Earlier this week, I took my hair down after wearing it in a protective style for three months and I can’t keep my hands out of it. It feels so fluffy and soft. I keep touching it and patting it. It feels good to feel my hair again after three months. After I took it down, I washed and conditioned it, dried it then rubbed Olive oil through my hair. Then I added a touch of Eden Coconut Shea Natural Curl Conditioning Cream. Then I braided it and the next day I picked it out into an afro and I’m just loving it!
The sad part is that I haven’t always had a healthy relationship with my hair. In fact, for many years I hated my hair. The Bible in Luke 12:7 says that God knows the number of hairs on our head. When I found this out I protested, thinking God had shortchanged me, no pun intended. Why did I have to have short nappy hair? Well, according to my big sister, I had the best and longest hair in the family when we were growing up. Based on pictures and my poor memory, I couldn’t recall that. I just remembered the times when I would watch with envy the women in commercials with long flowing hair blowing through the wind. I remembered spending time with my cousins and my mother combing their long locks, wondering again, why God gave me short nappy hair. One day I had the unfortunate experience of finding out that a classmate felt the same way I did about my hair. She told me it looked like a Brillo Pad! Yes, she did!
When I would lament to my mother she would say, “Hair don’t make you and hair don’t break you.” Well, that was easy for her to say. She had what I called “Good hair.” Then one day I discovered perms and that was the beginning of the end. I went from a Perm to a Jeri Curl to Braids, to Weaves then to Wigs, all the while ignoring and neglecting the hair God had given me.
When I left Corporate America in 2016 to pursue writing and acting fulltime, I decided to go natural. I wear wigs for work and when I’m not working I wear my own hair. In between I will braid it down for growth. After one year of doing this, I began to appreciate my hair. I began to see its beauty. I became “Woke.” It became clear to me that ALL HAIR IS GOOD—CURLY HAIR, KINKY HAIR, NAPPY HAIR, STRAIGHT HAIR, WAVY HAIR. IT’S ALL GOOD. Nothing God makes is ugly and He loves diversity. His imagination is beyond incredible. Just look around our universe. Just imagine if we all had the same kind of hair or if all flowers were the same, all animals were the same, all people were the same. BORING!
God knew just what he was doing when he gave me the hair he gave me. There never was anything wrong with my hair. It wasn’t what was on top of my head that was the problem. It was the lie in my head that was the problem. It was the lie that I had bought into, that my kind of hair was bad because it wasn’t straight, because I couldn’t swing it. And my hair can and does grow, especially in its natural state. And it’s so amazing, I can straighten it or perm it if I want, but I don’t want to. I’m loving it the way God created it to be. So whatever kind of hair you have, embrace it! Take it from me, IT’S ABSOULTELY BEAUTIFUL!
This article hit home for me. I went from pressing iron, to chemical hair straightening, to natural, wigs, to cornrow, and now to locked hair. We are not alone when it comes to how others or we see our hair. I remember co-host Joy Behar on The View saying she was called Brillo Head, because her hair is kinky or as some of our elders would nappy. LOL
As a relative once said, “Good hair is healthy hair.”😍