I haven’t had a relaxer since February of 2012 and I’ve learned a lot about myself and others since then. Whenever I type or say “relaxed” I think of the Paul Mooney quote from Good Hair: “If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they’re not happy.” But in my case, you can substitute “white” for “all.” All people get real up in arms when it comes to the topic of a black woman’s unprocessed, straight natural hair.
The story behind why I stopped getting relaxers has a lot of elements. For starters, I was not attempting to lead some kind of revolution. I simply thought it was ridiculous that at 32, I couldn’t pick my hair texture out of a lineup. I’d been getting my hair chemically straightened every 6-8 weeks for over 15 years. I didn’t know what my own hair felt like. I didn’t know how to style it or maintain it myself.
In addition to that, the relaxers were killing my scalp. I dreaded getting touch-ups. Because of my sensitive skin, I’d always burn. When I decided I’d gotten my last touch up, I’d grown tired of enduring the process and I wanted to end my dependency on the creamy crack, as it’s affectionately known. Not only was I tired of being dependent on the creamy crack, I was tired of paying for it. I wasn’t working at the time and I needed to cut expenses. Eliminating regular hair appointments seemed like a no brainer.
So… I made an appointment for a big chop.
“Cut off all the straight pieces,” I said when I finally got into the stylists chair.
Stylist: “Are you sure???” Why wouldn’t I be?! “I’m sure.” She hesitantly started cutting and decided since she had a captive audience, she would also give me a complimentary therapy session.
Stylist: “A lot of girls are going natural now.”
Me: “Uh-huh”
Stylist: “Do you have any hair goals?”
Me: “No goals. I just need to stop with the chemicals. It’s killing my skin.”
Stylist: “Oh yeah. You may be allergic!”… “When your hair gets longer you should get a Keratin treatment. It will loosen your curls and make your hair shiny.”
Me: “Ok. That’s something to think about.”
Girl, bye. You aren’t getting me hooked on another, more expensive chemical treatment.
45 minutes later, I had a twa with hair less than ½ inch short and that’s when the journey started.
The reaction from my friends and family was very interesting. In general, they were supportive but not very enthusiastic. The first time I displayed my ‘fro on the big stage was at my Family Reunion during the Summer of 2012. At this point I had about 3 inches of very dense, dark, coily and kinky hair. The texture of my hair made it look like I was imitating a Q-tip. It became very obvious who was most uncomfortable with my new look because they would make comments like this:
Them: “Wow, you have sooo muuuch hair!”
Translation: “You need to do a better job of taming that bush.”
Or…
Them: “Wow, your hair is reeeeally thick!”
Translation: “Maybe you should try to style it differently?”
Or…
Them: “Wow, your hair is going to be soooo pretty when it gets longer!”
Translation: “It’s not pretty now.”
Or…
Them: “Oh I bet it’s reeeeeally easy to take care of!”
Translation: “It doesn’t look like you do much with it.”
Or…
Them: “Are you trying to grow dreads?”
Translation: “I hope you aren’t trying to grow dreads!”
Or…
Them: “It looks reeally healthy!”
Translation: “Healthy is the only compliment I can give.”
And my favorite…
Them: “Don’t worry. It will grow back.”
Translation: “I cant WAIT until it grows back!”
Ok, ok. I get it. It doesn’t look good.
Then was, of course, was the effect my hair had on my dating life. I started dating last Spring because I had finally gotten to a place where I could accept my textured hairstyles. I still wasn’t in love with my hair. But I had come to terms with my hair being what is was. While dating, I became friendly with a 40-something year old man who wanted to be “friends.” *eyeroll*
We met at a singles event while my hair was in, what I call, a post-swim puff. (I’d started taking swimming lessons and the classes would end too late at night for me to twist my hair for the next day. The easiest thing for me to manage was pulling all my hair back into a puff.) He was engaging and attentive and I thought: “this is great! I’ve finally managed to meet an attractive man who seems to be interested in me, despite not know how to get my hair quite right. Maybe this natural thing will work out after all!” We saw each other once or twice a week and always had a really good time together. He had great conversation. We had a lot in common. Everything was going well. Until it wasn’t.
