Grab your favorite beverage and get cozy because I'm going to spill the tea on how I lost my waist-length hair.

For starters, I had a lot of hair trauma.

I grew up hearing that my hair was "bad." So much so that I actually began to believe it. I thought textured hair was textured because it was damaged and that it wasn't supposed to look the way it naturally does. All my life, relaxers were presented as the solution. The way to tame my hair and make it "manageable."

I'm an Afro-Latina Dominican woman with 3C/4A kinky curly hair, and for most of my life, I was never taught how to properly care for my hair outside of heat styling and chemical straightening. I didn't know how to moisturize it, protect it, or understand it. I only knew how to control it and hide the damage.

It wasn't until my twenties that I decided to see what would happen if I stopped relaxing my hair. When my natural roots started coming in, I noticed something I had never experienced before. My roots felt really curly.

I started telling my family to feel my roots and insisting that I had curly hair. Considering I had straightened my hair literally my entire life, they lowkey thought I was delusional.

Fast forward to 2020, I finally bit the bullet and did a big chop. And honestly, I was in for a very rude awakening. Once I cut my hair, I saw my true texture for the first time. I was right. My hair was very curly. What I didn't have was any idea what to do with it. Or what low porosity even meant.

Between 2020 and 2025, that desperation led me to make decisions that completely reversed my progress.

I decided to get a keratin treatment because I still wanted manageable hair. What I didn't realize at the time was that it was not what my hair needed.

The keratin made my curls look like ramen.

I couldn't save it all at once, so I started cutting my hair little by little as the damage showed itself. I tried to "fix" it by getting curly cuts, thinking that shaping my curls would help remove the damage or spring the curls back up.

Instead, I just kept cutting shorter and shorter because my ends were giving brillo pad.

What started as trims turned into major cuts. Over time, I went from waist-length hair to chin-length hair.

That alone was devastating. I know some of you understand the level of hurt once you achieve a certain length and have to chop it all off. That's why if you're reading this, this is your sign to go get a trim. Regular trims would've saved me so much heartbreak.

During this period, my wash routines were still ridiculous. I was overwhelmed, frustrated, and honestly over it. Because I was desperate, I kept putting my trust in stylists who failed me. I was constantly told to get another keratin, try a smoothing treatment, or just relax my hair again.

Nothing worked.

Because my hair was cut in uneven lengths and constantly being reshaped, I wasn't properly moisturizing it. I continued doing wash and gos without knowing how to actually hydrate my hair. My hair became dry, brittle, and started snapping. It felt like literal hay.

I turned to the internet hoping for answers, but instead found recycled advice and surface-level tips about low porosity hair. Everyone was repeating what to do, but no one was explaining why. No one was teaching how to build a real foundation.

And I kept seeing the same question over and over again: Is this good for low porosity hair?

That question told me everything. I wasn't alone.

I'm not a cosmetologist. I'm someone who got tired of guessing.

I started researching low porosity hair, ingredients, routines, and real user experiences. I read reviews, scrolled endless comment sections, and most importantly, started listening to my own hair.

I took matters into my own hands. I learned a proper routine and stayed consistent. I got regular trims to cut off the fried hair—at first every 2-3 months, and as my hair got healthier, I started going every 5-6 months.

I rebuilt my hair from the inside out.