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| English: Young black woman (cropped version) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Ok, I do not totally blame him for the situation. After all, Chris was on Oprah when his movie called Good Hair came out. It started me thinking. Whenever I get my hair relaxed, I have this one little spot on the back of my head that always burns. Only African American women can relate to this. Well I was sick of it, so that January 2010, I told Althea that I was going to let the relaxer grow out, and go natural for a while.
OK, in case some of you are wondering what the heck I am talking about, African Americans (most of us) are born with kinky hair. In order for women to have that neat looking, European styled hair, we have to do something to our hair. We have to straighten out the hair either with heat or with a chemical process. I am not a beautician, so I cannot begin to tell you how to do the chemical part. All I can tell you is to go to the drug store, walk to the African American hair section (yes we have our own hair section), pick up a box marked relaxer and read the back of the box. The heated version of straighten, I will have to explain that in another post. All I can say is I have been going through that process since I was about 5 or 6 years old, and that started as a Saturday night ritual. Other than that, my hair was braided or twisted for the week until I was old enough to have my hair down at 12 years old. (these days, some girls start wearing their hair down at age 8 or sooner).
I experimented with every type of hair style, because I had (and still have) long hair. Some women have to add extensions to their head in order to achieve that look. I will not explain this, because now all women does this. As for braiding, my first experience was when I was 11 years old and my cousin Tina braiding my hair in what they called in the '70s Cornrow Braiding. Think of it as a lot of french braids on one head. My next experience did not come again until around 1995, and then I started getting my hair braided once a year around the summer months, when I did not feel like doing my hair every day. Yes, there is still some upkeep involve with braiding for African American women, like applying oil to the scalp because it gets drier than everyone else's, and spraying the braids. I was getting the latch-hook style braiding, where you would braid your hair in cornrows, and add already braided hair on top. Last year, I started wear a version of that called tree braids. I did not like it, so this year, I am wearing individual braids for the first time in my life, and love it. they are not braided all the way to the ends, There are some loose hair (curly) and it is cute. I bought enough hair for two rounds. This is the reason why I waiting on my beautician to call me back, so she can take the old braids out.
Ok, so now I need to do something productive since I have contacted my beautician. I think I will go de-clutter something.
