Moms and Daughters Bond Over Hair

Photo from Essence.com

Moms and daughters often have a special bond. It is usually an unspoken thing that is cultivated and nurtured through times spent together talking, shopping, cooking, etc. One of the most universal activities moms and daughters engage in is the ritual of doing hair.

I can vividly remember back to my first house as a child, where my mom would sit me down on the floor between her legs before work to do my hair. She would wet it with water from a spray bottle and apply some kind of grease, brushing it up into ponytails that she would plait or twist. In every picture I have from my childhood, I notice my cutely coordinated outfits and tiny shoes. But most of all, I can't help but to notice how fresh and neat my hair always looked. My mom would spend a great deal of time and patience parting and braiding, adding barettes and bows to make my hair look cared for and loved.

The Washington Post beautifully captures the intimacy of the mom and daughter hair ritual in their piece by Lonnae O'Neal Parker entitled Balm: By styling her daughters' hair each morning, she was attending to something deeper than a beauty ritual. The piece is one mother's reflection on the experience of sharing time with her daughter during their daily grooming practice. She even reflects back on her experience as a child, getting her hair done by her mother before work.

One passage really struck a chord and brought to mind what it used to be like for my mom and me as we struggled through my massive bunch of kinky coily locks in the mornings before school and work.

My mother, a Chicago schoolteacher for 33 years, combed my hair and my sister's hair for 35 minutes every morning in her slip so as not to get hair grease on her work clothes. She reminds me of how much those mornings used to hurt. "You'd want to turn around and look at me with all this woe on your face so that maybe I would stop," Momma remembers. "But, you know, I couldn't stop, because you had to have your hair combed." And she had to get to work. And every two weeks, when she washed my hair, "it would be all over your head, like you had an afro the size of a small umbrella and that had to be pulled back down in something I could reasonably deal with."

The piece is accompanied by some lovely images that sweetly capture the essence of this bonding experience.

The article is touching and I am sure most of you will find some part of yourself in it. Read it and come back to let me know your memories of getting your hair done by mom (or whoever raised you).

Jill 's Pretty Fro

Check out Jill at the SRC Records Pre Grammy Celebration. She's glowing and the simple fro beautifully frames her face.

Images from life.com

All Boxed In: My New Do

Have you ever gotten so fed up with your hair that you need to do something you've never done before? Well, I did! This past Saturday I woke up and decided that I needed a change. I had been thinking about a good protective style that could also be versatile and cute. While I love my two-strand twists, I get bored easily and they are not wash- friendly. I also felt like I had been doing too much to my hair too often- too much combing, twisting, blow drying, etc.

I have seen many fotki and You Tube vids showcasing naturals with lovely sets of box braids. Big ones, skinny ones, long ones, and short ones. The women wearing these styles say that it can take anywhere from 4 hours to 2 days to complete a set! I was a little hesitant to spend that kind of time and then not be happy with the result. So on Saturday, I got up and lightly blew my hair out, sectioned and braided about six large braids and made my way to the nearest African World of Braids shop. The last time I had my hair done at a braid shop, it was in Greensboro to get my lovely twists. I had hair added that time around. This time, I decided I wanted to try box braids on my own hair, without the added extensions.

I got to the shop and explained to the lady what I wanted to do. She sat me down and began undoing my braids, one at a time. I purposely blew my hair out and brushed it well so there would be no snags. All the experiences I've had at braid shops in the past included them ripping through my hair with a fine toothed comb! So I tried to prevent too much of that kind of damage on the front end.

She worked for four hours straight, braiding away like a champ. By the time 2pm rolled around, I walked out with a head full of mini braids. The whole time, all the ladies in the shop were speaking in French and some of what sounded like an African language. I never asked where they were from but it was cool to hear the languages being tossed back and forth across the shop.

When I got home, I realized she had made the parts kind of big and the braids were a little larger than I would have liked. So a few hours before bed, I decided to take some down and split them in half- partly to make them smaller and partly to see what it would look like if I did them myself. I was pleased on both counts, I think next time I can do them on my own and save the money.

So here are the pics of what my hair looks like today. I have been playing around with it and I can wear ponytails, pin-ups, and more. I am hoping to keep these in for at least 5 weeks...we'll see. This morning I co-washed them with Herbal Essences Hello Hydration and when I got out of the shower I took a small amount of the HEHH and raked it through my braids. After that I raked through some Fantasia IC aloe gel. I melted a small amount of coconut oil in my hands and applied it to my scalp. Take a look at the results:

This was from the first day before I wet them. It is nice to see my length without having straightened my hair.

These next pics are after I co-washed this morning. It was so nice to wash and go without tangles, snarles, 30 minutes detangling sessions, etc. You know.

I have not split the ones on the top yet to make them smaller but I'm thinking I will later.

The right side of my braids. She made them so tight and neat.

Side view:

My curly curly ends! The ends did not look like this until I showered this morning. Until then, the braids were slightly stiffer and the ends were fluffy. Now the braids are not as tight at the scalp, they have more movement, and the ends coiled right up.

Back View- The parts were like small diamonds and the braids are not as small as I'd like. I will probably gradually take them down and split them in half.

