Betty Chambers Has Spoken: Hair Again

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Hair Again - High Maintenance?
Monday, November 19, 2007

I've never liked my hair worn straight. I have never liked the methods used to make it straight either - be it hot comb, flat iron, or relaxers. Although I was combing my hair since I was about 8 to 10 years old - I certainly didn't know what I was doing - I never craved straight hair. All I wanted was for it to be long.

As a child, my natural hair never reached past my ear lobes. When my Mother pressed my hair for "special occasions" - it was only long enough for an itty bitty ponytail. Sad.

I may have been the only girl in high school with an afro. Almost every girl had relaxed / pressed hair that was shoulder length or longer. I was a hold-out until junior year, then I finally broke down due to peer pressure.

I got a relaxer a few times, but I hated being forced to be one of the crowd. It made me so cranky, I got the nickname "crabby". Damn right I was. I enjoyed being quirky and different. I can't stand conformity. I despise anything that requires group think or everyone must do the same thing because some idjit is doing it.

My hair strands are rather fine. I could never get a decent thick afro. I always needed to pat it down. I didn't like relaxing my hair, because the thinness was accentuated. It made me self-conscious. And who wants to feel the wind tickling the scalp? That sensation alone put a chill down my back. Yuck.

I wore an afro for a number of years, before my aunt and uncle from the UK introduced me to the jheri curl. It was nice for a couple of years, before the product starting disappearing off store shelves. To make a long story short: that product also thinned my hair out. It made it long, but it also fell out in clumps periodically. Wasn't that a blast?

I read a lot of comments where black women are going through something called a transition to grow out their hair from a relaxer. I suppose some of us are so self-conscious about our texture that we feel the need to transition. I understand. Well, not really, but I can pretend to.

Um, I just cut my hair to a few inches and rolled with it. I remember the next day I showed up to work; the director of our department marched down the hall and came to my office door.

He looks, seems satisfied, nods, and says: "Your hair looks nice."

I smiled, somewhat cheekily, and said, "Thanks."

And that was that.

My hair has been a pain in the ass. I used to wish I knew how to take care of it and comb it. I wasn't educated about it until I started reading natural hair care books. The biggest breakthrough came with the advent of the internet.

Now, I sympathize with black women who say that they prefer to relax their hair. They believe it is for low maintenance reasons. Hey, whatever floats your rationalization boat.

I don't care how knotty and uncooperative my hair has been. It will never compare to the misery of going through: the chemical process, the hair salon wait (all day!), the scissor happy / unsympathetic (rough handling) hairstylists, the expense, hair breakage, bald spots and receding hairlines (alopecia areata), and the terror of worrying about permanent scalp damage!

I'm grateful for the forums that educate me on how to manage my hair. That is what I have always wanted. Best of all my hair is very low maintenance, cheap and easy to comb. Okay, most times easy to comb.

Labels: black women, natural hair, relaxed hair

posted by GoldenAh

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