Hey Wanda!

"You know it's your girllllllllll! I honestly need to stay off of Tik Tok. Now I know you’re probably reading that title like, “Girl who is Wanda and why is she here?”. I understand and I’m going to introduce her to ya’ll. First, I hope everybody has made the best of today and are ready to check in with Lady V on a new topic. I chose a cup of hot tea for this conversation, what’s in your cup?

Alright so now I’m going to explain who my friend Wanda is and why she’s the topic of today‘s chat. I want to let it be known first, that Wanda and I haven’t always been on good terms. Our relationship has gotten better over the years as I’ve learned to have more patience with her. Wanda is my hair. I know... I know! You need more explanation and I‘m going to give you that, starting from the beginning.

---

From the top

Growing up, my hair experienced so many different hair styles and has been touched by so many hands. I’ll always remember my babysitter, Miss Charlotte, placing me at the entrance of her kitchen as she waited for her hot comb to alert her by the smell of heat. My least favorite part of the hot comb process was when she reached that hair at the back of my neck. If anybody was a victim of the hot comb we all knew not to move an inch once they started getting closer to the back of our necks. That heat from the comb would start blowing on my neck and I would immediately break out in a sweat.

For me, in middle school, I was surrounded by girls who had straight hair that touched their shoulders or stretched down their backs. I knew the hot comb only could keep my hair straight for a certain length of time and I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted my hair to be as straight as all of the other girls. At the time I had this friend who’s hair was really straight and I noticed it stayed that way longer than mine. Listen, I was tired of my mom throwing those two braids in my head once the power of the hot comb expired. I was not a fan of walking around like the redhead girl on the Wendy’s building. I wanted a change! Once my friend revealed to me that she had a “relaxer” I was excited for my next beauty shop appointment. I know some of my natural beauties are like ,”oh girl” . I know sis, but I had to learn the hard way.

I begged my mom for that relaxer as soon as I got in my beautician’s chair, and when I say I begged …. Oh I really begged. Once my mom gave in to the begging I was so excited for my hair to be transitioned. Even though I didn’t like having to remember to not scratch my head frequently or that sometimes I had to deal with the chemical burn scabs. I still continued to get the relaxer. This began the roller coaster experience that I took on with my hair.

I got my first relaxer in 6th grade and I kept it until 8th grade. During that time I began to notice a change in my hair that I wasn’t happy with. At the beginning of my relaxer phase, I loved how straight it made my hair and I thought I would never go back to not having one. Over the course of time, I realized that I was wrong. I noticed a lot of shedding, thinning of my hair, and the scabs, caused by the chemical burns, began to terrorize my scalp. Even with all of that going on, I was in denial and tried to convince myself that it wasn't going to be in that condition forever. With a lot of guidance and convincing from the wise (my mom) , I realized that it was just going to continue getting worse as long as I kept holding on to the relaxer.

I believe it should have a better name that suits the process because I definitely wasn‘t relaxed at all during this experience. I know how you girls like to tussle (another tik tok reference) , so I want to say that if having a relaxer works for you then i'm not knocking your decision. This is just me sharing my experience. We all have our preferences that may work for us, but I honestly wouldn't recommend a relaxer to anyone. It was more of a hair stressor for me.

(2017)

So Hard To Say Goodbye

When I made the decision to break up with the relaxer, I didn’t know that it would take more than just a simple wave goodbye. The relaxer was too strong for my hair and it had broken my hair off so badly. I was informed by a new beautician that it was best that I cut my hair to quicken the process of moving on. I’m not going to lie to y’all, once she grabbed those scissors I wanted to cry my eye balls out. She ended up giving me this uneven hair cut that was on purpose. She thought it was a great idea to cut one side shorter than the other, like an uneven bob. I just had two words for that hair cut ……. HATED HER.

