F.U.B.U. - Black Hair Stories pt. 1

my hair felt like velcro being peeled apart as she shampooed my hair. I knew right then that this b*tch had just burnt my hair and it was washing down the drain at the shampoo bowl.

, and

Jul 27, 2024

Black hair is one of the most admirable things about Black culture.

It breaks the laws of gravity and grows upward towards the Sun. Black hair has texture and life to it. Our hair is sacred, and we knew this before Solange said don’t touch my hair.

My mama told me this morning before school pictures when my hair was pressed out with fresh curls from the curling iron smelling like Pink lotion. Don’t let those kids play in your hair, they are mean they will put gum in it or cut it so don’t let them touch your hair. And she wasn’t worried about the handful of Black kids in my classroom either.

I remember when I decided I didn’t only want long hair but long straight hair like the women on TV. This meant I would need to relax my curls and strip away my most sacred Black feature. Back then we shifted from saying perm to relaxer because we were redefining why we needed to straighten our curls. As Black women, we decided one day that we did not need to be adored by them and we relaxed our curls to make our day-to-day styles more manageable.

Those more manageable styles were necessary. They didn’t accept our hair in its natural state and if we were going to be viewed as “equal” in America then they said we needed to look the part. No more being comfortable in your melanin skin, it’s time to conform.

…and we did.

Have you ever had your hair burnt off at the shampoo bowl?

I did.

Recently too.

That’s how I got my new signature wavelength cut.

It was bald at first like you can see the skin bald.

I remember not wanting to leave the house without a baseball cap to hide the shame I was left to wear because a professional failed to do her job correctly.

At the cost of my new look, I was about to launch.

Let’s back up for a second.

See I had locs before this look.

My locs were gorgeous, long with curly ends.

I had just enrolled in barber school and decided to cut my locs and wear a short pixie cut. I knew if my hair always looked good it would be easier to build my books.

I was all in.

There’s a backstory to even that but just know I was hired as the Project Manager to open this Black family’s hair salon. I grew up with the kids but the father remarried, and this wife was new, younger, and insecure.

I was regulating and running shit.

The system was running because I set it up, and input all the inventory, oh yeah they own one of the leading professional product lines in the Black hair industry right now and an exclusive luxury brand. The grand opening was a success and the family was singing my praises but the new wife always had some shit to say. Her insecurities were like wildfire when I came around. And everyone was starting to pick up on it.

It got worse when her husband did something that changed our relationship forever.

This nigga enrolled me in barber school when I expressed interest as a replacement to his monthly payment and we never had a conversation about it where I approved of this move.

Let’s just say I went to barber school and collected my coins.

I’m not sure why I agreed to let her do my hair when I look back on the situation now. My spirit was telling me the woman did not care for me, yet I have this habit of keeping the hope for change.

She was supposed to just clean up my cut from me cutting my locs and style my hair in finger waves. We never talked about a perm before I sat in her chair draped with my edges based for a perm. She said just for a couple of minutes because my hair would lay better with the finger waves, and acknowledged my fresh color would fade a little and she would touch it up.

I had just lifted my hair that weekend to achieve this beautiful red that was really EATING! So the perm thing had my jaw clenched. Quick little disclaimer: I really used to struggle with speaking up for myself and still do so it wasn’t easy for me to tell her I wasn’t comfortable with her decision because I viewed her as a professional. I’m learning y’all don’t judge me.

That feeling sitting at the shampoo bowl is something I will never forget how my hair felt like velcro being peeled apart as she shampooed my hair. I knew right then that this bitch had just burnt my hair and it was washing down the drain at the shampoo bowl.

I was silent the rest of the time she did my hair. She knew she humbled me and I had to decide how I would respond to this grown-ass woman doing some petty ass shit like this. Mind you, my daughter is sitting over in the waiting area so I can’t show my ass how I would have if she were not with me. IYKYK.

I hated it! The color was orange now, she tried to hide the bald spots thinking I didn’t know she had burned my hair off. Yeah, that’s the other thing. She attempted to play it off as if it was just my front edges and wasn’t noticeable. My jaw clenches now as I think about how that woman tried it and needs her ass beat.

Oops, that slipped.

