My Story
I was born in Pa in 1986 with a head full of beautiful hair. My parents welcomed their third daughter to the family. My mom used to style my hair in ponytail twists with colorful ballies and barrettes on the ends. When I was younger my hair was natural but it was constantly blow dried and straightened. It took a lot of effort to blow dry and de-tangle my hair because by age 4 I had a head full of thick hair. I was the little girl sitting in the chair wincing every time I felt the hot comb get too close to my scalp! I was a wild child and all I wanted to do was rip and run and go play outside on my block.
My First Relaxer
I don’t remember ever really caring about how my hair looked until one day I was at my step-aunts house where she was giving another little girl a relaxer. I had heard of relaxers because some of my older cousins and my older sisters were getting them but I really didn’t know what they were. I had just gotten my hair straightened that day but still my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted one and I didn’t have a clue what it was. I think I was around the age of 5-7. That day was my first ever relaxer and let me tell you it didn’t even come out straight, I left with a blow dried Afro. My mom was very upset when she found out I had gotten a relaxer, but it was something all my sisters and cousins started getting so I just followed suit. We were just following the trends we saw.
Living The Lye
My hair didn’t start breaking off with my first perm. It still seemed pretty healthy and long. We started going to my aunts shop to get our hair done, waiting hours and hours more time than usual since we were family and getting our hair done for free or for a big discount…lol I always hated getting relaxers, the smell, scalp burning, aka (head on fire) but it was something I felt obligated to do since everyone else in my family was doing the same. It was all I knew. I had never met anyone with natural hair and if I did occasionally see someone I thought they were mixed or something. I had no idea what my natural texture looked liked. I remember when I was around 15 or 16 talking with my step mom on the textures of black peoples hair. She was trying to tell me that black people had coily/curly hair and I was saying that you could only have that kind of hair if you were mixed. I thought black hair had no textured pattern to it, I thought it was just a mess and that it was unmanageable. We were never taught to value our natural hair so how could we ever appreciate it. When I would go to the salon to get a perm I was always scared that either my hair was going to fall out or that I would get burned with the curling iron. lol I was also tender headed so I was always making a fuss while in the salon chair. In middle and high school I pretty much wore my hair straight. I sometimes tried different styles like micro braids or twists but for the most part I wore it flat ironed straight with a little curl to the ends.
When I was about 16 I experienced something terrible. I was over my grand moms house one weekend and I asked her to give me a perm since I knew I needed one and didn’t want to pay at the salon. My grand mom had put perms in my hair before so I wasn’t worried. She followed all the directions correctly and didn’t leave it in for too long. However when we began the process of washing it out with the neutralizing shampoo I could feel my hair coming out! In clumps! I was so scared I made sure to get all the perm out and then we blow dried it straight. It felt really fragile and though it was really straight I knew it was really weak and damaged. Over the next couple of weeks I saw it coming out more and more as I combed it each day. I remember my sister said to me “if you go bald, I’ll shave all my hair off too”. That was nice. lol I was upset but determined to heal my hair, I went out and brought every thing that said it would help heal damaged hair and make it grow. After about five weeks my hair in the back went from about 15 inches long to about half an inch in the back. And the front stayed long. I looked really weird. lol I didn’t know what to do with it so I went to the hair cuttery to get my hair treated and cut a little shorter so it could match the the back. I didn’t feel pretty at all. It took a while to grow back to the length it was before but even still I didn’t stop getting perms. I was addicted and also I feared that I wouldn’t feel beautiful without relaxed hair.
Off To College
In college, I had a hard time going to the salon because my school was far away from the salons I usually went to. At the time I would sometimes travel to Philly to the Dominican salons to get my hair done at a reasonable price. I liked how my hair came out but those blow dryers were extremely hot! I’ve never enjoyed getting my hair done by anyone, but it’s funny the things we’ll keep doing just to fit in or to feel “beautiful”. College life was tough and because I was trying to keep up with my studies I didn’t really have time to work or to go and get my hair done all the time. I decided to buy a hair straightener and do it myself. It never came out like it did in the salon (bone straight) but I never liked that look anyway. I remember once over the summer a guy I worked with asked me If I was mixed because he notice my hair was extremely straight with a couple of loose curls, I told him that I did have native American ancestry on my mom side. But me and you both know that my hair was straight because of a relaxer and not because of anything else. lol My family is mainly of African ancestry with a couple mixes here and there. I was living the lye and feeling good about it.
Post College
After college I came across a forum where people were debating black women and self hate. They were saying that black women really hated their own hair and that’s why they go through so much trouble to get it straight. Well at first I disagreed thinking that those were lies and it wasn’t until months later that I actually questioned why I got relaxers in the first place. I wanted to do some research on how our ancestors saw their hair and what made them want to change it.
Should I go natural?
It all started with slavery, and the lost of pride and traditions. Black hair was celebrated in our ancestors traditions but this was lost for our slave ancestors who were brought over from Africa, fast forward many years later and we find blacks trying to fit into a European dominated society, mimicking the styles of their masters. Well we’ve come a long way from slavery and after doing a lot of research and watching so many inspiring videos on you tube I realized it was time to stop hiding the natural me. I finally made the decision to go natural in March of 2009 and I was so excited to find out what my natural hair looked like.
Going Natural!
I decided to transition because I was too scared to do the Big Chop. I told my family and they didn’t seem too pleased about the whole idea, they said I would be nappy headed or even bald. But I had the support of my Boyfriend Mark who inspired me when I felt like giving up. I’ve tried so many transition styles and have fallen in love with my hair.
I discuss in more detail my experience with transitioning on the transitioning page.
Who’s to decide how we should look or how we should wear our hair? I decided to make my own decisions and not to just wear my hair the way everybody else does because it’s the so called beauty standard. Don’t just go along with what’s popular, question the things you do and why you do them. After that make your own decisions and create your own definition of beauty! Be confident and strong ladies!
Much Love!
~Kash
Peace
Out of interest – how long does it take to get this look? x