I feel super, natural
It was early January 2020. I was preparing to return to work after holiday leave. My hair was a hot mess. For years, chemical relaxers had left it over-processed, limp, shedding. At times like this, I’d run to the salon for deep-conditioning treatments followed by, unfortunately, another chemical touch-up to my roots and edges to make my ’do silky smooth and shiny again. If I was lucky, I’d get three good weeks out of it. I typically spent about $250 each month on salon styling and treatments. My sister, a part-time beautician in a nearby city, sometimes came through in a pinch.
Now, I was just done. This is crazy ,I thought. Enough of the “creamy crack” to look “professional” (read: non-threatening) at work.
Besides, my instinct at the time that the chemical hair-straightening products weren’t good for me would be borne out by a 2022 study from the National Institutes of Health that found that women who use the products are at higher risk for uterine cancer compared with women who do not. The study also noted that Black women may be more affected because of more frequent use. God knows, that was me.
I’d go natural to give my hair a muchneeded break after decades of perming and to allow it to, I hoped, grow out and regain its strength. Around the same time I made my decision, several states began to enact laws against discrimination based on natural hairstyles typically worn by Black women, such as braids and twists. When the COVID-19 lockdown closed salons and most other public establishments two months later, I was even more comfortable with my choice.
First, I had to grow my hair out, letting it recover from decades of chemicals. I needed a wig. I went to my sister’s preferred website for high-quality wigs and ordered two, which she trimmed and flatironed. So cute! So easy! She styled my own hair in about 11 cornrow braids that stretched across my skull, from the top of my forehead to the top of my neck. By day, they’d live securely under a wig cap. I’d unravel them monthly for washing and conditioning, only to get them redone for their return to the wig cave.
Watching my hair grow and change from a chemically treated state to a small and then mid-sized afro was like the coolest science project. It was fun to experiment with different potions that stretched it or sent my teeny coils jumping. But I was never quite ready to unleash it full time.
If I’m going to do this, I thought, it must be camera-ready. I had fallen in love with countless shots of Viola Davis and Lupita Nyong’o in their biggest, baddest natural-hair poses. I even ordered an afro-sporting “Barbie Looks” doll that still sits atop my home desk. As a newly mintd 50-year-old, I wanted my hair to be bold and beautifully Black, a capital-S Statement. Instead, it looked wimpy.
That was largely because it took months to grow out the chemical relaxer. For me, the transition period felt like an exorcism. Many detangling brushes and widetooth combs now rest in peace.
It took me three years to at last be ready for the reveal. Even though I had used chemical relaxers for at least 35 years, I had always been deeply moved by the creativity and independence on display in the most intricate braiding styles, locs (sometimes called “dreadlocks”), and afro puffs. They never failed to catch my eye around my community, at church, in gyms, and, increasingly, on the job.
The wigs are now tucked away in drawers. They haven’t seen the light of day in months. My preferred style so far this year: long twists. I’ve been told more than a few times that they erase at least 10 years from my face. There’s an unintended consequence I’ll take!
I am sorry that it took so long to stop worrying about conforming. The hair of Black folks, left alone to do its own thing, is super natural.