty has brainwashed some of our young women of color, affecting their self- esteem, it's important to us to show that our uniqueness, imperfections and life journeys (the good and the bad) not only make us beautiful but showcase our strength."

- Cipriana Quann, natural hair blogger and co- founder of Urban Bush Babes: http://urbanbushbabes.com/

love your black hair story means the world to me because even though i love my hair now, it took me a really long time to get there.

growing up in beautiful berlin, where most of my friends and the people in my environment got straight european hair, my curly afro constantly was kind of an eye- catcher, reminding me of the fact that i was a tiny bit different than everybody else. i love that now, but as a little girl or teen girl 'being different' is generally not a thing you strive for.

some might say 'it' s just hair', well yes it is, of course, but it is also part of how we present ourselves to the world and constantly being insecure about such a visual part of yourself can be really tough at times.

when i was a little girl i loved to play hairdresser but never was i the customer getting her hair done. i had to be the one doing the other girls' hair because nobody knew how to treat mine.

it was kind of funny back then but never would i've guessed that even now, 20 years later, it would still be hard to find someone with the knowledge about how to handle my 'fro.

don't misunderstand me, i always have been and still am like a very happy positive person, but regarding my hair i had the feeling that i didn't quite fit in for a very long time.

i didn't like that my hair in it's natural form always looked kind of wild and was so hard to tame into a pretty style.

even though everybody around me loved my hair and told me it was beautiful, i started straightening it when i was about fifteen. luckily mostly without a relaxer and only with a flat iron,  i tried to make my hair look as similar to most of my friends european hair as possible.

getting older and meeting a lot of new people opened my mind and i started to rethink my definition of how my hair had to look like- but i wasn't there yet and the straightenig went on for a while.

i don't know the exact turning point but step by step the desire to wear my hair all natural grew in me and here i am today still getting to know the crown on my head.

i have to admit, that to me instagram was like a real treasure chest. starting to go natural i had no clue what's good and healthy for my hair but i found so many gorgeous women blogging about natural hair and teaching me from a distance how to treat mine.

not to get confused, i don't think that only natural hair is beautiful!

as i quoted above, it is just about rocking whatever style you go for with pride!

inspiration is very important to me and i want to try to share mine on this blog via feature friday.

as the name itself says i wanna use this feature to introduce you to someone or something who/ which inspires me whether it is a person or a blog.

i'm going to do this, carrying the big hope that it get's to you as it got to me and giving you, whoever you are wherever you are or whatever it is you want to do the power to just go do it!

in the U.S. there's like a whole scene about the subject of black womens hair and i am really hoping that some day soon we'll have something like that back here in my beloved germany.

spoiler alert, of course we already got some fabulous girls, covering that theme, but we gonna get to that on feature friday.

ps. and then DRAKE says he likes your curly hair ...  #shamelessfangirl #evendrakelikescurlyhair