I would like to take the stand. Call it a little feeling I had, an epiphany if you will. Granted, most of my rants are epiphanies or maybe I just like to make them epiphanies when they are actually little life plot points I’ve observed as facets embedded into our socialisation. Darn, maybe that was quite the enjambment but stay with me. I’m getting to the point.
This post didn’t come from my scrolling on TikTok. Not this time, this idea was my brainchild. Not that I’m saying I’m the first one to ever see any of these issues culminating but I would like to point out that that I had a personal experience.
If you hadn’t noticed, this author is on a hair growth journey. That’s right folks, the fem is trying to grow her fro. I want to actually feed it and grow it as opposed to just tucking it away in braids and hoping it might disappear. That being said, I’m trying to do regular wash days, deep condition my hair and drown it in a crap tonne of water because that’s good for it. I choose not to starve it anymore because at the end of the day when I’m bald-headed I will be bald-headed.
It was a warm Friday. Well, as warm as Fridays could ever be in JUNE. So, I was hunched over the bathtub cursing the damned mass of curls on my head as I shampooed my hair. I combed through it carefully at first, patiently at first then I got fed up and started digging into my scalp with my afro comb. I was impatient and frustrated. Then I sighed, why couldn’t my hair accord me the grace of just being easy. Why did wash day have to be akin to going to war? I had to be strapped with a shampoo, moisturiser, conditioner and a myriad of afro combs because one was more than likely to break at some point.
When my arms were worn, I slumped against the door, afro comb stuck somewhere in the mass of my hair. I was annoyed. I was angry. I thought of the million things I could be doing as opposed to hunching over a bathtub and wrestling with my hair. I sighed again, asking myself why my hair wasn’t easy to deal with like other women’s hair. I remember thinking how easy it must be for them to shampoo, condition and moisturise. I remember thinking that they don’t need to sit on salon chairs for hours on end to get their hair done. So, instead of womaning the heck up, I continued sitting in the puddle created by my dripping hair. I sat there and thought and thought and assumed a bit and maybe even a bit more. Mind you, I was just sitting in a bathroom making assumptions about other women’s hair when I had little or perhaps no knowledge about how other races of women’s hair worked.
After my period of sulking about wash day I eventually sucked it up and finished washing my hair. Before I had an idea what to write for this week’s blog post I watched a vlog of a woman taking us through her day. Like me, she was complaining about hair and how difficult it can be sometimes. That’s when it dawned on me that other races of women struggle with their hair just as much as we do from time to time because hair can be difficult.
I suppose it’s hard to visualise Asians and Europeans struggling with their hair as it falls beautifully past their shoulders in pretty layers. However, I realised that just because it looks the way it does and (effortlessly stunning)is because these women don’t have a disdain for their hair and actively look after it. For it to reach the length it’s at and for it to look shiny and bouncy took years of discipline, washes and nurturing.
When it was time for them to feed their hair, they probably did it diligently. When it was time for them to trim split ends they probably did that timeously as well. Simply put, our perception of our hair is the problem not the hair itself. I realised that when I sat my butt down and watched videos educating me on hair care that all I had ever known about the nature of our hair was a darned lie. There was a myth that we’re often told by our braiders, that dirty hair is good for growth. Umm, no it’s not, it actually leads to breakage. I could mention a crap ton of myths about natural hair that ought to be debunked but that’s not the point of this post. This post centres on perception. How we perceive the self and others has a massive impact on our lives, that is the quality and even lack thereof. So, it’s not about your hair, it’s about how you see it.
We tend to tell ourselves that our hair is difficult to take care of. We claim that buying products to nurture it is expensive. It was a good excuse. Until I realised that my natural hair products cost just as much as the extensions I purchase for my hair and for the wig girlies maybe even less. It really is in the way one sees the value of their hair. As I make this post, my hair isn’t where I would want it to be.
I just released it from Island Twists and it seems like it’s stuck at the same length that it was at since I last had it out. I really suck at the length retention thing and you know what? That’s okay. I’m sure I will get the hang of it. Am I frustrated? Extremely. Did I almost crash out? Yes, I flung my afro comb out the window this morning. But I went outside and picked it up. I will use it and I will better the state of what’s on my head one way or another and maybe you should too.
A YouTuber who goes by Actually Julie said something that resonated with me. She said, “if I wake up in the morning and try and throw my fro into a messy bun akin to other race’s of women’s hair and it doesn’t work out how can I expect to learn to like my hair? And if I don’t like it, will it ever grow?” Stop trying to manipulate your hair into something it is not and never will be.
Also, don’t you think it’s a bit counterintuitive to publicly discriminate against your hair? The world is watching you denigrate something that is attached to your person. It’s also a universal female experience to wake up on some mornings and curse your hair and why it is the way it is. Even so, those other women don’t denigrate their hair to the point where it’s attached to their personality.
For the girlies who still hate their natural hair…don’t be too hard on yourself, it does get better.
Give your hair some grace.
Show up.
Be consistent.
It will get better.
Another great post Ms TazMan 🙂 (so good, we’re willing to excuse it’s tardiness)
This is so true! The grass is always greener where you water it! Women with 4c hair are usually the one’s talking down on their own hair. If we learnt to be confident in our own hair, in it’s natural state, then maybe the comments of others wouldn’t affect us to the point where we feel like there’s something wrong with our hair!
I found that following more natural (or should i say virgin) hair creators has helped me love my hair a little more! Not knowing how to style it is also another factor that contributes to hating our own hair because we feel like we can’t do anything with it when it’s an afro!
Someone once said that 4c hair is actually easy to manage but we’ve been so conditioned to think that other types of hair are better that we don’t see it! Can you name another hair type that can stay neat, in the same hairstyle for more than 3 weeks requiring a simple brush and oiling every other day? Or have we ever considered the fact that we can style our hair in a slickback or afro puff in the morning and it will still look neat by the end of the day whereas straighter hair like 3a will probably have fly aways or even be loose?
Maybe if we spent just as much time learning how to style and take care of our ‘difficult’ 4c hair as we do complaining about it, it wouldn’t be so difficult!