The next morning I walked to my coffee shop with a baseball cap on, called my cousin, and broke down. My cousin took her class in hair school so this shit was personal. I caught a Lyft to my cousin’s salon where she loved on me while she washed my hair to see how bad it was, and that led to her putting the clippers in my hand and telling me to take my power back. She explained to me how I would have to own this look and embrace it because if I didn’t then she won, she would have then humbled me.

And that’s what I did.

I cut the clippers on and my hands vibrated from the buzz. I raised my hand to the center of my hairline and held the clippers at a 90-degree angle as I did a clean cut straight back just as I learned in barber school. The tears filled my eyes making my vision blurry as I tried to raise my hand again for the second row. My cousin’s client saw me and ran to grab the clippers from me to hug me. That shit broke me. It broke my confidence, my self-esteem, my beauty, my attractiveness, it broke my identity.

My buzz cut is what saved me throughout my journey home. Without my hair, it felt like I reinvented myself in a way that empowered me and brought me back home within myself.

Conversation Piece: Pop into the comments of this Note to add to the shared experiences

Camille

and I, discussed how empowering it is to cut your hair before embarking on a new journey from this quote from
Ciara Jewel
.

I’m reinventing my shortcut now and it’s become one of my favorite styles! New big city downtown life, new city girl hair vibes.

But, yeah, that’s the story of how my hair burnt off in the shampoo bowl.

I Owe My Hair to Black folx on the Internet.

Najah Amatullah

The first thing I remember about my hair is that I wanted it to be relaxed so that I could manage it myself. This was 1997 and except for the girls with braids, I didn’t see anyone who was “natural.” That word wasn’t even in our vocabulary. Looking back, I don’t have a clear memory of my first relaxer. I know I had 3 different hairdressers and that my mom also learned how to use the boxed Just Like Me relaxers we bought at Walmart. At that age, one of my main motivations was learning to sister-curl my own hair.

I wonder at what point in cultural history did ringlets become “Shirley Temple curls” if you were white and “sister curls” if you were Black?

The way I was raised, I wouldn’t have known the vernacular difference. A benefit of the one year I spent at the all-Black Christian school instead of the predominantly white ones was my limited-time best friend, Essence. At her house, we watched “Midnight Love” and the adults played dominoes. At my house, we watched “A Different World” and “Living Single” but the dominoes stayed in the box. In her car, on the way to McDonald’s, there was hip-hop playing loud enough to drown out conversation. In my mom’s car, there was gospel and Toni Braxton.

Essence’s family and the Black beauty shop are where the seeds of my Blackening were planted, though they wouldn’t be cultivated for years to come.

From ages 9-19, I practiced and learned how to manipulate, style, flat iron, crimp, and braid. After testing a few different shops, Ms. Wanda’s chair became the place where she tried to offset the damage. Because I cheered in middle school and college, and I’ve always loved outside summer heat and swimming, my hair barely had a fighting chance. My mom also took me to various braiders - trying to find the cheapest who didn’t hurt as much, patronizing all of our friends’ sisters, daughters, cousins, and them. But to get a touch-up, I always returned to Ms. Wanda. May all the mother goddesses bless her. She was pushing 60 years old. And as I know so many of us remember she would wash, deep condition, moisturize my hair, and then just “give it a little bump at the ends.” That little bump was a full curl but you could never tell an elder Black beautician that.

In searching for something to do with my head that fits my active life and my need to be cute in front of a mostly white peer group, I tested many different styles. I had a few different types of micro braids, but I never really liked myself in cornrows. I liked how box braids looked, but never got any. I never found anyone to duplicate Moesha’s style on me.

I’ve worn exactly one weave for about a month. It was during the later part of college after I had chopped all my hair off, Halle Berry and Nia Long style. I even got blonde highlights. It was cute. I have the face for it.

My hair journey has taught me that the battle was never with my face. It wasn’t even really with my hair. It was my body. But that’s a story for another day.

I’ve worn exactly one wig, despite that my mom and grandma use wigs as their go-to style. My one wig was blue and part of a costume.

Until age 20, the year 2008, I left my hair relaxed as it grew back out, but I kept a short bob.

During the social media emergence, Tumblr became popular. That was the platform where I first curated my feed to be a mirror of myself and a sliding glass door of my culture, rather than a window into whiteness.1 Inspired, I wore braids for a year straight and I scrolled and reposted photos of blown-out Afros and two-strand twists.

