Final Length Check (DAMAGE) and Big Chop...Bring on the 'Fro!

So I was sick to death of dealing with two textures of hair, especially with the relaxed ends being disgustingly DAMAGED.  I waited as long as I could, 7 months post-relaxer (transitioned) and Big Chopped on 7/27/2013.

These are the last photos of my relaxed ends.

This was my hair wet, looking super sad and stringy.  The relaxed ends are so thin, damaged (or gone) that you can clearly see through to my 'fro at the roots.  This is just so pathetic looking I hate to even show these pics (burn them all!) but hopefully it's helpful to someone.

This is my hair dry, luckily looks less sad and pathetic but still DAMAGED.  At least there seems to be a lot of new growth.

Then I parted my hair in the middle, clearly there's no hope in trying to see through to my scalp.

The view looking down onto the part.  Still can't find scalp (bring on the 'fro).

The back of my hair just looks like a rat's nest.  That was my attempt at parting all the way to separate hair in half.  Clearly didn't work.  Freaking RAT'S NEST!!!

I definitely can't take this hair any longer!!!

 

Looking like a troll doll (who remembers those?)

Before I went too crazy, I cut the crappy relaxed ends off!

The main event: DIY Big Chop

Half done with my big chop.  Took about an hour.

Oh yea, shoulda made this my new style.  Others would have totally copied the trend (yeah right!)

"Oh my, my hair is gone!" face.

You can do the math and figure that it took about 2 hours to big chop my full head (because half my head took 1 hour times 2 halves equals a whole...).

There's the hair, on the floor.

Hair from round two of the chop, hadn't cut down far enough and still had some stray straight bits.  (Currently on round 4 or 5, darn those straight bits [shaking fists]!)

Fro shots with conditioner in it.  After my big chop I co-washed my hair.

The day after the big chop:

I rinsed my hair and tried this ecostyler gel that every natural hair guru's always talking about (I used the Olive oil kind).

2 days post big chop:

I did basically the same thing as the day before except for 1 added step.  I rinsed my hair, added coconut oil, and then ecostyler gel (olive oil).  The gunk in my hair is the gel which had not yet dried.

From what I can tell so far, ecostyler gel doesn't necessarily define my curls (my hair mostly just looks afro'd, there's random curls in my hair [that I love] but not many, I'm hoping that this is scab hair and after a while all my hair will grow out like the curly bits) it just tames my 'fro.

I took these photos, then I totally put on a scarf (tied like a headband) and went to work.

So there it is, I now have natural hair!  I can't say that I like my twa (teeny weeny afro) on me (can't wait until it grows big enough for a proper puff), but it's definitely much more tolerable than transitioning, and hopefully I'll be able to keep my natural hair much healthier than I could my relaxed hair.  I'll keep you posted :-)

*Natural since August 2013 (rounded up)

**Relaxer free since January 2013