Love Being Natural

The lovely and talented Giselle Grant does her thing again!  I went in to Salon Au Naturel to get my ends clipped and give my hair some all around tender loving care.  As I will be off work all this week until Monday, I decided to do something more adventurous than my usual fingerstyle.  I’ve been itching to do a frohawk for months .  We agreed to first do a twist out, and then pin up the sides.  We forgot to take a picture before I left the salon, so all I had to capture the visual later that day was my BF’s cell phone camera.  Here is the result.  I love my hair!

I suppose it IS possible to post the Sesame Street I Love My Hair video without also posting the Willow Smith Whip My Hair video and the mash of the two... but I think it is so adorable!  I've chosen not to resist the urge. ;-) I believe that this kind of affirmation in popular culture brings us closer to the day when all little Black girls grow up with a love for their hair, with no hang-ups about straight hair being better than curly hair.

This is so awesome.  A friend of mine sent me the link to this YouTube video, and I thought, "Oh, cool, Sesame Street is ON IT!" and resolved to post about it.  Then I saw it on Essence.com, and also heard about the special Essence hair issue (more on that later) and resolved to get that and blog about that as well.  But just now I read about the story BEHIND the video, and it's so cool.  See the story at NPR.org here .

Hello, all, Just had to post a pic... this is me almost one year after my big chop!  My BF took this picture of me last month on our vacation in NYC.  This is the famed Highline Park , where they've transformed old rail lines into a place for art and plant life native to the area. Peace & love

I am committed to being natural in as many aspects of my life as possible, phasing out products with harmful ingredients, using reusable instead of disposable items, printing as little as possible, and so on, taking my appreciation for my own existence and everything and everyone else to the fullest extent of my capacity.  In this effort, I have for several years been using natural products for my daily ablution.  Here's my list.

Over the past 10 months of my hair being natural, I have encountered many women who have asked me what I use in my hair, how do you get it to spiral like that, etc.  I see many women whose hair I LOVE and admire, so of course, it felt good to be complimented and asked for advice.  However, one recurring theme struck me - how many women have given up on going natural because they couldn't figure out what to do with their hair.  I really wanted to say to them NOOOO!!!! DON'T GIVE UP! but most times, I keep my cool, saying that everyone's journey is individual, while encouraging them to stick with it by trying a new approach - go to a professional who will teach you what to do with your hair.  We forget that we were all taught what to do with relaxed hair for most of our lives.  Just because our hair is "natural" doesn't mean that we "naturally" know what to do with it.

Learning my hair continues to be a beautiful journey.  When Giselle did my hair, she gave me a list of everything she used and showed me what she was doing as she was doing it.  This was such a sharp contrast from some past experiences I'd had with stylists, where many act as if what they are using on your hair is a state secret.  Giselle empowered me with information, so I could go forth and do my hair well.  Since that time, I have experimented with different products, which can be expensive, but ultimately rewarding when I find what my hair loves.  Here's what I use now.

Going natural was an act of love to myself.   I got my first relaxer when I was twelve years old and in the sixth grade.  I remember up until that point, my Mom spent hours doing hair - mine, my two younger sisters, sometimes others, in addition to her own.  With our hair straight, it took less time.  I don't remember thinking poorly of natural hair, as I LOVED the old pictures of my Mom and Dad with their dy-no-mite 'fros from back in the day; I think perhaps I may have thought of getting my hair straightened as something akin to a rite of passage.  I do, however, remember that four years before then, when I was eight, I wanted to be White like my favorite actress on a soap opera so I could be thought of as beautiful and be rich and live in a big house like they did on television; but then I remember seeing the women in Essence magazine and that was the end of my thinking that to be pretty you had to be White.  Thank God.  But I digre...