I Am Not my hair!
I AM NOT MY HAIR! . . . Or am I?
If you read my first blog “HerStory,” which was posted May 1, 2020, you are familiar with the gist of my hair journey. If you didn’t, feel free to go back and see what you missed. From this point, until an unspecified time, I will continue my story and set-up for a monthly series of hair journeys from family and friends. As we embark on these journeys, look out for the occasional “her-itage/history” link.
Last year, a friend of mine posted a gorgeous natural image of herself and the statement “I am not my hair” on a popular social media platform. This post immediately spoke to me; as if the words had come directly from my mouth. Until recent years, when I finally decided for my own personal well-being to return to my roots, I was greatly influenced by others’ comments, questions, compliments and critiques when deciding on a new hairstyle. I would always share my intentions to try a new style with someone, and inevitability their response—whether a comment, question, or even just a facial expression—would cause me to turn my decision over and over in my head prior to making the change. It was as if I had to remind myself each time that “I am not my hair!” I will be the same friend, family, co-worker, professional that I was before changing my hairstyle, and anyone who knows anything about me will know and appreciate that. The fact that my friend was obviously feeling the same way, made me realize that there must be others with similar sentiments. Therefore, I’ve decided to embark on this journey of capturing and sharing with you the hair journeys of my sistas—starting with a little bit more of my own.
Finding My Style
Over the years, I have made many hairstyle changes—long, short, curly, straight, braided, twisted. The list goes on and on for this Sista with strong diverse roots [haha, just came up with that play on words]. I’m certainly not bragging, as I had no choice in the natural texture and strength of my hair—only how I styled it, as I learned how to manage and care for it, or employed others to do so. What I have learned is that although not all style choices were healthy, my hair was seemingly strong enough to endure them all—meaning that I never lost hair due to such abuse. I’ve applied various chemicals, colors, extensions, and varying methods of heat. All of this can be very damaging to hair, but my hair seemingly took it in stride. However, while my styles appeared to be strong and healthy, even my strong hair and underlying skin were suffering the negative effects of these applications. It wasn’t until I decided to turn away from these unnatural [enhancements] that I recognized the easing of chronic itching and dandruff, which was being caused by the extended use of chemicals that were seeping into my pores, changing my body chemistry and causing a heavy — sometime scaly — dandruff. Sometimes following a chemical application, my scalp would even ooze beneath the thick cover-up of hair and cause a scab-like surface on my scalp. The scalp irritation is just the damage that I could recognize. I can only image what other damage was occurring within the shafts of this dense mane that would have been better left alone.
Mamaniem’s Hair
While I did not learn that I have a 4c curl pattern until recent years, I always remember my hair being thick and coarse. My mother and others raved proudly about this. I believe their appreciation was due in part to the fact that I was a bald-headed baby for quite a while. As a child, I did not appreciate the thickness one bit! Back then, and even sometimes now, it meant long (and often, painful) shampoo and comb-out sessions. I would wiggle, squirm, whimper, and even cry sometimes when my mother would wash and style my hair—not necessarily because I was “tender-headed,” but because no child wants to sit in one place for long periods of time and have their head pushed, pulled, turned, and bent in every imaginable direction.
Because my mother was always concerned about my hair breaking off, she would not use hair accessories that contained elastic or other tight and/or heavy fasteners on my hair, nor did she allow me to wear it out very often. The latter was actually a good thing, as wearing my hair out would have require more painful washing and combing sessions. However, the lack of heavier weighted hair bobbles on the ends of my thick 4c plaits meant that they were bound to remain standing straight up or out after being pushed into that position by the slightest touch—leaving me at times looking like Pippi Longstocking, or even sillier if I had more than two plaits.
“For anyone reading this blog who may not understand why I wasn’t satisfied with the straightening of a pressing comb, you’ll need to do some independent research! That’s a whole story within itself.”
