So in the last couple of years natural hair has become a great big deal!!
Personally, I wonder why! It really just seems like in a bid to establish our identity, black people have deemed it mandatory to revolt against the colonial approved way of hair maintenance! But doesn’t the song by Gwen Stefani say ‘I am not my hair’? Nowadays you’re more or less an outcast in the black community if you have texturized hair!
What exactly is it with the fact that texturized hair cannot be healthy? When people are asked why they have chosen to cut all their texturized hair and go ‘natural’ they say texturized hair is unhealthy, the chemicals in the texturizer damage the hair. If you baptize texturized hair with the amount of eggs, oils and conditioners used for natural hair why won’t it be healthy? If you have a chemical burn on your hand, you don’t cut it off and hope for another one to grow. Can texturized hair not be treated in like manner?
If we are all going to be honest with ourselves (us natural girls), natural hair is extremely laborious and expensive to maintain! God help you if you have 4c (extremely kinky) hair! With wash days taking the whole day for some people and 4 to 6 hours for other people, deep conditioning taking an hour and styling about an hour and half! Whereas texturized hair is more like wash and go and definitely easier to comb. Why have we chosen to adopt this lifestyle or is a lie we are trying so desperately to feed ourselves?
Sometimes people see me on the road and go “oh my God! Your hair is so nice!” when I know I look like a mad person because I have avoided combing my hair for 7days. So I ask again, is natural hair really a life style that has come to stay or a lie we are all living? Is the society finally going to realize how much stress maintaining chunky hair is and revert back to texturizing in the next.. Say 10 years ? Or is the black community going to be dogged about it and insist that they be identified by their hair ? Is the black person with texturized hair going to remain ‘uncool’? Isn’t the texturized hair still on the person’s head? Therefore is the hair not still ‘natural’ ?
Don’t get me wrong, natural hair is indeed a beauty to behold after all the hurdles of maintenance but if we insist on making it a lifestyle we owe it to our kids to teach them the easiest way out.
-Iranroyv
Nice article.
I personally respect natural hair (without attachments, wigs, weavons). But I don’t discriminate BTW Relaxed and non relaxed…
I don’t feel there is anything wrong with using products that make our African hair, easier to maintain.
But at the end, it is the right of the lady in question to do whatever she wants with her hair…. it should sha be fine
I totally agree with you Chuks. Whats the point of a “relaxed” hair that is untidy? The whole idea of hair and hair products is for improving one’s aesthetics. As long as that is not compromised, then we are all good.
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