Un-Styled Hair: The Ugly Side of Natural Hair

My daughter has wildly curly hair. She is a die-hard curly girl; we co-wash, leave lots of conditioner in her hair, rarely shampoo and never protective style.  I experimented with gel before and maybe we will use it when her hair is longer and thicker but for now, we just use conditioner to set her curls. And I love them. They look super defined and shiny when they dry without interference which worked well for us when she was little but now that she's a very active not-quite-two year old, that is a rare/non-existent occurrence. She's usually rolling around on the bed/sofa/floor/grass/dog bed/car seat straight after I've done her hair so  nowadays, more often than not, her curls are fuzzy and undefined. That's if she lets me do her hair at all. But no matter, I still love them.

Sadly, not everyone shares this opinion. 

The question I get asked most often is 'so what are you going to do with her hair'. I'm like 'Er, it's done'. *awkward silence*. Apparently, just having well cared for hair it's enough. It has to be styled too. 

Blue Ivy
image courtesy of ihatemypublicist.com

This is a problem faced by black women the world over. Beyoncé faces a constant backlash about how Blue Ivy's hair looks and one of my favourite children's hair bloggers wrote a post about women (black ones) coming up to her when her daughters hair was worn open to give her styling tips. As naturals, every now and then an argument flares up on a natural hair forum when someone comments about how so many naturalistas' hairs plook unkempt. I read this to mean, unstyled, even though we all know that that 'unstyled' look has probably been painstakingly nurtured to look that way. Solange does not roll out of bed looking like that. She has a stylist. And a hair stylist. And an assistant. And an entourage. Somebody is doing her hair. She spends a lot of Beyonce's her money and time to get her hair to look like she hardly spends any time or money on it. I'm just saying. 

image courtesy of urbanbushbabes.com

So why does society feel like our hair must be styled to look presentable? Why is wearing our hair out unacceptable? Let's give credit where credit is due; styled hair is beautiful. African hair has a proud history and there are all manner of styles that natural hair can be worn in, from the simplest to the most intricate. But then natural hair is beautiful anyway, so why not wear it out in all it's glory? We have grown up having our hair styled from the very first years of our lives; from tiny little puffs to matutas to cornrows to braids, most of our earliest memories involve having our hair done, and we often fondly joke about the experiences. It is only on rare occasion that you will find children with open hair, usually for special functions. And I totally understand this; particularly for young, active children, protective styling is a no-mess, no-fuss solution for most mothers.  So we are raised with a strong bias towards styled hair, so much so that we are appalled when it isn't. 

We equate free hair with uncared for hair, even though more often than not, hair worn in protective styles is often neglected once the style is in; a sort of out of sight out of mind mentality. Even though it is not uncommon to see very young children with damaged hairlines from having their hairs braided too tight. Even though some people leave braids and weaves tracks in so long that the hair becomes matted and tangled and often goes unwashed or unmoisturised. But no, it's the wild-and-out twist out or unstructured fro that conjures visions of a woman or mother who doesn't care for, know how to care for or can't afford to care for her own or her child's hair.

Natural hair is still a very new concept here and, traditionally, there have only ever been two categories. The wild-haired, free-spirited, artistic type or the cornrowed/braided up school girl type. Nothing in between. But now there is a generation of naturals now who don't conform to either and this is very confusing for the viewing public as they don't know what to make of them. 

*smirk

So I'm going to break it down for you. Yes, my hair is supposed to look like this. Yes it is clean, conditioned and well moisturised. No, I'm not planning to comb it and no, I won't be braiding it any time soon. Same goes for my bub.

So there.