 Hey Co-Friends, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today, and today I just have one question for you guys. Um, are we over natural hair? Is the natural hair community like, y'all still there? You still out there? Because according to my timeline, my algorithm, it seems like a lot of people are over it. I feel like a lot of people are like giving up and don't want to deal with natural hair anymore. And I'm just like, how did we get here? I've been doing videos, making videos, having my channel for almost 10 years now. And I feel like we made so much progress and like, we were like gung-ho natural hair and like love yourself, love your hair. You can't tell me to straighten it. You can't tell me that only straight hair is beautiful. And then like, something happened in the mix. And now we're at a point where people are just like, I don't want to do it anymore. I just want to go back to my straight hair. And I'm just like, I don't know. I'm torn. I understand a lot of perspectives on the other side of wanting to give up. I totally get it, but it's kind of like, but we've worked so hard. I could just easily see this being another reoccurring cycle of everyone's origin stories of, I used to straighten my hair every day and now it's so damaged and it's not healthy and it's falling out. And I feel like everyone is starting to like forget how bad it was when their hair was chemically damaged or very heat damaged because they've been natural for so long that they almost like forgot the struggle on which they came out of. And I really don't care what you want to do with your hair to an extent. I just don't want to see you upset again. I just don't want you to feel like, oh, and I have to big chop and start all over again because that's a lot. It's a long process. So yes, it's a lot in itself, but trying to get it back is probably harder. So I thought we would just open up the conversation today, talk about some things I've been hearing online as I attempt two different curly hairstyles today. As some of you may know, this year I'm doing a curly hair challenge. I think I technically skipped two weeks. My last two videos, I don't think I did a hairstyle because I was trying new products and I like to see my hair down when I try new things. So let's try two hairstyles that I found on Instagram while we talk about this. The first hairstyle I'm going to do is a ponytail hack. Let me show you how a normal ponytail would look. And then we'll see if we like it better this new way. I'm using my Outchless Scrunchies, which are the greatest scrunchies of all time that have never popped on me. This is how a normal ponytail would look. What do we think? But now let's try the ponytail hack. This involves me pretending like I'm going to do a half up, half down, but then I'm going to bring the bottom layer and bring it on top of my ponytail. But okay, back to the topic at hand. Let's talk about the pros and cons of natural hair. Reasons why you may want to give up that I understand. One, it takes a lot of education. A lot of you have come a long way and you had to literally learn how to take care of your hair because there wasn't that much information out there or maybe your parents didn't know what to do. So you just were lost. So you're like, I'm over being in school. I'm an adult. I graduated. I'm tired of learning. Some of you are upset about the prices of curly hair products. It can get expensive. Yes. But at the same time, we are choosing the products that we want to pick. And if you keep buying high end products, then that's what you like. There are great affordable products out there too, but they might not work as well. And a lot of us are product junkies. So we don't even need any more hair products, but we still buy them because we feel like we do. And then you have like very persuasive influencers showing you new products every week. And I understand I am tempting you and I'm feeding into your urge of addiction. I apologize, but there's just so many ones out there and I still like wearing my hair natural. So when I find something new, I get excited and I share it with you. But I'm going to tell you right now, and this is not what brands want me to say. You don't have to buy every single product I ever recommend. I mean, that's just the truth. I like to give you guys options so you can try them so you don't waste your money on things that don't work. I'm your guinea pig. But as long as you find something that works for you, you don't have to keep buying the new one. Alright, now I'm going to take, so now I have my top ponytail. And now I'm going to take this bottom half, split it, and go on top. Then I'm flipping the hair back, putting it on top, like this. And then I think I'm putting them all together. This doesn't seem right. Where's the video? Okay, yeah, we're creating a second ponytail on top of the ponytail. It also is easier with some of these girls that have longer hair. Yes, my hair is long, but it's still not even as long as theirs. Alright, the ponytail out. I'm so bad at sections. Okay, hold on. Let's hide you. You stay there. I can get all the hair here and here. Okay, now I'm making another ponytail up here. Let's see what this does. Well, I don't think my hair is long enough. It just looks like a weird ponytail. I mean, I guess it's giving more height. It's kind of like a reverse double ponytail hack. Some of us may know you could do one ponytail up top and do a second ponytail underneath it to make it look longer. But I haven't tried this above ponytail situation. What do we think? Regular ponytail or above ponytail? I don't think this is it. Let me do the original ponytail hack where you make your ponytail look longer. Okay, more cons. Washingo's, whoever named Washingo's, Washingo's really just set up the whole natural hair community because you're starting off with unrealistic expectations. No one has ever washed their hair and went anywhere except went to their diffuser, their dryer, then they sat for an hour until their hair was dry. I understand. Wash day can be a long process, especially because naturally curly hair tends to be dryer. So we have to do things like deep condition and that can take a whole 20 to 30 minutes. People are doing hot oil treatments. There can easily be a lot of steps. I try to make my curly hair videos as simplified as possible. I recently added more products to my routine, but you still know I'm a one and done type of girl. If I can use one gel and no other product, cool. See now that looks even better, the elongated ponytail. That's the real hack for us with not as long hair as some of these Instagram videos. So you do one ponytail there, one ponytail there and then you just hide it. And now my ponytail looks so much longer. You can only do that