We would often have conversations about the challenges of dating. His divorce was finalized about 9 months before we met and I was just getting over a long term relationship. Both of us were very much out of practice. Eventually, the conversation would transition to physical attraction and presentation and what men like to see on women, what women are attracted to, etc. Overtime, I learned that he didn’t like my hairstyle. But he liked me so he was willing to endure, if he absolutely had to.
After two months of dating, I guess he felt he could freely opine about my hair. I’d already noticed a gradual increase in aggression towards my hair. He’d began to make jokes about “losing things” or being “afraid to get his hand stuck” in my hair. The bottom line was: he thought it was hideous – his word. He admitted that to me one afternoon following an appointment I had with a new hair stylist. (After my swimming classes ended, I decided to get my hair straightened. Mainly because I was tired of my whole weekend revolving around the 5-6 hour block of time I needed to style my hair for the week. I wanted someone else to do it for a while.) I saw him a few days after getting my hair straightened, colored and cut. His response when he opened the door was “Wooo-oooow! This is how you should look aaallll the time! You look really, really, reeeally good!”
I was flattered. Then he continued with, “What you had before was really, really fucked up. It was actually….hideous.” I thought hideous was a bit of an exaggeration. So I challenged it: “If it was so hideous, then why are you going out with me?” Him: “Because I can see past all that. But most men aren’t going to bother putting in that kind of effort.” Me: “Then those aren’t the men that I want to be with anyway because I don’t want a man that gets hung up on hair.” Him: “Then you don’t want a man.”
I couldn’t even be in my feelings about his admission. Instead, I appreciated what he said. I find that too often men won’t tell you the truth because they don’t want to be “that guy”: the one who said something mean to hurt your feelings. Or they don’t want to run the risk of having to deal with the emotional messy consequences that they fear will result from their honesty. So they just don’t say anything at all. I appreciated his honesty. I hadn’t really been that confident in my hair and he just confirmed a suspicion I’d had: that men, some men, just weren’t feeling my hair either. I say some men, because there is always that one dude on the Metro with no job and no teeth who just couldn’t wait to sit his musty ass next to me and tell me how much he loved “natural girls.”
To prove his point: my friend asked me if I’d be willing to do an experiment. Sure. He pulled out his fancy-schmancy Canon digital camera and started taking pictures of me. Maybe 30 pictures; all from different angles. He then picked out the best ones and suggested that I upload them to my online dating profile. “Just see what happens,” he said. At that time, all of my pictures were of me at various stages of “natural.” He made a point to tell me that me those pictures weren’t very flattering.
I was curious. So the next morning, I uploaded the new pictures to my profile. Within 1 hr I had 10 new emails. By the end of the day I counted 26 new emails, winks, and likes. This was more attention in one day then I’d received in the last month. I guess he he was right. I’ve had more dating success with straight hair than I’ve had with my textured hair. It sucks but it’s a truth I can accept.
I also believe that has a lot to do with how I feel about myself. I didn’t feel sexy and I was only moderately confident when I was trying to figure out how to style my textured hair. Consequently, I wasn’t very happy with the men I was attracting.
I’ve been getting my hair straightened consistently every 2-3 weeks since then. I made a conscious decision not to continue with the next swimming class because of the additional time I needed to add to my schedule to maintain my hair. I am more attracted to the men I meet with straight hair than I am the men I met when my hair was textured. I enjoy having my weekends back and not having to worry about carving out a huge block of time to twist my hair for the week. I get absolutely zero joy from standing in the mirror for 4+ hours twisting my hair. And I hear it get’s easier as it gets longer. But that doesn’t change the fact that it still needs to get done. On the other hand, a blow out is 2 hours every 2-3 weeks and I’m done.
Initially, I was afraid I was making these decisions for the wrong reasons. I didn’t want to be one of those women who makes her decisions based on dictations from a man. But what “going natural” has empowered me to do was feel confident that I’m making the best decisions for me. Natural hair rules, be damned.