For school picture day, and other occasional special events, my mother would put setting lotion and rollers in my natural hair to produce what she called a “curly afro.” I thought this was cute in kindergarten, first grade, and maybe even second grade, but by the third grade I was longing for a more stretched out, straighter pigtail-type of look. This was mostly due to societal influences, such as recently integrated schools, afros going out of style and relaxers coming more into fashion. As mentioned in [HerStory], chemical relaxer was not going to happen in our house! However, my mother did somewhat relent, and would occasionally straighten my hair with a pressing comb. This continued through most of elementary school, until about 6th grade, when my mom started taking me to a family friend and hair stylist from her old neighborhood to get my hair pressed and curled on a more regular basis. As I approached Junior High School, I started taking on a little more of my own hair care and, between presses, I taught myself to cornrow my own hair into two braids as an alternate style that I felt was acceptable. I still longed for the ease of a relaxer—the unnatural “creamy Crack!”.
I survived the social pressures of Jr. High with the press and curl and cornrows. Towards the end of this time, two amazing events in my haircare experience occurred. One of my aunts obtained her cosmetology license, and a fascinating new style came on the scene—the Jhery Curl! Again, see my first blog [HerStory] for the back story on why my mother allowed this chemical to permanently contaminate the purity of my God-given coils. I must say, her decision to do so made me happy for a time. With this hairdo, I felt like part of the “in crowd” for the next three to four years. And then . . .queue the heavenly chorus “Ahhhhhh”.
Utopia?
What happened next was what I thought to be like entering Utopia.
Towards the end of my senior year in high school, my mother allowed me to blow dry my Jhery Curl straight, which essentially looked like a straight relaxed style! On top of that, I was on my way to college—away from home—which meant that I would be fully in charge of managing my own hair, and I was going to manage to have it permanently STRAIGHT!
With each six to eight week hair appointment, I had my roots touched-up with lye-based relaxer, making it easier for me to wash and style my hair in between appointments. I cannot lie, I enjoyed the ease of combing through my permanently straightened hair. I appreciated not having to worry about my pressed hair reverting from silk to wool at the slightest bit of moisture—the least bit of raindrops, a misdirected splash in the bath or shower, or even just the humidity of a DC area summer. I also did not miss the annoying pain of washing and styling my thick tightly-coiled hair. My hair continued to grow, so I let it grow and cut it, and let it grow and cut it—over and over into many styles; from sleek mushrooms, to bobs, to long snatch-back mullets, and more. Never too short, but always straight. All of this was all just during my college years!
Following college, I continued with the permanently straightened styles—eventually doing the occasional big chop, but always growing it back after a time. Circumstances allowed me to experiment with lots of straight styles; from long flowing locks to short spikey ‘dos. The nature of my hair was such that once it was styled, it would hold that style until I got it washed and re-styled, with very little maintenance. Easy, huh? However, I longed to return to my roots; literally and figuratively. I missed the occasional natural black-girl style, which was impossible to obtain with relaxed hair without embellishments. While I could add extensions to gain a braided look or buy “natural-looking” wigs or hair pieces, I couldn’t curl my relaxed hair tight enough to get an afro or afro-puffs; which were regaining their popularity on the retro scene.
Redemption: The journey back to me
After several years of contemplation, I finally did enough research and planning to feel comfortable about going back to wearing my natural hair. My intent was not only to go natural, but to do it myself; which I had rarely done in the previous twenty-plus years. This included a little study of natural style and chemistry, as I also planned to make all of my haircare products using natural ingredients. The reasoning behind the latter was that most store-bought products contained some ingredient that caused the itching and flaking that I described being caused by the permanent relaxer.
Now, a little more than three years into the transition, after a fair amount of study, a big chop, some trial-and-error, and admittedly two professional cuts and a couple braided styles, I now have a handle on caring for and styling my own healthy and natural hair. Since “the big chop” (October 2017) which I did myself (leaving about 2” – 3” of hair), and the professional barber cut that I had done shortly thereafter, my hair has now grown to a healthy length of about ten inches. Of course, it only looks like about five to six inches, due to the 4c curl shrinkage.
I have learned so much about my hair! I’ve also learned a lot about essential oils, emollients, moisturizing ingredients, carrier oils and more, and I am thoroughly enjoying the journey to a lifetime of naturally healthy hair!