I remember around fifth grade I started to feel like I should have a perm. There was still some girls without one but some wore their hair pressed. I wore my hair how my mom did it, in pigtail braids I was not allowed to do my hair. Once in awhile she would do them in the coveted cornrows or gasp… a blowout or pressed straight. I couldn’t wait for the cornrows or straight styles.
I remember around fifth grade I started to feel like I should have a perm. There was still some girls without one but some wore their hair pressed. I wore my hair how my mom did it, in pigtail braids I was not allowed to do my hair. Once in awhile she would do them in the coveted cornrows or gasp… a blowout or pressed straight. I couldn’t wait for the cornrows or straight styles.
With it straight I felt glamorous and like I fit in. She would press it once in like every four or five months and I’d wear it to puffy oblivion. I remember a “friend” saying about a curl I had in a picture “That’s not a curl it’s what my mom calls ‘peas’”. I pined away from then until around ninth grade. I wanted a perm so bad. Life would be so easy, not because doing my hair would be easier but because I would fit in. By junior high only two other girls had wore there hair natural, one in a lower grade. I begged my mom. She’d say “No!” I was not allowed to touch my hair. I was a social outcast. I heard people wonder aloud, maybe it was religious (as it was with one of the other two girls), maybe her family’s too poor to maintain one (what?), etc. It was mostly the other black girls that had something to say. The guys were like whatever.
My mom wore her hair permed, before that a jerry curl (sorry mom) and before that natural in braids; that was before me. She was convinced by people to put chemicals in. She says she wanted me to be able to choose if I wanted one or not when I got older and not have it done to me. Sure enough around 9th grade she told me if I wanted to get one I could. I was excited! She had a box ready. I was like, oh yeah! Then I thought about it… my hair was long and healthy. I had reached a point where I was comfortable with myself they way that I was. And perms seemed (and still do to me) scary. I didn’t even know how one was applied really my mom went in the bathroom you smelled the stuff and later she came out with wet wavy hair. It wouldn’t be me and who would I be doing it for them? So I said you know what I don’t even want one anymore.
That was the beginning for me of loving my hair. As an adult I have learned so many things I can do. I just listen to how it wants to be that day and go with it to achieve what I want. And so myths were revealed. Men love it, of all races and types. I get random compliments from all types of people. Especially when I am wearing in a big freestyled fro. Women too, some ask me for tips or say they like it but are afraid to go there themselves. My best tip is to just be you.
Everyone’s hair is different. Find out how your hair reacts to different things and just free yourself. Go with your hair’s flow. God made you beautiful. Not everyone but black people. Everyone. There’s nothing wrong with changing up things once in awhile. But you should always at the end of the day be able to wake up, shake it out your hair, look in the mirror and smile.
