Thursday, February 19, 2009

hair.

i thought about this in part because while i was reading on salon.com i learned that white people apparently have just realized that black women have a shitload of hair issues. and chris rock has a new documentary out about black women's hair all brought about by his daughter asking him why she didn't have "good" hair.
it's always fun explaining black people hair to white people. [sarcasm. i love when people marvel when it's actually soft.]


and i decided to stop relaxing my hair about 2 months ago.

my mom braided or pressed my hair up until i was about 11, then she got tired of doing it so often and had it relaxed to save time and effort. if i had a say in the matter i probably would never have gotten one. but i have hair issues just like everyone else. i feel like most "regular" black chicks if they don't want straight hair [i don't] they want the stereotypical "mixed" girl curly hair [i saw stereotypical because i've seen some pretty nappy headed mixed girls] that they can flat iron whenever they want. you know, the "good" hair. i loathe that term so much. if you hair is healthy and strong it's good, period.

but i really hated relaxers and only kept getting them to maintain my hair length. before i cut my hair almost 2 years ago, for the most part i had what is considered to be long hair for a black girl [since most people assume that black women's hair doesn't grow]
example -->

i've gotten over the feeling that i need to have longer hair to feel attractive. i've been steadily cutting my hair since that haircut and don't mind it being shorter anymore. and i love the natural texture of my hair. i like to play with it when it grows and i would loathe having to part with it when it was time to get a touch up. so a few months ago when i was playing in it and looking at photos of muhsinah with her awesome hair, i thought why the fuck am i still doing this to myself when i hate it? and i thought about graduating and moving and having to find somewhere to get it done and blahblahblah. i already use all natural hair products anyway so it's not like i'd have to find all new stuff and i stopped blowdrying and flatironing it quite some time ago so this would be the next logical step.

it was more of a pragmatic decision really. that and permed hair kind of sucks. it's only fun right after you get the relaxer and after that it doesn't really work right.

i'm not going to become some granola-munching, incense-waving, warning about the dangers of the creamy crack and shunning the lye. i hate those broads.

i just didn't want to get anymore relaxers. but that simple decision has prompted questions of why the hell would i want to do that. and still having the hair issues that i have, i really don't feel comfortable just chopping it off especially since i have a peanut shaped head. an acquaintance suggested i just shave it off like she did but she's tall and statuesque, me? not so much. so i'm just going to keep it in braids until about december and cutting it more in between getting them redone.

besides. everyone is doing it!


damn this is long.
congrats if you actually read all this

4 comments:

Authentik.SupaFlai said...

ahh that documentry was priceless.

i hate to hear people use the term good hair also. i promise if one more person tells me oh you have good hair i may commit homicide.

nonetheless, i always favored the natural look. i never had a relaxer so i cant agree with you there. i always mainted length with oils, protective stlyes and keeping my scalp clean.

anyway...
dont shave it lol. once you take your braids out, rock it out au natural and see how you like it. forget what everyone seems to think.

the media done doomed us all to believing straight hair was great anyway.

fuckery :(

saturn ruling said...

i stopped getting relaxers around the 11th grade. it was thinning out my hair and it wouldn't grow as longer than a little past my shoulders (everytime it grew i needed a "trim" or some shit that required an inch or 2 to get hacked off). when i decided to stop relaxers, i would grow it out and every few months decided whether i want to chop off some inches. and then get bored and cut it out a chunk.

last july, i decided to chop it all off because 1)i was bored, 2)i was sick of always straightening it, 3)it didn't curl the way i wanted to because of the color i had in it, and 4)because my aunts kept on stressing for me to NOT cut my hair. (shortest i ever gone)
i wanted a pixy haircut but then remembered that i wouldn't be able to keep it up x_x

but YAY! welcome to the club lol
a different set of people will approach you... lol... i'm not lying.

Derek said...

Yea, he is that cat from Degrassi. I was like, why is she writing about this dude.

Late? Try, I have more important things to do. Except I DID sleep all over Jazmin Sullivan.

I have a natural tooooo~! And I'm tall and statuesque. And I'm a black man, but I protest the idea that black men HAVE to have shaven heads because they look unkempt anyway...*sigh*.

saturn ruling said...

oooh- derek- i like men that are growing out their hair. but i dont like it longer than mine or in cornrows or dreds lol... i'm picky lol. cuts are nice but... idk... i think men should change it up in a while