Natural beauty

For many females, their relationship with their hair is an extremely personal one and a subject that indivisibly intertwined with self-image, self-care, identity, culture, and social pressures. Specifically for Black females, it can be even more complicated. A long history of Eurocentric beauty standards has impacted the way in which Black females relate to and care for their hair.

When I hit my senior year in high school, I decided to make a big change with my hair that not most black girls my age would have made at the time. What big change, you may have asked? Well, during my senior year I decided to go natural. For those who may not know what I mean by this statement. Natural Hair means hair that has not been altered by chemical straighteners, including relaxers and texturizers. At the time I was tired of my relaxed ends and wanted to revive my hair to its natural state and decided to transition from relaxed hair to natural hair. That decision might not have been the popular choice to make at the time (because sew-ins, braids, and straight hair was in and natural was not) but I have always been the one to stray away from the trend and go solo to do my own thing, so it was no surprise to me when I made this decision.

Before my mom started perming my hair, my hair was this thick, curly beautiful mess that drove my mom crazy all the time. In the house full of girls, she had no time to play around with our hair, so she took the easy way out and perm all our hair to make doing five girls' hair life easier. Because of this, my hair was a strip of its natural thick curly state into a straight manageable state. I was young so I did.t really care about it until the moment I went natural. Going natural is a hard process that takes time and a whole lot of patience. The most devastating part of this transition was the looks and remarks I would get at school that really put a toll on my self-esteem. Since this style was not in, and quite foreign to my school, people did not really take well to my change and made fun of my hair which made me feel less of a person and ashamed of my natural hair. But through the hurt and disrespectful remarks I did not let that stop me from accomplishing my hair goals because at the end of the day what they think or say of me does not matter, what matters is what I think of me, so I just brush their negativity off my shoulders and went about my day. (But it still does not mean it did not hurt) Further along this process, I learn to love and manage my natural hair and realize, my natural is beautiful no matter what people say.

We are living in a time where natural afros and textures are becoming more celebrated in advertising, in entertainment, and mainstreams culture. Many black females have begun to second-guess their silk presses or rethink years of chemically straightening their hair or, with some chopping off and growing out their hair in an effort to “go natural” and rid every strand of its history of having been relaxed. But there is still work ahead of us to end discrimination and judgment against natural hair, whether in culture or in the workplace.

Being natural can be amazingly empowering for women because it’s just who you are. By being natural you are embracing all the beautiful things about you from head to toe. When you mask so much of your beauty, people cannot see your natural beauty. So, embrace your natural beauty because natural beauty is a gift that never stops giving.