When my daughter was younger, she always wanted to straighten her hair. From what I could tell, it wasn’t because she wanted to look like the other girls in school, it was because she wanted to be able to swing her hair. She wanted hair like mine.
In reality, I didn’t even have hair like mine. Not without monthly chemicals making it that way. When I was 8, my grandmother gave me my first relaxer, a Just for Me! kids relaxer. I can still hear the commercial with the 3 cool looking little Black girls dancing around and singing, “I want style, body, and shine. A look that’s totally all mine. Hair so soft, silky, and free. I want something just for me. For combing and style that’s worry-free. J U S T FOR M E.”, as they slow-mo walked down the sidewalk, arm in arm, bouncing their luxurious manes of hair around. It was created “part by mothers, especially for their daughters”.
In my case, it wasn’t my mother that wanted me to have the relaxer. I spent the summers with my grandmother and this particular one, she relaxed my hair to be able to better “manage” it. Fed up with weekly trips to the beautician for a hot press and comb or touch-ups in the kitchen after I’d get it wet from rain, washing my face, or being in the shower, she didn’t want to deal with it anymore and decided she’d prefer me to have hair that was “soft, silky, and free”. She got something just for me and I just continued on from there – into my 30s.
It’s hard to stop relaxing your hair once you start. Not because you’re addicted but because they told you (at least in my case), you’d have to cut all your hair off to get rid of the relaxer and who wants to go from a luxurious mane to bald … by choice … in their teens or twenties? You can’t just wash it out and even though some converting seems to happen when it gets wet, it’s never going to convert back to pre-relaxer hair, so I just kept doing it. Usually at home with a Dark and Lovely relaxer.
I’d stand in the bathroom, gloves on for hand protection and grease on my scalp for scalp protection, and slather the unflattering smelling product onto my roots, then wait for a little extra because you gotta feel that burn. You know it’s working when it’s burning (insert all the eye-rolling emojis here).
My daughter would watch me conduct what had to look like a science experiment every 6 weeks like clockwork and one day, when she was upset about me not wanting to straighten her hair to gift her with hair just like mine, I realized the whole time I was TELLING her, her hair was beautiful, I was SHOWING her I didn’t feel the same way about myself.
I had been telling myself I was getting monthly touch-ups because it was too difficult to go back from having a relaxer. In reality, I liked the manageable, carefree hair relaxing afforded me. In order to truly get her to embrace the beauty of her hair, I had to do the same with mine. I started growing out my hair for about a month before I chopped most of it off in my bathroom one evening.
The once luxurious seeming hair from the relaxer now appeared ratty and tangled with the new curls and coils of my natural hair and I didn’t have the patience to hold on to hair I was getting rid of eventually anyway. I thought I’d feel sad, but I felt liberated. I had been struggling with doing my hair during that growth period due to the mixed textures of my natural and relaxed hair and was relieved to not have to deal with it any longer.
Honestly, at the end of the day, I realized my hair has magical abilities. It may have been easier to work with and style while it was relaxed but it was also a one-trick pony. My relaxed hair couldn’t hold a fraction of the styles my hair does now and while I may rock a cute headwrap more often than not, it’s not because I’m ashamed and wishing my relaxed hair days were back, it’s because it matches my outfit, it’s too hot to have hair on my neck, or I simply didn’t feel like doing it that day.
What’s your natural hair story? If you’ve had your hair relaxed, was it something you had a decision in, or was it a parent or grandparent who made that decision for you?
