By Dinorah Prevost
After 22 years, I finally left the house with my hair out.
Not down — out.
This black girl learned to love her curls. And it’s been a long time coming.
At home these days, if I don’t tie them up, I often find myself picking through my curls. I guess it’s my way of finally exploring my hair.
Before, there was always a rush to tame, tie and iron it down to look “presentable” right out of the shower.
It wasn’t until a month ago when I said “Screw it,” in the bathroom mirror. I finished washing my hair, looked at myself and thought, “Why the hell am I hiding all of this?”
Last spring, I asked myself: “Who am I burning it all for?”
That’s when I stopped ironing my hair, which was often a three-hour process in a cramped bathroom. I always walked out of that room coughing from the smoke and fumes from the hair product.
For most of my life, getting my hair wet was the worst.
I still remember the day I got rain-soaked out on a field during marching band practice. My high school band had the type of strictness that required everyone to stick it out when it rained — heavy or light, it didn’t matter.
The rest of that day, I walked around my bandmates feeling embarrassed about showing my real hair.
Hair texture and length always seems like a matter of self-esteem for black women and girls. Why else would we “relax” our hair, use extensions or tuck it away under a wig?
Relaxers straighten coarse, coiled hair so that it’s more manageable and becomes “smooth” and “silky,” as many relaxer packages promote. Because of all the chemical processing, relaxers leave hair weak and fragile, and with that comes scalp irritation, breakage and hair loss.
I remember getting lots of relaxers when I was younger. That was one of the few ways my mom knew how to deal with my hair.
Then, a few years ago, I watched the movie “Good Hair.” In it, comedian Chris Rock goes to black barber shops and beauty shops to get a pulse on how patrons feel about relaxers, weaves and the politics attached to both of them.
One of the moments that stuck with me was when “Professor Berry, chemical genius,” talked about the particularly harmful ingredient, sodium hydroxide, found in relaxer. Rock then explained that black people “put sodium hydroxide in their hair.”
“Why would they do that?” Berry responded.
True. Why do we?
The day that I let my hair out, I went to a bar with my friend, who partly inspired my change with her afro.
A white lady was passing by the table we were sitting at and stopped next to me. I was a little caught off guard and immediately wondered what was wrong.
Instead, she stopped to say that she loved our hair, that it was beautiful, and not to let anyone tell us otherwise.
