My hair is my medium and my message!

Me with relaxed hair (2008)

I started relaxing my beautiful African hair when I was around 18. Although my father knew how coarse my hair was and how much I suffered to comb or style them, he never wanted my mom to ruin my hair with hair relaxer. So, she would used the hot iron, but that solution would worked just for a while because as soon as my hair was let loose or I would remove my braids, my mom would have to start all over again. Yes, my hair was very long, grew very fast, but was extremely coarse.

Why do I say my hair is my medium and my message? Simply because it says all about me, my real identity. I am African. Hence, why alter this message of authenticity with hair relaxer? Why convey a message that does not reflect the reality? Why convey contradictory messages?

Initially, I did not relax my hair because it was the trend. I used hair relaxer to better manage my hair, be able to easily style them, and because I did not want to cut them short or have the Bob Marley or Whoopi Goldberg style, dread locks.

All hair relaxer contain chemicals that burn the scalp. I say all, because so far I have not come across a single hair relaxer that did not burn my scalp and I have tried a bunch of them, from the non famous to the most famous brands. Almost every year, I had to change my hair relaxer because once my hair gets used to it, it just adapts and makes the hair relaxer ineffective.

Me with braids (2008)

Two months after my arrival in Hawaii, I relaxed my hair after I removed my braids. This is what I usually do since the new hair is naturally coarse. But something happened to my hair, something that had never happened neither in Africa nor in Europe. Soon, my hair turned red. That was enough! I started question myself: why harm myself with products that destroy the natural texture of my hair? Why spend all my money on hair relaxer, hair conditioner, and what have you? But above all, why send contradictory messages? Africans have all types of natural hair: straight, curled, and coarse. Mine are coarse.

Me with natural healthy coarse hair (2011)

Last year (2010) in May, I decided to cut my hair short and start all over again. This time, I would grow my beautiful, original, and natural African hair. My goal is to keep it this way as long as I can, I mean as long as my hair will allow me to. All my efforts now are to convey and maintain a message that is coherent with my identity. For this purpose, I need to keep my hair, the medium, unaltered. It does not matter anymore if every day I have to spend at least 30 minutes to work and comb my hair.