Like many other women, I am very sensitive about my hair. It is my crown and glory, my adornment. Over the years, I have experimented with so many different hairstyles that I sometimes felt like I was in a real life fashion show. The chemical relaxer treatment kept my thick curly hair straight and flowing. My hair was healthy, but the perm process wasn’t something I looked to. Tired of all the burns and scars that would unpleasantly grace my scalp from month to month, eventually I decided to cut my hair short.
This was a systematic struggle in transitioning to a natural me. Content with my short cut, I stayed short for about three years before “locing” my hair. Growing my locs was a mental growth process as well.
My locs helped me to learn patience and to still have fun and enjoy life. My locs are free now. I didn’t break our bond completely by cutting them. I cautiously combed each loc out one by one.
By the eighth day of combing, I arrived at a naturally beautiful “fro.” When I touched my hair I fell in love with each and every coil. I embrace my thick hair because I am able to be more diverse when it comes to styling it.
I made a promise to myself from that day forward to never relax my hair again. I must confess, sometimes I do wake up in the morning with an urge to unwrap my freshly relaxed hair, but I snap back into reality.
I dare not take away from that which was given to me naturally. I love many different styles and hair and the beauty of being a Black woman is the unique ways we express ourselves through our hair.
Diversity is always good. I appreciate my natural hair. It has placed me on a new vernacular of style. I used to believe that a girl couldn’t be really pretty if her hair weren’t straight, but thanks to a “deeply rooted” mother, the views that were made available to me on beauty through the media didn’t have a long- term effect.
Black women are born with many different textures and colors of hair. Throughout our lives we choose to enhance our beauty by accessorizing with perms, weaves, colors, texturizers, bleach, cuts, etc.
Beauty is fun. Hair is about taking risks, being a risk taker motivates change. “Going natural” isn’t just a rapidly growing epidemic; it is a movement of people who are willing to take a risk to change.
In my journey to”hair liberation,” as I like to call it was “Growing natural” versus “going natural.”
Going natural isn’t something we go through. It is something we “grow” through. I am still on a journey and I love it more by the day.