Well, my hair journey started way back when I was very young. My first experience with chemicals was a "blow-out." LOL

Of course that was also the first the time my hair fell out too.

Next was the Jheri curl. I guess I was about age 11 or so.   Between curls, perms, and texturizers, I've actually been chemically challenged for  most of my life. 

Well, I'd been free from the concept of beauty only coming with long hair ever since I had my last bad experience. See, I keep my hair short now because I found that it's most complimentary to me. Perming hadn't been an issue for me in such a long time, because it didn't really matter about overlapping. It didn't really matter because I knew I'd be cutting it again soon anyway. But one day I looked up and my hair had grown kinda long by accident. I decided I wanted to keep it for a while, which meant I needed to have it professionally relaxed to keep me from damaging it.