Hair

Hey! Merry Christmas, Happy New Years', Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, everything! We are back and ready for 2020!

So now.

Hair.

Let me start off with, I am African American. I have 4b/4c, thick, black coils. That's my hair. Nothing in particular was wrong with it, until I actually started to pay attention.

When I was a young girl, we relaxed it. Constantly. We bought those Just For Me! relaxer kits regularly. Maybe every one or two months, we would relax, wash, braid. Over time, the relaxer took effect and my hair took on an odd look. A darkish brown, thin, stringy ends, and it would never cooperate with anything except for braiding. I, personally, cannot remember the beginning of this practice. As far as I remember my childhood, my hair's always been light brown and wispy. When I started going to school, I was the only African American girl in my entire grade. I was too afraid to talk to older kids and just compared my hair to the other girls in my classroom. Girls who wore their silky hair down almost every day and never seemed to relax it. It was frustrating. I wanted my hair to look nice too, but I didn't know how else to wear it than in braids or out. And it didn't fall when out. My roots were always oddly thick so it held the strings at a weird angle. It looked awful. I felt awful.

Fast forward to when I switched schools. I finally met some other African Americans my age. I saw how they wore their hair, and noticed that mine wasn't like theirs either. Most girls I knew had black coily hair, much thicker and fuller than mine. No matter how much pink oil I used, or how much I combed it, it never grew. I continued relaxing, not realizing how much of an issue it was. By nine, I had an uncanny built-up endurance to the chemicals. I could sit there unphased for nearly three hours after it started burning. I thought it was cool, to be completely honest, and constantly showed off my "skill."
From 5th grade, I discovered weave. It felt like a miracle. I could finally cover my forsaken hair and make it look nice for once. I grew to enjoy crocheting and box braiding my hair. I started picking out wilder colors and choosing various hair styles and really just having fun with my hairstyle.

In sixth grade, I had a class called Interactive Media. It was essentially a computer/research-based literature class. My teacher, I will never forget her. I loved her. I was beyond comfortable in her class and she somehow found a way to explain everything in relatable terms that always interested me. I had her as my second to last class on Day 1, but I was just always there.
This particular discussion we were having, was most likely on white influence on African American appearance. As expected, hair was a topic brought up. Me, being barely eleven, hadn't really taken time out to think on anything like this, so the whole thing was genuinely a new discussion for me. I listened as my teacher talked about her experiences growing up a light-skinned black. I was one myself, and found myself relating to everything she said and just realizing how racially inappropriate it is to call a light-skin "white" because of which music they prefer or the words they use. I especially listened in on her hair talk. My teacher was born with really coarse 4a~, brown hair. Yet, even as a forty-year-old woman, she still found it difficult to come to terms with that due to how her hair was denounced when she was younger. Even I was surprised, as I had only ever seen her with straight blonde hair. She talked about relaxers' and perms' dangers, especially on young girls.

I was confused. In denial even. When a friend of mine talked poorly on relaxers, I got defensive. It was the only way I knew how to care for my hair, it had to be healthy. I remained refusing any additional information, until I came back to the school for 7th grade, and my teacher had cut her hair off over the summer.
"I want to grow it back right."
It was still blonde with visible brown roots, but it was so much thicker and curlier than I could've imagined. I was shocked. I had her as a long-term sub for my English teacher, and she changed in more than her hair. Her entire demeaner was much more confident and she became an even more interesting speaker, if that was even possible. That year, I finally took to the internet and asked some questions. As expected they all boiled down to one thing: relaxers were what was keeping my hair from growing.

My fourteenth birthday passes, and not only am I painfully aware of how unhealthy and horrible my hair is, but it feels as if it's worse than ever before. It was weak, falling out, barely able to be held in a ponytail. In hindsight, crocheting it at that point was doing more damage than anything, but I ignored it. But then I saw it. I felt the damage in the weak braids and the stringy hair and the constant hair loss. I cried. One afternoon in March 2019, I broke down and cried.
I wanted beautiful hair. Like all of my beautiful black female friends with rich, coily, puffy hair. That's what I wanted. Putting up with whatever nonsense I was keeping on my hair made no sense. But I didn't know where to go or how to start. That's what upset me most. If I did cut my hair tomorrow, what next? If it grew back thicker, we didn't have the hair supplies for thick hair. My parents didn't have the time or energy to comb it out (their explanation for relaxing it) and I could barely care for my falling out hair. I was scared.
But, I put my foot down. April 2019, I told my mom I would never relax my hair ever again. I begged her to take my for a big chop. She refused the cut--leading to me learning how to trim my own hair--and eventually gave up trying to get me to relax again. In the first month, I carried my hair out and started using coconut oil and shea butter and combed it out daily. In the second and third, we had a family trip, so I let my hair get done. One a simple crocheting, the other a proper full head of twists. While on vacation, I would sometimes get upset going on social media and seeing my friends "glow-up," while I could barely handle my god-given hair. In between, however, I took out my hair and the difference was incredible. It looked shorter, but was so much thicker. It was a solid black to brown gradient and was short and staggery. My hair actually all stuck up, something it had never achieved before. I smiled, and laughed at how I looked a typical African mom from the side.

That was a huge motivator for me. I honestly wasn't sure if I was making progress, so seeing this, was a huge breath of relief. Not only am I moving, but I was going pretty quickly too. When we came home from our vacation, I asked my dad to take me to the store and started building up my small collection of personal hair products. Some of the things I bought then, I still re-buy and continue to use to this day. Over the next month, I had my twists in, then took them out and saw that my hair was thick. No, it wasn't a stringy 3a/3b. It was a black 4b/4c. I was, beyond amazed. I could tie it up in a puff, two buns, I could (poorly) braid it--I had so much fun.
Even to today, I take so much joy in just running my hands through my coils. I used to not be able to do that, because then hair would fall out. Now, I can casually play with my hair worry-free. I had moved away once again, so my Interactive Media teacher was in a different state by the time I started caring for my hair. But I really hope I see her again, at least to just get a chance to thank her for what she taught me.