WHAT DOES THE BIG CHOP MEAN?

Before I go ahead and explain what the big chop means to me, let me start with a general definition. In short, the term big chop describes the process of cutting off your chemically straighten hair to let it grow in its natural texture.

This is a term that’s most commonly used by people of African descent. The big chop is part of the natural hair movement which encourages women and men of African descent to embrace and wear their natural hair. The term originated in the United States during the 60s and has been regaining momentum in the 2000s.

MY HAIR TYPE

I have 4c hair. So basically I have extremely tight curls. From what I can tell, bearing in mind I have not really seen my natural hair for years, my hair is also pretty thin and low porosity.

WHEN AND HOW DID I BIG CHOP?

Now, there are different ways to go about doing the big chop. For the brave ones, this will involve cutting off all your chemically relaxed hair, no matter how long your natural hair is, to only keep the part of your hair that’s natural. Think Michaela Coel or Solange Knowles.

In my case, I went for the second option which is also called transitioning. Essentially, transitioning means that you stop chemically altering your hair, and let your natural hair grow out so that you can big chop once you are comfortable with the length of your natural hair. Some people can transition for years, this wasn’t for me either. I lasted a few weeks short of my one-year mark.

So after nearly a year of transitioning to natural hair, I chopped my hair off on May 11th, 2018 – three days before my move to Spain. This wasn’t planned at all. Initially, the plan had been to transition for one more year and cut off my relaxed ends whenever I felt confident with my new length.

But after wearing my hair in braids for a month, and struggling to wash my hair thereafter, when the hairdresser and my flatmate suggested I should just cut my relaxed hair off and start afresh in Spain, I decided to take the plunge. My hair is now the shortest it has ever been in years, and I am feeling all kinds of ways.

FROM RELAXED TO NATURAL HAIR

As far as I can remember, I relaxed my hair from a very young age. I never really questioned why my hair never grew past a certain length or why it always looked so dull and lifeless. To me, my hair never mattered, I just needed it to get my braids or weaves installed. I never put any thoughts into doing my hair. I basically hated my hair.

It was as if I was in auto-pilot mode, I would do my hair every 3 months or so when it’d become socially unacceptable to walk around with basically months of build-up dirt on my head – glamorous I know. I would then make my way to any hairdressers I could find and begin the process all over again: wash (with no conditioning or treatment whatsoever) relax, install braid or weave, keep for months and start again.

CREATING NEW BLACK ROLE MODELS

I can’t stress enough the importance of having role models to look up to and learn from. That’s also why I dedicated one section of my blog to Women of Colour. In my formative years, my obvious lack of role models when it came to hair care clearly played a massive part in me neglecting my hair.

My mum, bless her, had no clue what to do with her hair, let alone mine. On top of that, I am on only child and all the women I could have looked up to in my family either lived abroad or did not really do much with their hair either. It wasn’t until I started paying interest to other black women online that I discovered the whole new world of afro hair care.

As luck would have it, this also shortly coincided with me meeting the woman that would later become my flatmate - Vanessa. Spending time with someone who had been natural for over 5 years and who could share her personal experience with me made it all a lot more achievable. With her, I started unpicking the reasons why I never felt comfortable wearing my natural hair.

With time, I realized that wearing my hair “straight” was a protection mechanism and a way to fit in. Although, I had always said I never wanted to wear my hair natural because of how difficult it would be to maintain it, deep down it was a lot more complex than that and fed into my insecurities.

In recent years, I've been so inspired to see a lot more black women rocking their natural hair. Before that, there was some kind of a tacit understanding among the black community that straight hair was somewhat the norm. Not for everyone one of course, but in general straight hair was seen as more desirable I think. However, the natural hair movement rebirth has been instrumental in getting me and other women to think about our hair and its hidden significance.

WHAT DOES the BIG CHOP MEANS TO ME?

Even though I have only been natural for 24 hours now – albeit currently wearing braids as I was still not ready to rock my TWA (in case you are wondering, this what a TWA natural hair is)– I thought I would sum up what the big chop means to me. In simple words, the big chop means finally embracing my hair texture and unlearning a lot of bad habits when it comes to my perception of beauty. It also means making peace with myself and once and for all accepting and nurturing the beautiful legacy of being the product of generations and generation of Africans.