Why I Big Chopped?

No, this isn’t a post about why I went back to my natural unprocessed hair.  This is a post about why I chopped it off instead of transitioning.  I get this question often, so here’s my answer.

I Big Chopped (BC’ed) because I don’t have patience.  It’s that simple.  I was not concerned with length because I’d never had super short hair before and I thought it would be a great new experience for me.  I loved every minute of it too!

Wash and go!

The last week of December 2002, I cut my armpit length relaxed hair to 1 -2 inches of scissor cut natural hair.  This picture was about three weeks after the initial chop, I have no idea what was in my hair, I will assume it was Paul Mitchell’s foaming pomade.  I used that religiously along with Black N Sassy creamy set to define my coils.  My styling product options were very slim back then. LOL.

Before I chopped, I researched natural hair for about 2 years.  Yep!  I looked around the internet for pictures of hair that looked similar to my relaxed hair trying to get an idea about what my hair would look like unprocessed.  Having not seen my unrelaxed hair since I was 13 years old, I looked a pictures of people with kinks, naps, and coils I thought my hair would either be like Amel Larrieux or India.Arie.  I had several inches of new growth, but as many come to find out after they chop, that is not a real indicator of how your hair will be once it’s free from the relaxed hair that I call “dead weight.”

So no, I had no idea what I was getting when I made the chop.  None at all.  It really didn’t matter, all I knew is that I wanted to cut that crap off of my head and get to know me.

It really was that simple for me.  I’m not very insecure about my looks, I never have been.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things about my physical appearance that I don’t like, it just means that vanity isn’t my issue.

The other reason I chopped my hair was because after reading forums like Nappturality, I realized that, for me, getting to know my hair from the very beginning was the better option.  There wasn’t a ton of information out there in the early 2000’s.  Even though people transitioned back then, the easiest, most prevalent route seemed to be the Big Chop.

I haven’t chopped my hair since 2003, but I plan on doing it again soon, now that I’m armed with information, I know that  I can do it better this time.