A Black Hair Story

I’m bi-racial but my hair never got the memo. I’m half White but my hair has always been fully Black. The earliest memory I have of my natural hair this a thick, kinky, voluminous mane that would break every hair accessory you could think of. By age 6 I already had my first relaxer. I think I’ve gone through every Black girl’s “rite of passage”, from perms, hot comb terrors, rollers under the dryer, hair grease, and the unforgettable smell of Pink lotion. Basically, you name it and I can most likely relate. 

My dad says my mom wanted to relax my hair so it was more manageable for us to maintain. My mom says I asked her for a relaxer because I wanted straight hair. I was too young to remember but I want to say it was a mix of both. I remember as a kid, my Portuguese and Brazilian girlfriends would play with each others hair during recess. Easily brushing their hair into pig-tails and high ponies all to just easily undo the style by the time the bell rang. I could never participate. I knew the struggle it took my mom to fit all my hair into one tight pony, or the hours it took to detangle and braid my hair into four plaits that weekend. There was no way I could undo my hairstyle and revert back that flawlessly. I probably did ask for that relaxer. 

In the early 2000s, I experimented a lot with my hair. I did the single braids with extensions, the Alicia Keys cornrows with the beads, straight weaves, wavy weaves, and of course dyed my hair blond only for it to turn out a coppery orange. I literally remember walking into the salon with a Christina Milian photo I ripped out of my J-14 magazine. The results? Clearly not the same. However, in between all these styles I would touch up my relaxer until I was introduced to a Brazilian keratin treatment that left my hair straight like no other relaxer did before. I would still have to relax my hair but the next step, the keratin treatment, would leave my hair super silky, shiny and movable (aka not stiff, aka only Black people will know what I mean). This treatment worked wonders! I could step out of the shower and not have to blow dry my hair. It would air dry straight! I would only run a flat iron through it if I wanted a polishing touch up; it was a dream. At this point I was in my mid-late teens so I was becoming more interested in hair care. Especially with chemically treated hair, I learned the importance of maintaining a regular hair routine to retain moisture and length. I would deep condition with hair masks on a weekly basis. After washing my hair I would follow up with a leave in, serums and a heat protector when I was blowdrying or flat ironing. Note – the “air drying straight” miracle would only happen until my new growth would start coming in. After that I would have to put in work so that my roots would blend in and be able to maintain a sleeker look. The goal was to always keep my hair from looking “poofy”, as I used to describe it. I kept up with this method for about 8 years.

It was only in my mid-twenties that I started flirting with the idea of going natural. At this point I had more Black girlfriends that I could talk to about hair. My relaxed girlfriends would be like “nope, I can’t imagine dealing with all that” and I totally understood where they were coming from. Plus, I hadn’t seen my natural hair in its entirety for almost 20 years. The thought alone was scary. But then I would see my natural girlfriends glowing and thriving with their beautiful curls and textures. In addition, there was the rise of #teamnatural on social media. It looked so liberating and I was too curious to not try. It wasn’t an overnight decision though. I had a hard time committing to the change and when I finally got pretty serious about it I was still in a relationship. Whenever I would bring up the idea of going natural to my then-boyfriend, he would try to shut down the idea. So much so that one day he blew up and straight up told me that he didn’t think I’d look good in my natural hair. Hearing that from a boyfriend was super painful, especially since he was Black himself! Like how could you not accept me for my natural beauty?! OUR natural beauty?! (I hope you’re healing King)…Anyways, safe to say that in 2018 I got rid of him and relaxers! 

I knew I wasn’t going to be the “big chop” type. Whether natural or relaxed my goal is to always have long hair. So I went back to my favourite protective style – single braids, or what the post-Kardashian internet likes to call “box braids”. Hair oils that promote growth was my next go-to. In 2017 I had a minor case of alopecia areata, which is an auto immune disease that causes your body to attack itself, usually hair follicles, causing bald spots. At that time I had done some research on how to quickly grow back hair and found that castor oil and peppermint oil did the trick. That and a few cortisol injections but that’s a different story for another time. So I did just that, went back to that hair oil mix to help me once again. This time, on my transition to natural hair. I actually found even more oils that are beneficial for hair growth through continued research. My hair was growing! And I was so excited to find out my hair type, texture and curl pattern. I was sure it would have changed from what I remembered as a child. I would watch YouTube videos and try to find girls that I thought represented a similar hair type. You know, lightskin girls with the cute 3c curls! When my hair had grown long enough for me to cut off my relaxed ends it turned out that my lightskin ass got that kinky-kink! Even though it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting I will say that my hair journey has taught me so much about life and about myself. It’s taught me patience, acceptance, growth and self-love. So naturally, pun intended, I wanted to share my knowledge and experience with others. Hence creating Bia as the perfect platform to do so.

I’m not going to try to claim a curl pattern, mostly because I’m still not too sure. But also because, even though these categories can help us find products, it can also try to divide us. With major issues like racism and colourism still holding us back, we really don’t need texturism in the mix! I’d hope we could learn to love and accept Black hair in all it’s versatility and beauty. I’d describe my hair as thick, dense, afro in nature and say that it definitely grows upwards to the Godly skies. I’m falling in love with it more and more each day and can’t wait to see where the rest of my journey takes me. I hope you found some light in this story and that it has encouraged you to continue on your self-love journey, whatever that may look like for you.