I Have Fallen In Love With My Hair

By: SARAH DAVIS

CHANGE – there’s an underlying agitation to transform that arrives along with the sounds, smells and gifts of the holiday season. In that frame of mind I contemplate the beginning of my journey with natural hair and how my relationship with it stands today.  I have been considering how deeply and completely I have fallen in love with my hair.

As a young child I can remember the classic categories that were thrown around.  The ubiquitous labels, “Good Hair”, “Indian Hair” or “Nappy Hair” among others were what we knew and understood. These labels not only designated your hair type but in some cases, your place in a caste system of beauty for those attached to the inescapable euro-centric images.

I never really weighed the negative aspects of those labels growing up. I knew them and understood them but for some reason, it never occurred to me to hate the hair that I had because it was “kinky” or “nappy” and needed to be processed.  What I did know is that I needed a perm, or a hot comb or something to get those “naps” out. That was all I knew.

In looking back, I am able to pinpoint the reason for this. Before I even remembered life I remembered straightened or processed hair.  When thinking back I realized, I never knew what my natural hair looked like. Now the processed hair, I was fully aware of what happened to it when I got a fresh perm or took a dip in the pool. What I didn’t see was what had been hidden from me.  The urge to see my hair, natural and unencumbered was how my journey began.

Just like every other child of the eighties, I had my share of traumatizing “kitchen hair salon” experiences.  I had the Jerri curl (very dry, my mother refused to apply activator liberally so there were no couch marks), the perms, the wet sets, the press and go (with bergamot of course) and any other style prominent during the decade. I never knew anything else. It was the norm.  I was secure and happy with the idea of camouflage and I didn’t even realize it.

I entered my adolescent years armed with a wrap (which of course, was a style I did myself) and Isoplus hair spray, which essentially is hair grease in a can, or what I like to call…Magic.  I went through a period of self discovery in my college years as most do.   I imperceptibly began a series of changes internally and physically.  My appearance began to change along with my philosophies about life, my ideologies. I lost the freshman 15 instead of gaining it and started hanging around upper classmen who were politically involved on campus and began learning more about our history. I also seamlessly began to rebel against the euro-centric straightening of my hair, thus prompting my physical changes.

It was a gradual change. One day I was armed with a flat iron and Hawaiian Silky perm and the next I thought twice when I went to the beauty supply store, yeah I bought the perm, but I began to ask myself…”Why am I buying this?”

Why endure the painful process of perming my hair, when I had real examples of natural beauty.  I had grown to appreciate…naturalness.  At the same time, as the perm grew out I still struggled with the idea that my natural look would not be palatable or acceptable to some.  So I kept my hair “swept back” (i.e., slicked down with MURRAY’S of course) in a bun.  After a year or two of growing out my perm in what I felt was an acceptable, non confrontational way I decided to hell with it.  I started to see peeks of my true hair texture being revealed little by little.  It was empowering, it made me feel strong. With that strength I moved on to Bantu knots, or twists. I loved it.  After the gradual progression to that stage it became more of an obsession to see my hair do “what came to it naturally” so to speak.  I decided to loc (I don’t “dread” any thing about my hair).

I started my locs in August 2000 with about 5 inches of unprocessed hair.   I washed them with water, apple cider vinegar, tea trea oil and rose water.  I was told it would take about three months to loc. Ummm, no – it took longer than that for me.

It took me 9 months to actually see locs forming and for about 8 of those months I thought I had made a huge mistake. After contemplating this for so many years the one thing that never occurred to me was that my hair wouldn’t loc. After growing out my perm my natural hair texture was revealed to be a study in contradictions. It was soft but coarse, thin but thick, in short not conducive to loc growth! My hair decided to follow the path I had set early on…it rebelled.  I was 9 months into locking up and completely discouraged.  I finally met someone with locs similar to mine and he told me, “Water. I used water”. “Water is your friend” he said “let water run through it every day, and it will guide your hair to loc”.

Talk about an Ah-HA moment.  I did exactly as he prescribed and within no time my hair stopped fighting me.  And that’s when I learned as varied as our hair is there is never any cut and dry technique to attain a certain look. Without giving your hair what it needs it can’t perform in the manner in which you want it to. When I began to look at my hair as a separate entity, not only did I get my desired outcome but I learned that the outcome was not even a look or a style but…Freedom for your hair.

Freedom from what holds it down, from what damages it, from what can only harm it. I began to look at my hair as less of an accessory and more of a part of me, of my actual body and tending to its health was just as important as my eyes, my throat, my breasts. I have come full circle through this process of growing my hair naturally. I am still learning, but the basis will never change. What is learned can’t be unlearned.

Through my natural hair journey I have reintroduced myself to my hair. I have learned to appreciate its quirks, the way it grows the fact that it needs me as much as I wanted it.

Sarah Davis is a fashion designer and lives in NYC.