Kinky Twists or Senegalese Twists quickly became my favorite. They didn’t pull as hard and kinky twists were “curly” rather than straight. The hair used for Senegalese twists was thicker, like actual Black hair. This was the era where my eyes started to only be impressed with versions of curly hair on Black women. My Liberian friend from college knew how to do kinky twists and I paid her for it twice. When my other friend started doing them on herself and I asked her if she would do mine, she said “No, but I’ll teach you to do it yourself.” God bless a sista.

The era of Tumblr was when my Blackening began to bloom. After being raised on respectability politics that taught me how I was meant to look, sound, dress, and value, the voices of “Black folx on the internet”2 gave me permission to expand my point of view.

“Black folx on the internet,” told me I could wear a headwrap to work. They showed me what a twist out was, showed me how to do it myself, and then told me what hair grades were and that I was 4C. Black folx on the internet taught me the L-O-C or “loc” method and that some folx switch the O and C. Then they told me I could wear my 2-strand twists to work.

I spent about two years letting my relaxer grow out underneath weaved twists, I had effectively learned how to do it myself. I got lots of compliments on my kinky twists and I kept people guessing with colors. I like blonde 30 for highlights if I’m wearing brown 4 or as an undercolor if I’m wearing black 1. I like to mix red 350 and red BG/“Burg” as highlights or my undercolor. I did it so much, that my friend group came to expect my summer brown-blonde and my fall reds. When they made the Senegalese twist hair in bright purple (F30), you couldn’t tell me anything about my undercolor.

And in between it all was the era of the bow-fro. It was adorable and also a little dramatic. It was a little childish and also felt so natural and aligned. I never mastered the wash-n-go but I found my own ease. To this day, I highly value people who learned to love me with the bow-fro over those who have never seen it. When I show old photos to (especially non-Black) people and they hint that I look better now, I know those folx ain’t gon’ last in my life.

Black folx on the internet showed me that many of us 4C girlies had turned to dreadlocks because a loose natural is high maintenance. Of course, I knew they existed (thanks to Lauryn Hill and old cartoons), but I had not seen the curly or crimped locs, or colored locs, or loc jewelry, and I didn’t know sisterlocs had a name. I felt like I graduated from the hair course of my Blackening when I heard the explanation of why we shorten the word to locs and never dreads.3

In 2016, I finally realized that I didn’t have time to maintain my fro well enough for it to grow out. So I decided that instead of creating all of these braid styles that simulate locs, I should just grow locs. I saw many of the Black folx on the internet do their own starter locs and “locitian” become a much more popular offshoot of Black estheticians. I went to church with a beautician whose locs are hot pink and I told her I was gonna start soon.

In early 2017, I got pregnant. I knew I was not going to care for a baby and also my hair. I knew I would start the locs that year. My baby was about a week old when I had faux locs installed in my grandma’s living room. I’m not sure how or why they did not take it, but they didn’t. One year later, I did my own two-strand twist and then used a method I learned from Black folx on the internet to do my own faux locs.

When I took those out, my starters were left.

I maintained them myself for a year before I met Jazsy with the Locs. She validated that I had done a great job with my spacing and parts. She gave me a break from life once every 6 to 8 weeks. She gave me red tips in the color I used to weave in and then dyed them back black a year later.

After living in Guatemala for 2 years and having to retwist the locs myself, I am sad-happy that Jazsy is so booked and busy. Bless her business, and also I’m ready to be pampered again.

I don’t know when I started to disdain straight hair on Black women. I know good and well other folx heads are none of my business, but I still have big feelings every time someone cuts their locs or straightens their fro. I mourn in tandem when someone shaves their head in grief. I mourn both the loss and the hair.

My life post-Blackening is yellow and rose gold, bright nails, loc jewelry, and night-time edge wraps. Whether or not it matches my brand essence, my lociversary gets a post on the permanent feed every October. Until I wrote this story altogether, I had never counted my locs.

There are 89. My hair is the healthiest it’s ever been. These bra-strap length locs are what I need to self-soothe “hand-in-hair disease” without causing damage. Throwing them up into a messy bun or braiding them in two cornrows gives me the natural malleability I need. If I go swimming, I can truly and quick-rinse and keep moving.

My task now is to let everyone do their thing. If I have learned anything, it’s that we, Black folx on the internet and off, demand to be able to look however we want. And also I need to exemplify a reminder to us of all the diversity in what styles may be our thing. I know that everyone has to balance their life logistics with their personal style. A big fro may be their thing.

