By Patricia Gaines founder of Nappturality

Foreword

By Patricia Gaines a.k.a “Deecoily”

If, 5 years ago, someone had come up to me and said “You’ll be writing the forward for a book on Black women’s natural hair”, I’d have looked at them like they were crazy. “Natural hair? You must be kidding,” I would say. “Why in the WORLD would I wear my hair looking like THAT?”

I knew nothing about my natural hair. It was that mess that grew out of my head. Those ugly, unmanageable, dry, kinky, coily, wavy, bendy strands I couldn’t comb that gave me such grief — which was only relieved by using scalp-burning chemicals and hair-singeing heat. It was that unprofessional, bad, embarrassing stuff that if I were to wear in public would doom me to everlasting singledom and job failure because surely, no employer would employ me nor would a suitable life partner love me with hair like… “THAT”. So I would beat it, pull it, break it into submission until it was STRAIGHT!

How many of us can remember that defining incident when we decided our hair was unacceptable in its natural state. Was it something someone said? Was it a painful combing session or a scalp-torturing rubber band removal? I don’t think it matters much. The important thing is …. order the book and read the complete foreword or download the preview.

~Dee

Patricia Gaines is the Founder of http://nappturality.com/; a website dedicated to
all the women in the Diaspora who proudly wear their highly textured hair naturally.