I cut my hair yesterday, February 29, 2024. The exact same day I cut my hair 8 years ago for my big chop, on the leap day, in the leap year. Yes I know, I know, very dramatic! But I wanted there to be a full circle ending to my departure from Youtube. After much consideration, I have decided this is not just a cut, this is the cut off. I have one more video planned to release this year regarding my 8 year natural hair anniversary (coming soon), and then I’m done. In this season of my life, I believe God is telling me to shift off of the platform completely.
The truth is that from 2014 to 2024 I have grown, learned, discovered and evolved into the best version of myself. I often tell people that I started off detangling my hair, but ended up detangling my soul. It has been such a rollercoaster ride building the channel, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything! This one ride led me to therapy, life coaching, healing and ultimately my authentic self. This whole time I thought I was developing my business, but I’m pretty sure God was using my business to develop me.
If you have been following my hair journey up until now, this may not come as a surprise to you, especially since all of my old videos have been privatized over the past 8 months. But to me, this is still a very difficult task. At the end of last year, I believe God said, “Evani, I need you to leap again.” And 8 years ago I did without any hesitation. I decided to cut off my relaxed ends and go natural because I wanted to know what my natural haired self looked like without using chemical straighteners. I was willing to venture into the unknown.
That leap turned into a journey that led me all over the world! Meeting other unprocessed haired people that were taking the same leap I did to embrace their natural hair texture. We were all unsubscribing from the master narrative that straight hair was superior and more desirable than tightly coiled and curly hair. I not only experimented with different styles in videos, but I eventually began to teach others how to take their leap of faith, cut and care for their hair as well. Natural hair influencers all over the world aided in helping me reshape a perspective of myself that became authentically mine, and for that, I will be forever grateful. The people I met, the trips I took, the products I used (oh my!) have completely changed my life, and still, after 10 years on Youtube and 8 years of being natural, I believe it is time to go.
Bringing this chapter of my life to a close is particularly painful because Youtube is still a good thing, however, I find it necessary to journey on. A decade worth of content was not easy to let go of, nor was the revenue stream to match. It took almost a year for me to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit and do what He was telling me to do. I had to have a lot of hard conversations with myself while detangling the pros and cons of staying or leaving. But little by little, God began to decouple my identity from my functionality and told me my assignment in that space is up. After de-centering hair, I know I cannot be who I was and who I will be at the same time. These facts remain, I have to let go, I have to cut off, I have to be willing to lose what I have in order to get something else, something better, no matter how scary the unknown may seem, I have to leap. Trying to hold on to my comfort zone is not an option. No change happens there and I know I need to make a change. I have learned to be comfortable with the uncomfortable in times of transition and I have learned to hold God’s blessings with an open hand.
I cannot say that I am gone forever from Youtube, it was super difficult to say that I am even gone for now, but I know I am destined to do something else, and so to hold space for my authentic self and grieve the old version of me without re-version, I am posting this as my leap into the unknown. And to my Wonderfro family, let the split ends fall where they may and let the spirit lead you!
Peace and blessings,
Evani
PS- I will still consume video content lol just in much smaller amounts! And I will still be on the platform, but I’ll probably be supporting others, not creating on it. If you still want to keep up with me, follow on IG or here on substack! I’d be happy to have you in this new chapter!
Yayyyyy!! Love the cut!