above ponytail if your curls are super, super long. Now I'm going to try one more hairstyle. I really think we also got mixed up around like the diva curl phase because once you lose trust with people, it's really hard to get it back. And not only did that just affect the trust with diva curl, it kind of affected the trust with brands. Like some people get mad at me for working with curl smith and they're like, man, curl smith just feels like they're doing the same like diva curl marketing where everyone's talking about them. It's like, why are you mad at a brand for marketing correctly? Like you're saying you see them everywhere. That's literally what every brand should be doing. If no one's talking about your product, that's not a good marketing strategy. You want it to be in everybody's face. Everyone knows about you that has nothing to do with their ingredients or their products working. It's just good marketing. But everyone's like on edge. They're like, oh, I've seen it too much. It must, it's probably going to make my hair fall out. Like what is that correlation? There's none. And as we are now becoming more educated on the products that we use, now everyone's learning about ingredients and then you have half the community trying to understand the ingredients, trying to avoid certain ingredients that will dry out their hair or create buildup or whatever maybe. Then there's the other half of the natural community. This is like, I use what I want. I don't care. I don't read my hair is fine. I don't know. I just feel like lately it's been more trendy to be like anti. Anti of the good. Like at one point we were like pro natural hair, loving our hair, loving our curls. And now it's like more cool to be like, I ain't got time for curly hair. I must straighten it every day. And then like I just see people posted videos and like all the comments are just people like praising them for giving up and being over it. And that's like the cool thing. I also get people try to send me posts like silicone's not that bad, soul face not that bad, yada yada yada, parabens. There's no hard facts about cancer. So then they're like pro bad ingredients. I don't know. I just feel like you can't win anymore. Like you try to do your research to help people find products with good ingredients and then people get mad. But then if I would promote something with bad ingredients that actually did give you build up or did try out your hair, you also be mad at me. So I just, I just don't know what you guys want from me anymore. And I just feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place sometimes. Speaking of hard place, shout out to her. Today's actually her birthday. All right. This next hairstyle involves two braids in the front. I need some long pieces. Okay. Let's take this piece that long enough. Let's take this much. And then this piece right here. I also understand that there is some hesitance about caring about your curls and just going back to straight because sometimes people think that having their hair straight is just easier. Like, but people also say that about protective styles. I almost don't even care if your argument is like, I don't have time for curls. I'm just going to be in protective styles and braids forever. That's understandable. And I don't really, you know, that's fine at all. I just don't want you to go back to destroying your hair and then having to start over when you're over this new phase of wanting your straight hair back. That's all I want. So I'd much rather you have your hair and braids forever or maybe even weaves and like wigs and we never see your curls because you want to switch it up because your hair is not getting damaged in the meantime. But it's just really, really, really hard for me to like switch gears and encourage you to go back to one relaxers. I don't think I can ever endorse relaxers. The chemicals alone shouldn't should make you not want to do that again. It's just it's just intense straightening. You can get away with it. If you use a heat protector, if you do it correctly, you don't apply too much heat, but not every day. Just be careful. I just feel like we've worked so hard to go backwards. And even like this week, the Crown Day is coming and that is based off of a whole actual legislative act that was made to help people not be discriminated by their natural hair and protective styles. Like people are getting fired because they came to work with their hair curly or an Afro or in braids or in dreads or locks. Because that's how much discrimination is still left in America that we need a law that allows us to wear our hair the way it grows out of our head. Like that's crazy. We have things like this going on where we're still fighting to have curly hair. It's just hard to hear the people are like giving up when we're really trying to make some progress. And at the end of the day, the whole point is, yes, it's your hair. You should be able to do what you want with it. And if what makes you happiest is never seeing your curls again. I'm not telling you to be miserable. You know, I just want you to be safe. I don't really have the same experience as a lot of people. I understand that some people consider my hair the more desirable curly hair type. I totally understand that type four hair is a whole different beast compared to maybe looser curls like mine. But it's just like, I also think that type four hair in its natural state is also beautiful. I think that nobody can rock a like a legit twist out or band two knots like type four hair. But that is the hair texture that I feel like I hear the most complaints about. Or like it's just like the most hard. It's the hardest to maintain. So that's why you're like, I'm just over it. And I just rather press my hair every day. I don't know what to say. That's just what you want to do. But overall, this is this is what I think I just really want to get across is it's fine to want to switch up your hair because you want to switch up your hair and you're just over being natural because you've been natural for years now. But as long as you still don't believe that you are more beautiful or people will accept you more if you go back to a simulating to the more common look of straight hair, you can never convince me that curly hair isn't like the most unique hair type. We can have curls. We can make it bigger. We can shrink it. We can straighten it. So I understand why you'd want to explore all the versatility that your hair can do. But I just don't want us to fall back into the trap of thinking that you are not beautiful with your curly hair. And it's funny that a lot of the girls that are like over their natural hair are girls that literally have the word curly in their like screen name. And a lot of girls are like