So, I hope I can keep these in for a long time. This is not so much of a growth challenge for me but a break and a health challenge. I figure, if I'm washing, conditioning, combing, twisting EVERY WEEK, I am losing a heck of a lot of hair and probably snapping some strands out of sheer frustration. Even with the best conditioner and the best tools, there are parts of my hair that are just a challenge. I'm sure like many of you, to detangle my hair in the gentle, careful way that my hair requires in order to not break, it takes time and energy and patience. Did I mention time? I just want to go a few weekends without worrying about my hair and I hope this will do it. Also, since I don't have hair added, I don't think I will encounter issues around where the knot usually is at the base of the braid. When I took my twists out, I had some major snags where hair had gotten tangled around the knot.

So what styles are you trying to get you through? Have you experimented with box braids or another protective style lately that you just love?

African Pride. No...not the grease!

Did you watch the Haiti Telethon this weekend? It was pretty good and they raised like 57 million dollars for aid. Amazing! The two performances that stood out

in my mind most were those of Wyclef Jean and Jay-Z/Rihanna. I remember that in Wyclef's he made a comment about being Hatian and furthermore being African.

So when I saw this video it made me think of that and how so many of our issues about hair, skin, etc stem from shame of our Blackness, our African-ness.

We are Africans. It's cool. We should be proud. You may not like all the song's lyrics or the video (some of it is quite silly,lol) but the message is clear.

And You Thought YOUR Chop was Big!

Check out this lady! Can you imagine? I have not such guts. I cannot begin to know how it feels to be straight up bald and I will probably never know. But she is amazing. If you were on the edge about losing a few inches of hair, take a look at this. Her attitude about her beauty is so positive and I hope you can gain some inspiration from her.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

A Relaxed Opinion

I personally do not ever want to relax my hair again. I am not opposed to people who do, although I know it's not for me. When my hair was relaxed, it was beautiful and healthy, for the most part. My decision to go natural was more about the fact that I felt the need to "fix" something that I had come to believe was broken. The transition was sparked by the feel of the crinkles and waves that would sprout from my scalp in-between relaxers. I became soooo curious about my natural texture and just wanted to know what it was all about.

I found this vid on youtube about a young woman who has gone from natural to relaxed. She is fed up! Admittedly, there is a debate out there about some women who feel relaxed hair can never be healthy hair. I personally think it is really really hard to maintain a healthy head of chemically processed hair, especially if length is a goal. I can't think of the last time I saw what I considered to be beautiful relaxed hair. That is just my opinion. But it does not mean it does not exist.

I think the point of her rant is more that people should have the choice to be natural or relaxed and women should not make other women feel bad, no matter what they choose.

So, have you ever engaged in a "natural vs relaxed" debate? If so, who was it with and what conclusion did you come to? Do you think relaxed hair can be healthy hair?

Halle's New Do

Photo Credit

I'm all for mixing it up for the New Year and apparently, so does Miss Halle! So take a look and tell me if you like it. I just love a woman who can pull of super short, curly hair! I wonder if it is for a movie role or if she just wanted a change. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

What's Your Opinion: A Pill to go Curl-Free?

First of all, happy 2010 everyone! I hope you all had a safe and fun transition into the new year.

You may have caught wind of this from other blogs and sites but after seeing it again on Essence.com, I really wanted to post it anyway and get your take.

Apparently, a group of Australian scientists are working on creating a pill that will alter the gene for curly hair, resulting in straight hair that grows from the scalp. In other words, if this works, there will be an actual oral "treatment" for coily haired folks and straight locks will be available to anyone who can afford the drug. Apparently, not only could you go straight but the discovery of this gene means there could potentially be a pill to make straight hair curly or wavy as well.

Researchers at Australia's Queensland Institute of Medical Research said they have discovered the gene responsible for dictating the curliness of hair.

Researcher Professor Nick Martin said his team discovered variations in the trichohyalin gene, which was previously known to have a role in the development of hair follicles, are responsible for the curliness or straightness of hair, the Melbourne Herald-Sun reported Tuesday.

Martin said the discovery could have major implications for hair treatments.

"Potentially we can now develop new treatments to make hair curlier or straighter, rather than treating the hair directly," he said. "I will be discussing this with a major cosmetic company in Paris in January." Excerpt from here

Wow. Of course I have issues with this. In fact, I have many issues with this. For starters, who is to say that this pill would be safe to ingest? It would be so new that I am sure crazy side effects would occur. Also, while I am not in favor of relaxers, texturizers, or other chemical services that permanently alter one's texture, it seems like altering genes is just taking it to a whole to level. I mean, what happens when suddenly there is a pill that alters melanin or eye color? Is this just one more step towards "racial engineering" as one commenter said on Essence? With women already paying thousands of dollars for weaves, I can't imagine what lengths some people might go to for this pill.

In this era of globalization, my fear is not that people want the option to change up their looks. I am more afraid that people (specifically those who do not fall in the majority group) will begin to strive toward one look and one look only. I fear that people of different ethnicities and backgrounds are beginning to want to achieve the physical appearance of the dominant culture and I hate to think what people would be willing to do to achieve that.

Working in a middle school where low self-esteem runs rampant, I see young people everyday who struggle with accepting themselves and are willing to do almost anything to fit in. It's bad enough that many young women are being given breast implants or nose jobs as graduation presents!

Do I think everyone who might want to try this is full of self-hatred or dislikes their race/ethnicity? No! But you can see where this could become problematic, especially for those that do.

So I turn it over to you. What are your feelings about this new prospect? Would taking this pill be any different than relaxing the hair with chemicals or lightening the skin with a cream? Would you consider using something like this? If yes, tell me why. I won't judge and I would only ask that other commenters be respectful if someone's opinion differs from your own.