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Ladies please, let's just be supportive of one another. If you want to go natural, wonderful. If you want to do the relaxers, fantastic. It's a matter of personal preference. Time will tell, whether or not one continues to do one or the other. Let's not let this divide us. There is versatility in relaxing the hair, however, you must keep hair conditioned and ends trimmed and do touch ups, or your hair will start shedding and your scalp can become comprimised. With natural hair, there is maintenance as well, but in my opinion, the maintenance is something that I can manage.
All in all, the original question is/was, related to the natural hair movement growing momentum, or something to that effect. This post was/is not a debate. I am seeing more tv and magazine ads with AA women rocking natural styles, and is most refreshing. Good post NewYorkBorn.
There is a problem and stigma that people try to attach with black women wearing there hair natural that's why there are soo many support groups where you can network and etc. like this one and that's why people blog about their different experiences with something they have in common. It's just that simple.
Exactly! (Some folk don't know how big a deal going natural really is. Fyi, Meetup is a website, that has a Natural Hair group. Unfortunately, wearing hair natural still makes conservative work places nervous, and such. So, yes, there are networking groups for us natural sista's.)
Questions for Ladies who are Natural:
-Has having your hair in it's natural state changed anything relationship-wise? By this, I mean: more dates? Less dates? How has your spouse/significant other reacted?
-How do men react to your hair? Black men? Non-black men?
-How have women reacted to your hair? In awe? Disgust?
I'm seriously curious because I've noticed that there has been a slight difference that I observed w/ one of my real close friends who went natural. She used to have a perm for the longest time but when she cut her hair, she immediately noticed a lack of attention from men, especially black men. What do you think?
There are several problems with your question.
1. A clarification really needs to be made about the term "natural". One who chooses not to perm or color their hair is natural. It DOES NOT necessarily mean that a woman is rockin a fro or locs. Naturally curly hair, or keeping your hair in twists (or doing the wavy, untwisted hair) counts too. And honestly, I think a good press and curl should count too.
2. Your next paragraph mentioned your friend CUT HER HAIR. Unfortunately, that is a separate issue. Hair length also plays a role in a man's attraction to a woman. I've seen the same thing happen to white women who cut off their hair.
So, to answer your question, and I'm saying this as a natural sista who rocks long twists (or a twist out):
a. My husband considers my hairstyle changes to be like dating a different woman. One week I may rock twists. One week I may decide I want to go "native american" straight. One week I want to "wash and go", and be naturally curly.
b. I've had black and white men (and women) ask me about my hair or compliment it. I've never seen contempt or disgust.
There are also 2 other implications in your questions that we have yet to address on this thread:
1. The difference between natural hairstyles for those with more traditionally "kinky/course" hair and those who stray more toward curly/wavy.
2. What effect your skin tone has on people's perceptions with natural hair. A naturally darker skinned sista with wavy hair (think Ananda Lewis) is considered "acceptable" to the mainstream. If she had locs during the time she transitioned from BET to MTV, well, I would bet money that transition wouldn't have happened.
(I do understand who you are addressing your questions more toward, but I think the wording of your questions may open up some dialogue on hair and perceptions).
^^^ I do twistouts also. I get compliments on them. If I decide to flat iron I get compliments from my mom & grandmother, but they compliment me on my twistouts too. I think when they compliment me on flat ironing it's because they remember when I had a relaxer, and they didn't know my hair could look like that with just a flat iron and without a stylist.
I agree with what you said about hair length. I transitioned out of a relaxer without doing the "big chop" so I never had a noticeable change in length.
a. My husband considers my hairstyle changes to be like dating a different woman. One week I may rock twists. One week I may decide I want to go "native american" straight. One week I want to "wash and go", and be naturally curly.
This reminds me of an episode of Desperate Housewives when Lynette kept wearing different hairstyles (hers were wigs though) and her husband loved it.
Questions for Ladies who are Natural:
-Has having your hair in it's natural state changed anything relationship-wise? By this, I mean: more dates? Less dates? How has your spouse/significant other reacted?
-How do men react to your hair? Black men? Non-black men?
-How have women reacted to your hair? In awe? Disgust?
I'm seriously curious because I've noticed that there has been a slight difference that I observed w/ one of my real close friends who went natural. She used to have a perm for the longest time but when she cut her hair, she immediately noticed a lack of attention from men, especially black men. What do you think?
Having natural hair doesn't necessarily mean having short hair.
Many women choose to transition from having relaxed hair by growing out the natural hair and gradually trimming off the relaxed ends, if they are not comfortable with chopping all of the relaxed hair off at once.
When I decided to stop relaxing my hair, I transitioned by pressing and then wearing individual braids until I was comfortable enough with the length of my natural hair to cut off the relaxed hair. During the transition stage I made sure to deep condition my hair weekly ti make sure that I had a healthy head of hair.
Absolutely. I for one, am tired of keeping up with relaxers and working against my hair. I'm glad to see so many women are doing this.
It is very refreshing to see how many of us are making the decision to stop fighting to make our hair something it was never meant to be. Now that I am natural it seems that I notice other natural women more then I used to and pleasantly surprised to see more and more natural heads walking around.
Things can be so much easier in life when we decide to just be ourselves. Personally going natural is one of the best things I have done in my life.
Last edited by NewYorkBorn; 10-15-2009 at 08:19 AM..
Things can be so much easier in life when we decide to just be ourselves. Personally going natural is one of the best things I have done in my life.
I agree. I will add, that I think people who wear relaxers are "being themselves," too. But I knew that it was the right decision for me to "go natural."
I do think it is sad that most black women have to make a journey back to natural. The idea that the way our hair naturally grows is "unkempt, ugly, not attractive" (all words used on other sites that I visit) has to end. Most of it comes from the black community, too.
If you google the black hair and skin care ads from back in the day, 60 or more years ago, you would be shocked! Taglines for relaxers like, "Go from ugly to beautiful." THAT is what has been rolling around in our collective conscious for years, before most of us were born.
Of course, even when I did get relaxers, I didn't think "yes, I am conforming to a historically damaging idea of black women and their beauty." Of course, I didn't think that.
I'm with you, Gaelgirl. I've worn my hair natural most of my life. On occasion I use a relaxer in the summer because I'm just time constrained and frustrated with the frizzies.
I feel really heartbroken about all our sisters that are ashamed of their natural hair. I remember an Essence magazine issue when I was young the showed 5 different African hair textures, described each texture in aa admiring light("soft and touchable like cashmere wool") and gave loads of advice on care. Seems we should all be concerned with our hair being the evidence of good health and cleanliness; each varied texture having a sheen or softness all its own.
Gaelgirl, in my opinion being myself is leaving my hair the same texture that it is when it grows out of my head, to use a chemical substance to change the texture of my hair as far as I am concerned is just an illusion. The way I look right now with my hair in its natural state is me being myself, when someone sees me walking down the street what they see is what they get.
I have met people since going natural and they did not even blink an eye about the fact that my hair is not straight. That is a great feeling when people like you for you and not because your look represents some fantasy. As you said there is a problem when we have to "go natural". It all begins in the home, if we stop encouraging our daughters to relax their hair and allow them to see that their mothers wear their hair natural then this vicious negative cycle of black women feeling like we are not good enough just being ourselves will stop.
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Good post NewYorkBorn.
