July 2025Braids As A Beginning
“I’ve always had a complicated relationship with braids.”
They were never the style I ran to with excitement, more like something I dabbled in when I got bored of everything else. Two weeks in, I’d start to feel restless. I’d doubt my style, the parts would get fuzzy, and I’d find myself counting down to when I could take them out.
And yet, there was always this pressure around braids: “You should keep them in for six to eight weeks.” If I was ready to take them out after two or three, it felt like I was wasting time, wasting money, wasting effort. That guilt often stopped me from doing braids altogether. It just never felt worth it.
Until now.
When I installed my first set of Reni•Made hair, something shifted. Four days in, I realised I wasn’t just tolerating my braids, I was obsessed. I just liked how the hair felt. And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel the countdown. I didn’t feel the guilt. I just felt joy.
I think that’s when I knew this hair was different.
“Even when they looked good, I never loved them.”
Being natural changes how you think about your hair. You worry about breakage, about how much manipulation is too much, about whether this choice will undo months of care. That worry was always at the front of my mind when I got braids.
And the weight of it all, not just the hair itself, it’s the expectation that you should endure the style for as long as possible, made braids feel like a chore. Even when they looked good, I never loved them. I never felt like myself in them.
“Isn’t that what hair is like, always?”
With Reni•Made hair, braids feel like an extension of me, another version of myself. Sometimes a little untidy, sometimes a little high-maintenance, sometimes in the way when I sleep or need to change Ri’s diaper, but isn’t that what hair is like, always?
The difference now is that it doesn’t feel heavy. It doesn’t feel like I’m holding up an expectation. The texture feels natural, it rests on my skin the way my own hair would, and it gives me that freedom to move through my day as me, not as someone styled into submission.
For once, I don’t feel like I look different in braids. I feel like I look like more of me.
“The beginning of rest where there used to be guilt.”
That’s why I call this a beginning.
Not just the beginning of a new hairstyle, but the beginning of a new relationship with braids, hair specifically. The beginning of rest where there used to be guilt.
Because sitting for braids will always be a task, the hours, the patience, the anxiety over the outcome. But now, I wait in that chair with excitement, knowing I’ll love what I see at the end. Knowing it fits my lifestyle as a mother of three, a woman balancing so much, who still wants to feel pulled together, powerful, and herself.
I still love my natural hair, if you know me, you know that hasn’t changed. But loving something doesn’t mean you can’t embrace something else too. And in this season, these braids and this hair have become more than just a fallback option.
They’ve become a beginning.
- Reni Adebayo
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