My Big Chop Experience, And Why I Wouldn’t Do it Again

Go ahead and big chop they said, it’ll be liberating, they said…. well nobody said that it would be the hardest part of my natural hair journey to date.

Before I big chopped I was transitioning for about 8 months. Transition wasn’t hard for me because I always wore my hair in some sore of protective style, so my natural hair was never really exposed for long periods of time.

I thought if I cut off all of the relaxer I would speed up the growth process, so that’s what I did. I scheduled my appointment, and the day of my appointment I took a shot because I was a bit nervous to do what I was about to do.

When I got to the salon and sat down in the chair the stylist took a look at my hair and then asked me if I was sure.

I gave her a quizzical, yes. I mean, obviously if I made it that far then I was sure. She then proceeded to warn me that I would be shocked at first because of shrinkage. She said if I wasn’t used to seeing myself with a short haircut then I needed to be prewarned.

I thanked her for the advice, which did nothing but kill my buzz and make me even more anxious. I told her to just go ahead and cut it all off because I was already in the chair and was tired of going back and forth. So that’s just what she did.

When she was finished I had a mix of emotions. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or scream or both. The stylist literally cut off all of the relaxer, and didn’t try to shape it into a style or anything.

I mean, granted, that is what I asked for, but I just wasn’t expecting it to look so blunt, the shock of it all was literally an understatement.

In hindsight, I probably should have just kept protective styling a bit…