Having Hair...

This is me at three and a half years old. I am on my way to get baptized so my hair is plain and undone in it’s natural state.

A tight if slightly misshapen afro. That is my natural hair. I do not have words for what it feels like then to have grown up in the braided, straight permed and Jheri curled 1980’s. 

My natural hair (style) went out in the decade I was born into. What is a child supposed to do with that kind of intel?

If I did have words I am sure they would not be safe for work.

Maybe it is different in India where head shaving (tonsuring) is popular as a religious expression. Maybe they cares less about what type of hair they has been given.

I realized the other day while I was looking at a hair care website for black folks that we with the tightest kink and coil 4b z’s might be the rarest hair type on the planet. 

Talking about rare hair reminds me of redheads. My first official high school boyfriend was redheaded. They are 2% of the population if the counting is accurate.

Years ago I got and read Andre, Oprah’s hair stylists book on hair and hair care. That woman has enviable hair. I am sure his expertise helps but if you have seen pictures of Oprah from her childhood you know she came along with a lot (genetically) to work with.

I love that Chris Rock came out with his documentary on black women and their hair.

Now that he is a father of girls it hits him how devastating this issue can be on a females self-esteem.

Since before Good Hair came out I determined to no longer classify hair as good or bad. I simply believe having hair is good. Ask any cancer patient or Alopecia sufferer.

It saddens me a little that so many women of my hair type choose to simply shave it all off. 

I am sure it saddens many who are comfortable going with natural styles for it that there are those of us who choose to chemically treat.

I wonder what we would all be doing if we had grown up in a different time or place. The funny thing to me is when ever I see pictures of Africans none of them have Afros.

On my Amazon wish list is a new book about the care and feeding of my natural hair. I need to have that in my personal library. I also want to start taking the vitamin biotin to see if it will help my hair grow faster. I definitely think I am on the low end with that.

“It’s only hair” and “It will grow back” 

are phrases that make me cringe because how we look communicates with people and for some of us that growing back takes much more time than others.