At this point in my hair journey, I whole heartedly hated my hair. I immediately began to get braids shortly after I left the chop shop. I wore braids consistently from the end of 8th grade until I got to 10th grade. I became very insecure about my hair to the point where I wanted to hide it from the public every chance I had. I knew that in society it was frowned upon to have short hair and I didn't want to deal with the comments or feel the need to even have to explain. It was true that I was very worried about how other people would view my hair. This was a battle that I was having with myself whenever I even thought about wearing my natural hair. Is my hair long enough? Would people laugh at my hair? Do I like my hair? These questions were always on my mind and I never had an answer for them.

I used social media a lot to find different styles that I could try out on my hair. I would see people sharing their hairstyles and their daily hair routines. Over the years I've learned that I have 4c hair. I would describe my hair as being tightly coiled and when it's wet it results in a lot of shrinkage. As soon as water touches my head, my hair absorbs it like a sponge. When I was going through my phase of hating my hair, I honestly wasn't seeing a lot of girl's with hair that resembled mine. It was very rare that I saw my hair type being applauded on social media or even shown off. It didn't make me feel seen and it caused me to want to hide behind my protective styles even more. I had no idea what styles to do with my hair. The styles that I saw other girls achieve usually didn't turn out the same way on my hair.

(2021)

Youtube is your friend

Fast forward a little, and we get to the day I was searching Youtube and came across Kaice Alea's channel. When I first came across her channel, it focused mainly on taking care of 4c hair. Watching her hair journey gave me the confidence that I needed to encourage me to put more time into my hair. Her videos that demonstrated tutorials of different styling techniques became my best friends. The tips and tutorials that she provided actually catered to my hair. During her videos, she always provides the products that she’s using throughout the process. Natural products are not cheap so this helped a lot with weighing my options (thank you Kaice). I love that her channel shows her transparent journey of having natural hair. Finding her channel made me feel like I wasn't alone on my journey and that I had a resource for when I was feeling discouraged on those bad hair days.

In my experience I've had black men comment on my natural hair saying, "Maybe you should bring your other style back" or "When are you going to get your hair done?". I never felt that my hair was accepted or appreciated by the men of my own race. How are black women supposed to feel comfortable embracing their natural beauty when society, social media, the workplace, etc. looks down on it?

The negative reactions were the reasons behind my dependence on protective styles. I decided that I wasn’t going to allow the opinions of others determine how I felt about my hair. My grandma shared with me, “People are going to always talk and you have to allow them to because if you decide to fight every person for their opinions then you’ll be fighting the world for the rest of your life”. I love this advice because there is no need to put all of your energy into trying to fight the entire world for their opinions. You have to put all of that energy into deciding to love what you see in the mirror so that what others see doesn’t even matter.

"Let your hair breathe"

At the beginning of this year I decided that I was going to bring my hair to life by calling her Wanda. She deserved to be respected and acknowledged. I went long enough without showing her some love and appreciation. Even though I don't understand her completely, I am willing to get to know her more. She is a part of me and she's beautiful in every single way. It makes me proud to be able to see more girls with natural hair sharing their journey with the world, that encourages them to hide it. Wanda has her own personality and some days we don't always get along . Those days usually look like me putting on a hat (even though I worked hard on my twist out the night before) or thinking about taking a trip to the nearest barber shop. Those days are normal and are apart of the process of figuring out what works best for your hair. It's important to not give up on your hair just because ya'll aren't getting along that day. You have to treat your hair like a very close friend and with any valuable, growing friendship, you have to be willing to accept her for her flaws and work that thang out.

Lastly, I want to bring to everybody's attention that it is very disrespectful to touch a black woman's natural hair without asking for her permission. I know it's plenty of... let's just say "curious people" that love to walk up to a black woman and touch her hair. I know you probably think that we are flattered by the attention that you're giving our hair but it makes us uncomfortable.. Our hair is not a petting zoo and yes sometimes the only thing it takes for a black woman to get curls is to apply water. Alexa play "Don't touch my hair" by Solange.

Until Next time

~Lady V