trying to drop the curl part in their name because one it's a very limiting brand thing. But it's like some of the most gung ho pro curly people are just done and maybe because they have done it for so long. If this is their new journey, I just hope it works out. And I hope it's like you can have your straight hair. And if you want to go back to curls, your curls are still there waiting for you at the door and still love you. I just don't want to see everybody walk around with damaged hair in a couple years because they got over it. That's all I'm saying. So main cons, the cost of products, the work it takes to understand the ingredients, the time it takes to detangle for wash and go to style. But for me, being someone that's always been natural and kind of skipped the whole relaxer phase and one to straighten my hair everyday phase, it's easier for me to do my curls. And if I want a straight look, it's just so much easier to buy a straight wig. I rather invest in a straight wig and pop that on in 10 seconds than have to blow dry my hair and then straighten it for two hours and then try to avoid sweating, humidity and rain all week long. Okay, now let me show you what I would do with these braids. So in this video I saw from Lana Summer, if you don't follow her, she is killing the hairstyle challenge. She's not even doing the hairstyle challenge but she is posting really cool styles everyday. But she got her two braids in the front. Then she put in the back and she crisscrossed it. And then she went underneath all of her curls. And then I think she tied these together, probably with a smaller scrunchie. And then ponytail look like this. Oh wow, that's really pretty. I did it. Look at that. The braid and like a little crisscrossed ponytail. Wow. I'm here for this look. I definitely should have done a middle part. That way this would look the same as this. But the braid part, that was really cute and really easy. Definitely try this one in Tag Band Instagram. But speaking of Instagram, I did go on my stories and I mentioned this topic of people just being over natural hair now. And I wonder if this is like the new move, the new trend where we're going. And I was like, okay, where does that leave me? Because I'm someone who's very team pro natural hair and that's the kind of content that I make. So like, do you guys don't want me to even talk about natural hair anymore? Or not. And then I recently got some comments and DMs of people saying like, they used to always have to straighten their hair because their parents told them to. They felt like they had to for school. They felt like they had to for work. They just never felt comfortable or beautiful in their curls. But then they found my channel and I was able to educate them on what to do. And now they like love their hair. It's the longest it's ever been. It's flourishing. They're so happy. So I like really needed those messages just to even encourage myself to keep going. Cause I felt like everybody was like giving up. So I had to just remember remind myself that there are those of you out there that still love your curly hair. Still want to learn about your curly hair or maybe your parent that really wants their kids to know how to take care of their hair and love their hair. Know that they don't have to change it to fit in to society. So thank you for those comments and those of you that tell me those types of stories. But let me know where you guys stand. Are you someone that's like over it because it takes too long. It's too expensive. It's just too much work. You rather just have your straight hair every day. Or are you someone that still loves their curls and they want to continue on this journey despite how long our wash days may be. But I'm also open to suggestions. If there's something that I can do to better help you guys to make you not want to give up on your natural hair. Let me know. One thing that I do think that I can do is even be more mindful of trying to promote more affordable products. I see that comment all the time. I hear you. I'm going to be trying some new brands to give you guys some different price ranges so that way you won't be as discouraged. And I also want to work on my word choices when I say curly hair rules or do's and don'ts because that could be taken the wrong way. But even if I do say that, that doesn't mean that you have to do that. There are no real rules to curls. They're just suggestions. And they're things that I have done that have definitely helped my hair and have helped other people watching. So I just know that your hair will thrive more if you do certain things or avoid certain things. So that's what I like to share. But just know that I am just a curly girl on YouTube. I am not in charge of your hair. You could take the information that I have or not. It's your hair. I just want to help. That's all I want to do. I'm just honestly really nervous right now. I'm nervous that we are going to start being anti-curly hair again. And everyone's going to love rocking their straight hair for maybe a couple years. And then you guys are going to realize how we got to this point. And your hair is not going to be as shiny or as long or as healthy as it is now before you give up. But if you are someone that is leaving the natural hair community, we will miss you. And I wish you the best on your journey. But I want to hear from you guys. Let's blow up the comments below. Let me know where you stand. Are you over your natural hair? Do you want to keep going over your natural hair? What do you want me to do to continue to encourage you to stay team curly before you switch sides? What's your opinion on some of these other big curly influencers not wanting to deal with curly hair at all? Leave all your thoughts below. If you enjoyed this curl talk, make sure you give me a thumbs up and subscribe. I post new videos every week. Well, before I say that, we are currently at the end of June. I'm going to try to give you guys maybe two more videos and then I think I'm going to pop. To be honest, right now I'm wearing a t-shirt because this is the only thing that fits me because I am now five weeks away from giving birth. Here's a little belly shot. This is how big I am. So I am getting to the point where I just want to nap and nest. I'm going to try to give you guys some more content, but this is a pretty farewell until post-postpartum. And then we will continue with more curly hair videos. Make sure you follow me on Instagram at MsBeyondGrenet to stay up to date on what I'm doing in my everyday life. You all can follow our family channel at rmbfam if you want to keep up with the baby when the baby arrives and all the new fun baby mommy stuff. I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching BeyondGrenet today.