16 Years of Natural Hair- My Story
December 13, 1994. Final exams, a small town with no "big -city" hair stylists. Any reason not to study.Me: Hey yall, I'm thinking about shaving my head.
*insert crazy looks*
Them: Really? Why? You have very pretty hair.
Me: I don't know, I just wanna be natural for a minute.
Them: Will you give up color too?
Me: Let's not loose our damn minds about this.
That was me, in my dorm room. My roommate and several childhood friends were not so sure I knew what I was talking about.
But, I did.
I had a friend cut all of my relaxed locs. He was just as unsure as they were.
Me: Man, you are the bootleg barber, why won't you just cut my hair like you do all the guys?
I had about 3 inches of new growth anyway. As it was, I only relaxed about 4 times a year. Even then, I used "kiddie perms". He'd managed to cut off the relaxed hair and leave everything that was still curly....But I wanted to be BALD!
Him: Crystal, I don't know about this..
Me: Why
Him: Well, your ears are extremely small, did you know that?
Me: Looks in mirror for the first time since we started.
Me: Oooooh, they are aren't they?
Me: Looks in mirror again.
Me: Let's see, you've cut it down to half an inch on this entire side of my head. We have no choice but to do the other side. LET'S KEEP GOING!!!
When he gets done, I'm more surprised at my natural dark hair color than the length. I started coloring my hair with peroxide out of the bottle and Kool-Aid in seventh grade. I can't say that I've seen my natural hair color since. Even when I wore dark hair, it was a dark color... out of a bottle.
That was my sophomore year in undergrad. The last time I'd see a relaxer.
I was surprised at the response my new look garnered. Apparently, my girly-girlness meant I should not be natural.
My grandmother had a fit. There was no way her granddaughter who once had elbow length hair should be walking around with a college cut.
Granny: Will you catch a man looking like that?
Me: Yeah Granny, they don't see the bald head until AFTER they see all this rump I'm shaking.
Granny gives me a look like I'm talking too slick at the mouth.
By my fifth year, I was growing my hair out. Graduation was around the corner, and natural hair in the workplace was not popular back then. Natural hair in a small city is one thing. Natural hair in a big city is another.
Big city folks think it's ok to offer their unsolicited opinions. I heard it all. It was OK for me to be natural because I had "good hair". Also, my "good hair" was unique, because I am dark skinned. You know, dark skinned blacks all have the same hair texture. Yeah.
Then came a new twist. As it turns out, I could not call myself natural because I still colored my hair. Excuse me? You want me to give up peroxide?
Go to hell.
Since I was working in corporate America, I ALWAYS kept my hair straight. Salon or not, my tresses were straight. Also, because of the aforementioned elbow length hair I had as a kid, I still wore short hair as a grown up. I'd chopped it into Toni Braxton's popular cut in 11th grade, and never really grew it past my shoulders after that.
A few years later a funny thing happened. I realized I had enough hair for a ponytail. Jesus take the wheel! I couldn't remember a ponytail in the last eleven years. There was possibly enough hair for a ponytail just before the big chop, but everybody was wearing those Sister curls, and I was too.
At the time I was a housewife, so there was no 9 to 5. I was a homebody, so there were no events requiring silky straight locs. Me and my ponytail became real close, probably too close. I was straightening my hair less than 4 times a year. The husband didn't understand why I was spending $200 on a hair color job every 6 weeks, and nobody ever saw the results.
People would look ay my hair and comment on the texture. Some loud mouth was always there to remind the speaker and me that I wasn't natural because I colored my hair. WTH? I'd decided that not having a relaxer defined natural for me, and that was all that mattered.
When I first joined Facebook, I was an active participant in a natural hair forum. One of the moderators posed the question, 'What constitutes natural hair?"
The responses were more than you can imagine. My definition was not using any chemical with the purpose of altering hair texture. I understand the developer in hair color breaks down the cuticle, thus changing the texture. However, the purpose of hair color is not to change the texture, its to change the color.
Most of the ladies teetered around my range on the radar. Of course there were natural purists, yakking bout how relaxing, coloring, wearing make-up, using deodorant, etc, were all things that excluded you from calling yourself natural. According to them, God doesn't want us to use these things. God wants us to smell like billy- goats.
Excuse me?
I have to forego deodorant to be natural?
Bitch please. Followed by, heaux have a seat.
My granny thought being bald would keep the men at bay.....this no deo shit would surely trump that.
Of course my well versed sisters were there to remind those wack jobs of all the many queens in the Bible who were dressed to the nines.
Peace restored.
Another member sent me a message, saying she wanted to interview me. I thought that was cool. She, Laquita, wrote about natural hair for blogs, and the DC Examiner.
When she sent the finished article, I saw that her findings were pretty much on par with the Facebook discussion. The responses ran the gamut. Moderates like me, women who had an inch or two of relaxed ends, and the die hards who only bathed once a month. We all considered ourselves natural.
My close ties to Dallas' neo-soul community means lots of natural friends. Those chicks have real reasons for being natural. They have spiritual analysis about the how's and why's of their decision.
Hell, I just wanted a new look. My new look motivation was followed by laziness. Lazy was followed by my current reason. Basically, a return to relaxing means I have to forego my Barbie-like shades of blonde hair.
NO BUENO
With all of that said, I am honoring all of my natural sisters.
Kinky, curly, textured, wavy, nappy, napptural, coiled, two-strand-twisted, loc'd, colored, henna'd, tinted, cellophane'd, demi-permanent, 3 inches of relaxer on the ends- However you define "natural" is your business.
Salute!
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| 3 years old |
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| me and mommy 1994 |
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| 2010 |
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