Music.Beauty.Food

“Good” or “Nice” Hair

Right now, I’m sitting under the dryer giving my hair a protein treatment - a one egg, mayonnaise and olive oil mixture. Side note: I’ve wondered why the recipe has egg and mayonnaise - isn’t that redundant? Mayonnaise is made with eggs. If anybody knows why, please let me know. I guess I could leave out the egg if I wanted?

Anyways, I wanted to talk about this the other day but didn’t. I will now because I’m in the treatment phase of my hair care routine.

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Now that my hair is in its natural state, I’ll get comments like “I don’t know if I could go natural my hair is not like yours. You’ve always had that nice soft hair.” Or, “Well, you have nice hair.”

Here’s the question: What makes hair “good” or “nice”? What makes anything “good” or “nice”?

Since, I’ve been in charge of my hair; it’s been one of my “things”. A thing to me is something that I believe everybody has. It’s something that you take pride in; something that may make you feel uneasy if it’s not kept to your liking.

When my hair was relaxed, it was always curled and put together. I would wash, condition and treat my hair between visits to the hair dresser, which would be about every six weeks. For years, I even relaxed my own hair and just went to the salon for a shape-up.

People literally knew me by my hair. They may not have known my name but would describe me by my hair. People have looked for me in an audience by looking for my hair. Now, I’m not a social butterfly. I’m actually introverted. I’m not saying that everyone loved my hair either; but what set my hair apart from other people’s hair is the answer to the question above. It’s care. How you take care of your hair makes it good or nice.

Now that my hair is natural and people are still getting use to it, I don’t know if “knowing me by my hair” will still stand. Nonetheless, I still care about my hair. I take care of it even more than I did when it was relaxed. The more is in the form of research - for example, how to strengthen my strands and cleanse my scalp for maximum hair growth and retention. When it was relaxed, it was more about the maintenance of the cut. D88on’t get me wrong, I cared about the health of my hair, just not as much as now.

Good or nice hair does not have to do with having a naturally silkier-haired parent or grandparent. It has to do with knowing how to manage the hair that is growing out of your head. If you don’t take care of it, it won’t look good.

I’ve seen people with all types of hair that is not good. It’s silkier in texture but has a lot of split ends. It’s kinkier in texture but dry and brittle. It’s a wig or weave but matted because it’s not combed.

If you want your plants to produce, you water them. If you want your silver to shine, you polish them. If you want your body to look good, you exercise (or maybe you put on a slimming garment!). The point is you take the necessary steps to have the best outcome.

Change takes time. So, it will take time for people to change their attitudes towards hair textures. Hair is either healthy or unhealthy. Like anything else - take care of it. And if don’t have the time, patience or skill - go to someone who can take care of it for you. There are hundreds, if not thousands of YouTube videos, blogs and salons dedicated to natural hair. So…you have no excuse.

Have fun!

Hair.Beauty

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Music.Beauty.Food