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...
A place for all things natural and cultural