I continued to relax my hair until the winter of 1998. A lot went into my decision to embrace my natural hair. I’ve mentioned the health issues I had (i.e., bald sections on my head). I also began a lot of introspection trying to unearth why I was still relaxing my hair. I realized that since first getting my hair relaxed, I perceived two main hair options: 1) get a relaxer or 2) have nappy hair. I know, that sounds ignorant. It really does, but that’s what I felt. I felt that the relaxer was saving me from having nappy, difficult hair. WOW! I couldn’t believe that I felt so negatively about my hair, and by extension (no pun intended), I felt negatively about myself.
I’ve heard people say that hair doesn’t matter. I don’t see how it cannot matter. Hair is public. Hair is judged. We know that people look at our hair and develop impressions of us. Plus, if hair didn’t matter, we wouldn’t have spent $1.5 billion in 2009[1] to press, comb, relax, brush, pull, tighten, weave, gel…ANYTHING to hold down and control those immortal naps. Yes, I said immortal. Because they keep coming back, the natural texture of my hair never changed no matter what I did to it. At that point, I realized, WAIT! This is what God has blessed me with. He blessed me with a certain texture of hair, shouldn’t I at least take the time to learn about it, how to style it, how to nourish it, how to LOVE it? If altering my hair is not such a big deal, why didn’t I also choose to alter my eye color? Wear blue contacts, green contacts (it was a fad back in the 90s but has passed)? Heck, get the color permanently changed? Or, alter my skin color? Skin lightening is big business (see earlier post) why not alter my skin color?
I think the reason I chose not to tinker with my eye color or skin color was because it seemed too artificial…like I was changing a key part of my identity. Ahhh, but hair, it is malleable, it can take on different forms. I could dye it, cut it, relax it, wet it, etc and it would still be there (well, except for the bald patches). But, I realized that the fact that I chose to alter my hair was affected by societal norms. I mean, if we lived in a society where people walked around barefoot all of the time and painted the pads of their feet, there would likely be debate about the best color, texture, brand and style of foot painting!
Society determines the value affixed to different standards of beauty. I realized that I did not have to buy into those standards. Hallelujah, I realized, I’m in the process of being liberated from societal notions of what is and is not beautiful. I claim that I’m beautiful and I’m walking in it!
[1] Note that the vast majority of the market is comprised of chemically based hair care products targeted to African-American consumers (Packaged Facts, 2010). However, the same report estimates that while it has been historically reported that approximately 80% of Black women relax their hair, the number may be more like 31% according to data from Experian Simmons. Also promising is that a Packaged Facts survey done in February 2009 revealed that 18% of Black adults, 17% of Hispanic adults, and 12% of White adults are trying natural and or organic products. I hope that this means healthier option but the jury is still out.
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