Who is This Natural Woman?: One Hairdo's Journey Back From Chemical Dependence

Chunks of hair flew everywhere, littering the bathroom sink and floor.

I channeled Edward Scissorhands while chopping off my silky, long bob three years ago, hoping that the faster I snipped the less I would think about the possibly horrendous outcome.

It was an anxious excitement. The kind a girl might feel right before a first date.

Only this time, it was more of a reunion.

I hadn't seen the natural texture of my hair since I was 11 years old, when my tresses were first chemically straightened. That day I was inducted into a historical league that thousands of black women and their hair know all too well -- a rite of passage that subconsciously taught us that beauty was synonymous with pain and that our hair needed to be "fixed" to be beautiful.

Hair stylists might as well have been obstetricians, coaching us to breathe as we fought back tears, telling us to hold on for "five more minutes" while lye or other chemicals fire-danced across our scalps.

And that was just the first 45 minutes. There would be several more hours and countless more Saturdays to keep our hair "dyed, fried and laid to the side," as my aunt would say.

Frustrated with time, torment or cost, more black women are making the same decision that I made to "go natural" -- i.e., forsaking relaxers that alter kinky roots into stringy submission and cutting off chemically treated ends.

Nowadays it seems trendy, as advertisements increasingly include models with curly manes and gigantic Afros.

Celebrities have hopped on the natural-hair bandwagon this year, from Solange Knowles, an R&B songstress and Beyonce's younger sister, who shaved her head in July, to Chris Rock dissecting the black hair industry in his documentary "Good Hair," released earlier this month.

But don't believe all of the media hype; going natural is no frivolous feat. It takes perseverance to remain confident and simultaneously research how to maintain a traditionally castigated hair texture.

When I first stared in the mirror with a fuzzy, near-buzz cut, I thought: "Who is this girl looking back at me?"

Friends and family had questions about my new identity too.

"How do you expect to be viewed as a professional?" my mother asked.

"You'll look like a lesbian," a male friend said.