Cornrows on adult men have made a comeback; that is their thing. And a relaxer or fade or a long straight weave or wig is our thing. We each get to choose in the presence of our community (and we’ve mostly chosen to no longer care about the non-Black gaze). Here also, none of us are free til we’re all free, from root to tip.

I don’t care about hair.

Ashe

I don’t care about hair. I never have. Seriously. Sorry? But I was always made to feel like I was supposed to, and that bothered me.

As long as I can remember, I have hated to be put upon. Not in terms of inconvenience, but of being forced to live up to other’s expectations of me, especially when I know it is in opposition of my true feelings. Heaven forbid I just don’t care at all. But when your Parent, themselves with thinning hair, beams at how long, how thick your hair is, then you start to think maybe you should care.

But my Parent could not do hair to save their life. So it fell to my older sister. My favorite style was when my sister would do my hair for the week, or give me two thick cornrows. Yes. I’m free, off until we have to do it again.

But alas, my sister soon had better things to do, and my Parent needed “low maintenance”, so they attempted to relax it. But my hair would not relax. (Perhaps it developed Anxiety disorder before the rest of me but I digress). It got to the point where they took me to a hairdresser who, after giving me a “super”, offered to give me a relaxer every 6 weeks for FREE- because she felt so bad that my poor working class Parent had to deal with such an unruly head of hair. Yes the chemical burns left scabs and my hair broke off, but we rubbed the scabs soft with Vaseline, and the breakage was because I brushed too rough. But Parent was no longer inconvenienced (except when I had to be dropped off at the salon, so I caught the metro bus from school), and remember, other people’s feelings about my hair and its styling mattered more.

My teenage years were interesting. I got my first job at 15 and paid for micro braids. Never again, no patience (not to mention the then “unknown” sweatshop conditions in the African hair shop but that’s an essay for another day).

The next year, my sister learned how to do sew-in weaves with a leave out but after a while I couldn’t be bothered with the leave out. Yes, my teenage boyfriend liked that I had the side part like a Honey Brown Aaliyah but I did not have Baby Girl’s stylist (or her Parent) and so back to Jam gelled slick back ponytail for me. The ponytail that I could wash and set on Sunday and sleep in a scarf til Friday.

Yes Lawd.

Fast forward to 19. I have had a reaction to an experimental medication, and my hair falls out in clumps. After hiding behind a scarf and hat, I cut all relaxed ends off and have the shortest hair I’ve ever had in my life. Natural curls that I have never remembered seeing. I was hooked on the ease of going to sleep and waking up, letting steam and fingers do their work in the shower, and leaving. I did wash-n-go styles before they were cool. I realize I can never go back to straightened hair. (Even my future wigs would have to be textured.)

Then I ended up in the company of a man darker than me, who, although he “loved” my natural hair, thought perhaps I should have more of it. So I grew it out. Meh.

Smothered it in raw coconut oil and Shea butter. Couldn’t understand why my forehead and jawline would not clear up. Stopped using raw oils and butters. Went to a natural hair salon. Learned how to take care of it. Had a lot of it.

Still not happy. Why?

At 33 I got a tapered cut. Now we’re cooking with gas. A good cut covers a multitude of sins. At this point, I’ve also been married for over a decade to a man who feels my hair looks best when I’m happy with it. (Yes, it’s been 18 years now in total and he is still amazing.) I color it mahogany with caramel highlights or jet black, with no in-between. I love it.

Fast forward to 39. My health has taken a downward turn, and I am 40 pounds heavier. I think I look good with the extra meat, as I had always been shaped like a brick and hated it. Now I got my grown woman curves. But I am tired of this hair. I’d always joked that when I hit 40 or went grey, whichever came first, I’m cutting it all off. But here, now, I’m just itching to cut it.

So I do. I dye it red. Red Hot Rhythm, to be exact. My husband films the process.

After about 8 months, I don’t feel like dyeing it every month. I do, however, love cutting it, and then getting in the shower to shampoo and condition the lil bit that’s there. I buy different eyeglass frames to accentuate it all. Bigger earrings.

I have never cared about what other people wanted for my hair. But sometimes I had to do what I was told, and sometimes I allowed myself to be convinced that something else was better for me. In either case, my personal style and sense of self suffered.

I have done what I want with my hair and love it more at less than an inch than at any other time in my life. I have come full circle. We are happy now.