Truly Not My Hair

Since I was a little girl, I’ve worn my hair braided. I remember my aunt was my first hair stylist ever. I would sit for hours, even days, getting my hair done. I can’t even count how many hours I spent getting my hair done. Getting braids in your hair can be very painful; your scalp will be sore for days because of all the pulling and braiding that goes into your hair.

Once my aunt moved from Chicago, my mom had to find someone else to braid my hair. After some good searching, she finally found the right stylist. I went to that particular braiding shop for about five years. She did my hair throughout high school.

When I was in high school, most of the girls in my class had perms, or relaxers. I never cared about getting a perm because I always heard bad stories about girls’ hair falling out, etc. So I stayed away from perms. People in high school used to always ask me, “Why don’t you ever show your real hair?” I think people thought I was bald-headed or had really short hair. I was never ashamed of my thick curly hair. It was just that wearing braids had always been my style.

When I was starting my first year of college, I wanted to try something different—I decided to get a perm. Days before I got my first perm, I was nervous because I didn’t want my hair to fall out or something to go wrong. My sister had always gotten perms ever since she was little, so I let her hair stylist do mine. I was sitting in the waiting area of the hair salon waiting for my name to be called. Once the stylist called my name and I walked to the chair, I started to have second thoughts, thinking, “Do I really want a perm?” I told myself it was time for a change. When the hair stylist started to part my hair into little sections for the perm, there was no turning back. Once I got the perm washed out, I had seen my hair straight for the first time. Seeing my hair was something different for me; looking in the mirror almost seemed like looking at a new person.

Since I didn’t have braids anymore, I had to spend more time doing my hair. I was always used to putting a scarf over my braids at night, but now my hair was different. Every night it took me about an hour to rap my hair up. I had to go to the beauty salon every two weeks to get my hair permed, which took up a lot of my time. Once winter came, I was ready to go back to my braids. I had fun with my perm because I could wear my hair in different styles, but after a year with it, I went back to wearing braids–my true calling.

One day as I was listening to the radio, India.Arie’s song “I Am Not My Hair” came on. I could relate to the issue she sang about in the song. When I saw she cut all of her hair off, she inspired me to wear my hair all natural. While I was taking all of my braids down, I had to keep telling myself that this natural look might work. I had gotten my hair pressed, and it was nice and straight like a perm. Wearing my hair natural was a lot of work for me, though. On hot summer days, my hair would get really curly, even if I had straightened my hair earlier in the day. I also started to use natural hair products to make my hair healthy. After having the natural look for a year, I decided to go back to braids.

I am still to wearing braids, but I know I will not be wearing them forever. I give myself another year, and I will no longer wear braids. I know it’s time for me to finally be done with braids, mostly because I am getting sick of sitting 10 hours or more to get my hair done!

I know wearing your natural hair is becoming a trend now with Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair,” Tyra Banks wearing her “real hair” on her talk show and having different celebrities cutting their hair off like singer Solange.

But I think that whether you are wearing weaves, your natural hair or braids, it doesn’t matter what other people think. Many of the celebrities talking about natural hair like Banks offend me. She was saying that mostly all black women are hiding behind their hair. I think hair is hair. I feel many black women celebrities are trying to make black women feel bad about not wearing their own hair. All of these celebrities need to wake up and realize that a couple of months ago, they were walking around talking about their lacefront wigs and weaves. But I believe that there so much more to a woman than her hair, even if she not wearing her own.