Learning to love my natural hair

It’s hard to understand why the curls that grow so naturally from my scalp occasionally feel so burdensome. If you asked me on a good day how I felt about the curls that frame my face, I’d tell you how my hair is much more than an accessory, but instead an extension of my identity. For my ancestors, hair was a form of cultural expression, community and, at times, resistance; an identity woven from generations of love, history and strength.

Whilst I agree that my natural hair is beautiful and something to pridefully embrace, I still sometimes find myself reaching for the straighteners. 

Embracing my natural hair has been much less of an overnight decision to find the beauty within, but more so a conscious effort to unlearn the unnecessary shame and embarrassment that was fed to me growing up.  

The language used to describe my hair, alongside the experiences I endured, is what shaped my complex relationship with my curls. I remember holding in tears as my mum brushed through my tender-headed scalp; I remember the throbbing sensation on my hairline after my aunties cornrowed my hair too tightly; I remember the comments about my hair being ‘too difficult’ and ‘too much work to maintain’.

I watched my beautiful, straight-haired friends receive compliments about their hairstyles and witnessed the comparisons of their hair to princesses like Sleeping Beauty. Meanwhile, I got told daily (seriously, it was daily) how much I resembled the girl from The Polar Express. As funny as it might seem now, it left me wondering why the hair I was born with so rarely received a fairytale comparison.  

I soon decided that I wanted to ditch the Polar Express plaits for a blow-out and took it one step further - I chemically straightened my hair with a ‘just for me, texturising treatment’. For the initial few weeks, it was everything I had ever dreamed of. People complimented my hair, and I barely had to make the same effort. However, as you would expect, my hair began to break - badly.  My once full head of curls gradually fell flat around my face; the very curls I had spent years hating were disappearing, and I found myself missing them. 

I began to prioritise the health of my hair, and the unlearning of the stigma I had subconsciously adopted. There was never anything ‘difficult’, crazy’, or ‘hard to manage’ about my hair. What was wrong was the conditioning of those around me to isolate individuals who looked slightly different from them, or didn’t fit their ideals of beauty.   

I watch now as my 4-year-old niece grows up with the most beautiful curls, surrounded by television characters and dolls reflecting her own complexion; positive language surrounding her hair texture and growing representation of her culture - and that gives me hope! I truly believe the importance of representation is still under-appreciated. Even at the age of twenty, it makes all the difference.  

So, I encourage you, should you be in the same boat I once was, to question what drives you to feel uncertain about your curls. I can guarantee you look beautiful, but everyone's journey to that realisation is different.