This morning, I looked in the mirror, gave myself a wink, untied my hair and fell in love with the woman staring back at me. Now a days I do this everyday. I fall in love with my eyes, my lips and especially my hair, but it wasn't always all hearts and roses between us.
No, for a good long while my hair and I were not even friends. We were constantly at odds. I wanted straight, it wanted curls. When I wanted curls, my dear hair wanted kinks! The only time I could control how my hair looked was when I covered it with a weave or by braids. I wanted desparately to be proud of my hair and wear it as it was, but I had a few other things to work out in my mind first.
It wasn't until the winter of 2003, after a horrific at-home relaxer incident, which left my hair in patches and my scalp with scabs, that I made the decision that would transform our relationship forever...
After years and years of relaxing my mane, starting at an involuntarily early age. I decided to go "natural". I was told that the best way to go natural was to start with a "big chop" which meant that I would have to cut all my hair off and basically start from scratch. Having never really had what you would call long hair to begin with, I was initially appalled by this idea. I opted instead to grow out my relaxer with the help of twist extensions which I loved! I kept these up for a pretty long time, but it eventually became really expensive and all the while stalled the inevitable introduction I would have to endure with doing my own hair.
After about a year and a half of braids and twist extensions I finally decided it was time to contend with my "pouf". After clipping away the remainder of my relaxed hair, it wasn't very long and in my eyes didn't provide for many versatile styles. Most days I just wore it pulled back in the front-which my dad hated! He urged me to either loc my hair or keep it braided. As I wasn't quite ready for as drastic and permanent a step as locs and with dad paying -I rebraided my hair time and time again.
By the time my freshman year of college came around, I still wasn't very comfortable with my natural hair. I rocked my "pouf" and occassionally got my hair braided. Every now and then, I would go with one of my best friends to get our hair pressed (she's never had a perm, chosing to have her hair pressed regularly to keep it straight). During winter break, I decided that I wanted to dye my hair-hoping that a new, brighter color would help me begin to love my hair.
I dyed my hair a gorgeous sun kissed bronzey color and LOVED IT! My mother told me that if I wanted to keep my color treated hair healthy, that I had to keep it moisturized. Never being one who liked to have a greasy head-this didn't really appeal to me, but I didn't want my hair to break off (it was short enough already!) so started to use coconut oil and to my surprise my hair became soft, manageable and more importantly-HEALTHY. I learned that if I twisted hair while wet and letting it dry in bantu knots that it when it dried the result would be a bush of soft curls. LOVE LOVE LOVED this style. I got so many compliments and other girls actually began to ask me for natural hair advice!
I began to tinker, toy, twist, knot, pin, braid and overall just enjoy and experiment with my hair. I even got a fun asymmetrical haircut during my sophomore year. Going to a school as fashion forward and trend setting as Howard University afforded me the chance to swap stories, style ideas and product reccommendations with other Natural Divas. With every passing semester I grew more and more enamored with my hair and realized that as long as I took care of her, she would take care of me.
I learned that natural hair is as fun, sexy, edgy and as unique as the woman rocking it! I discovered that although my beauty has nothing to do with my physical appearance (although, I think I look pretty hot in any fro'd, twisted, braided or loc'd style), it's the confidence I derive from having beautiful, healthy, natural hair that makes me feel gorgeous every single day.
In the summer of 2011, after joining the Peace Corps and moving half way around the world to Mozambique, I made the decision to loc my hair. Initially, I was apprehensive-locing is a process which takes committment, patience and skill, especially when attempting this venture alone. Before leaving home I had had a little bit of practice maintaining locs for friends and after seeing how easy and fun it was, my interest was piqued. A friend of my mother's who has had locs for many years introduced me to a few worthwhile products and her secret style weapon...youtube! I spent an entire day (if not longer) looking at videos on how to start, maintain, style and dye locs. After seeing literally hundreds of amazing locs I was convinced! Locing was the next natural move for me. I started with two strand twists and now retwist them about every three weeks. As of today i'm about a year into my loc journey and I think they are coming along beautifully.
I may not keep locing for the rest of my life, but I know that the feeling of independence, creativity and confidence I feel by maintaining my own natural hair in whatever form it's in is what makes my mane amazing!!
The moral of this hairstory?
Work, rock and love what you got! As my granny always says "good is what covers the scalp".
