I have statement hair. Conversation starting and ending hair. Hair so thick hairdressers need to brace themselves before they tackle it hair. That’s right! I’ve got that good hair. Full thick healthy strands that can do amazing things. Like when I stand under the shower, my hair traps the water until it drips down my body.
It took a while to embrace it, and it is a challenge to manage and love course thick kinky hair. Especially when the world is telling you creamy crack is it! But I enrolled in Nappy University and learned to love my kinks, curls and thicky thickness.
Studying in Jamaica was a blessing in that regard. I wasn’t accustomed to adult black women wearing their hair natural. But I soon realised that it was the right thing for me, that and I had cut my hair off after my first semester because I couldn’t find a good hairdresser. I know madness, but I was kind of lost and on my own in my first year in school. By the time I got on my feet, I was natural and loving it.
I spent some time in texturiser purgatory. To be honest I loved my hair with the texturiser, but when I decided to go natural I didn’t want to fake it.
I’m not going to lie, managing my hair is hard. Fighting the mental brainwashing is harder. So thank God for the Internet. I’ve amassed several web-resources for tips and inspiration.
One such website is Afrobella, and it has been a big help. She isn’t as focused on hair now as she was when she just started out, but her advice and enthusiasm is contagious. I followed her advice to mix brown sugar with anti-dandruff conditioner as a scalp scrub. I did and it is the best hair advice I’ve received in years. I have bad stress-related dandruff, and it feels like I’m free of flakes. To be fair it’s only been about three weeks, so it may be too soon to tell, but it sure feels like I’m cured.
Another website I love is Motown Girl. It’s almost like an encyclopedia for natural hair wearing black girls! My girl breaks down natural hair myths and offers haircare and styling tutorials and more. The website offers really practical haircare advice. But more importantly she tries to make you feel really good about your natural hair, and that’s why I love her site.
My newest find is Mane & Chic. The author is obsessed with hair, and that’s a good thing. She has a single-minded approach to caring for her crowning glory and keeping it chic and fabulous. Plus I like that she isn’t into expensive store-bought products, and is really into homemade treatments. I’ve been following her advice to sleep with a shower cap at night, and I like what it does for my hair. It seems softer in the morning. Since my hair is really on the dry side, that’s a good thing.
The website Queens I’ve mentioned have learned to embrace their curls and that’s the real plus for me. I mean it’s 2008 and we’re still talking about “Good Hair“? But it’s not all bad. People seem to love my hair, and are amazed at how thick, soft and curly it is. Of course there are those who ask, “When I plan to do something about it,” but I know mi roots and culture, so I don’t take them on. I know I’ve got that good hair, cause I have African in my family and I’m lovin’ it.
In the 90’s I met someone online, and she seemed to be a really cool chick – attractive, smart, getting her degree, etc. When we met for the first time, had eats and drinks, etc, out of the blue she told me that she had naturally “good” hair… she was “red” with straight hair that looked relaxed, at least to me. “Its not relaxed. This is how it is naturally.”
I asked her what made her hair “good hair”. “Well, because its light brown and its naturally straight!” I resisted the temptation to ask whether non-brown, non-naturally straight hair was bad. We didn’t have a 2nd date.
Another instance, while at UWI St Aug, a St Lucian friend told me about how her family reacted to her now having her hair in a short afro (she went back home for Christmas vacation). They were not pleased. Her mother and grandmother were very aggrieved and told her that she now had “bad hair” and that God would “punish her” for not relaxing her hair as it was “against the Church”. Her father told her that no man would ever find her attractive again, now that she had “lost her beauty”. They all pleaded with her to grow it back or relax it asap. She herself was confused by their reaction, especially about the Hell/Heaven thing. Didn’t God give her naturally curly/kinky hair? How then could it be bad?
I’m really happy to see more and more women make the choice to wear their hair naturally. Hair really isn’t a big factor for me, cuz I’ve had girlfriends with afros, locks, braids, weaves, extensions, and relaxed hair.
What matters to me more is the attitude towards “hair” and the reasoning behind wearing it in a particular style.
Good post.