Fierce Hair Feature

Kaki's Hair Story Part I: My Faithful Friend

Hello Lovelies,

I spent a few moments with my friend Kaki hoping to understand her "hair affair," and boy did she enlighten me on just how much of an affair she is having with her hair!

Q: What do you like most about your hair?

A: It’s faithfulness

I love that my hair has always been there for me. It has always been right by my side, adorning my head and keeping it warm—snuggling comfortably around my ears or resting gently on my shoulders.

My hair is pretty much like me. It is very laid back and easy-going. It has never been fussy or given me attitude and it has never been wild and unruly even when people including me, in ignorance, were not handling it well. 

But it always saved face for me and looked good even when it wasn’t feeling good, never decrying its damaged state or declaring to the world its brokenness—like when it sustained heat damage from thermal straightening. 

Though I’d gone natural several years ago, a few years back I started straightening my hair in fall and winter for a change of pace. I guess it was a little contradictory for me because one of the reasons—the main reason I went natural is because it appeared to me that letting man straighten, by chemically and permanently altering the structure of the curly hair God gave me, was like saying God didn’t get it right so I had to go to man for a do-over.

Now, of course, this wasn’t my thinking nor was this what I was saying when I was getting relaxers—neither am I saying this is what those who get relaxers are thinking or saying. It just appeared to me that it seemed something was wrong with my natural hair so getting a relaxer was correcting what was wrong. As an adult I just kept up the tradition my mother started when I was twelve and she got me my first relaxer treatment. 

But since everything God made is good, I realized then, so is my hair. There’s nothing wrong with it. There never was. There are two things that helped me over the fence when I was deciding to go natural. First, my hairstylist was shampooing my hair as his assistant was shampooing another client next to us. He stopped her and told her to look at something pertaining to my hair. She said, “Oooh!” And then she went back to her client. Neither of them said anything to me.Finally, after worry nearly consumed me (I had been too shy to ask them what was wrong) I finally nervously yet softly blurted out, “What is it? What’s wrong?” My stylist said, “Oh, I was just showing her your curl pattern. You have a really nice curl pattern.” 

Wow, I did? I didn’t know that. I hadn’t noticed it in years and prior to age twelve it had seemed like a difficult and hard to handle curl pattern at best.

Stay tuned next week  for Kaki's Hair Story Part II: My Faithful Friend.

Until then, stay beautiful.

Demi

XOXO