Kimberli writes:
When people have an interest in going natural but they start rattling off all of the bad myths about natural hair- – ‘oh its too much work’, ‘oooh girl you cant go natural in the summer’, ‘you gotta have good hair’- – how do you handle it??
What’s the WORST or LAMEST myth you’ve heard to date?
How do you myth bust?!
^i meant I would NOT reverse my decision….FREAKIN TYPO MISHAPS!!!!
When I decided to go natural, I told my then-boyfriend about my decision. He was totally against it and tried to talk me out of it, but my heart was just set on making that step. When I had my b.c. done, the next time I saw him he told me that I looked like a boy!!!! There's nothing worst than being with someone that does not accept you for you and judge you by your looks on top of all that, make you feel less than a woman. I am very happy to be a natural and believe I will always be…WHY WOULDN'T I. I have been through the roughest part because I was affected by that one comment. My hair has grown a lot and its been a year now. I would reverse my decision or ANY decision for that matter.
I really havent gotten too many negative comments….i have been called Lady Africa….and things like that but it doesnt bother me at all…ive even been called "nappy headed"….to them i say, you're ignorant…1st off headed isnt a word and 2nd my head isnt nappy my hair is curly. Lol…some ppl even said they hated it, or i dont have any hair but i dont really care because when i decided to go natural….thats it….I DECIDED, and im not doing it to make you or anyone else…I absolutely love my natural hair…i have like 4b/4c hair so it takes a lot of patience n care ..oh and the myth i hate is: when youre natural its more work. Lol. I do hair so i know…tell me this, if you wanted to do a wash and go…which hair type would be more work, if you wanted to pin your hair into a mohawk (without doin anything else to it) which type of hair is more work?…n last, if u wanted ur hair to be curly…which hair type is more work?….
I do, braids, 2-strand scalp twist, 2-strand individuals, braid outs, regular flat twist, mohawks, hair pinned up, hair over to one side, ive worn it curly, strait,etc….and ive done it with both relaxed hairAND natural hair….thats a message to whoever think natural hair isnt versatile……lol
Oh and for professional settings, u can do a french braid style, or a pin up style, etc…there are many options
Love yourself and the way you were created!
Thats all love ya!
heard a week ago from a friend; Saw my hair, got excited, what i fought was going to be a positive comment turned in to:
' you may like it, but girl you used to be so fly!!' with a slap on my fro.
thsnks for making me (us) a fighter.
xox
BEST/WORST/SADDEST all at the same time:
1) I'm going to look like a MAN!
2) Girl I would go natural but I'm not as strong as you. You go sistah, but I could NEVER do that!
As if to say, "I love the statement that you're making, you know…loving yourself and all, but it is unattractive to me and everyone I know. Therefore, I'm not STRONG ENOUGH to GO THERE or GO THAT FAR!"
I suppose that last one's not really a myth, since I believe women who are natural are strong, because it takes courage to attempt going against the grain (but that doesn't mean the reverse is true…i.e. relaxed women are not strong). It's still somewhat irritating all the same. I just have to say Wow! The things we say tell so much about our state of mind.
I have heard them all, but the latest one is "I love your curls, but can you make them bigger?"
huh?!?
"If you stop getting perms your hair will fall out"
The top myths that I hear are like many of the others:
-You must have "good hair"
-Natural hair isn't professional
-Natural hair only looks right on people of certain skin tones
-Natural hair scares white people (from my mom -_-)
Luckily, more and more people are becoming familiar with the term. Working in DC you see all types but I have found that the number of natural women has doubled and that is a great direction to be moving in.
Sadly, I fed into the natural myths and then……i went natural lol….and i looooove it. I never been more confident. I hated my relaxed, don't hold a curl outside the salon, won't wrap right around my head at night, I hate it so I'll just put it in a ponytail hair. I guess the only ridicule I've had to overcome is self ridicule.
The only negative comment to me was from my sister who is also natural
"I can't go to work with an afro, that is not professional" <–why is professional hair defined by straight and wavy?
At any rate, everyone seems to like my hair. Some people just kinda look at it lol but I get plenty of complements from white women and men alike. My husband is very supportive. He has looooooong beautiful hair that you just wanna slap him for. He did my very first WNG all those years ago lol
These are more like statements but…
"I can only go natural if I have nice wavy hair."
" I can only go natural if my hair looks like Tracee Ellis Ross." -_-
" If my hair looks like yours then I'll go natural"
"I'm natural but I have a texturize" WHA?? -_- THEN YOU AREN'T NATURAL!
The worst is when someone who bashes natural hair to the bone ends up going natural.
The top 5 funniest/dumbest/saddest comments I have heard since going natural are:
1.“I gotta wait til I find a man”
2.“You only went natural cause you have good
hair”
3.“I can’t go natural I have Fredrick Douglas hair”
4.“Girl naw I got n%$$# hair”
5.“What you gonna do to it once it grows out”…this was right after my BC as if once it “grew out” I would go back to the crack??!!!
I went natural and i have been using a lot of different protective styles to retain length.I am still a little diva even though i am natural. The most annoying thing i have heard is "Just cause you are married it doesn't mean you have to abandon yourself" Apparently to some people having natural hair is letting your personal appearance diminish.To these comments i simply say "RUDE JUST RUDE" lol
@StaceyMarie I cant stop laughing at your comments!!!
That only girls that are into poetry, are highly militant, neo-soul loving, Erykah Badu singing, incense burning… go natural.
The myth i hear most often is that people think I'm doing it to make some statement. My dad thought i shaved my head for the new man in my life. Little did he know, my boyfriend hated the idea of me going natural. My boyfriend feels like i can only rock an afro. I bc'd in April so currently I have about 4.5 inches of hair. SO for the most part TWA is my go to style. However, by this time next year I will have sooo many options. And if i choose to rock a fro, what's wrong with that?!
Some of the worst comments I've heard have come from the older folks. Like the grandma in the comment above me. I was on the bus one morning, and I guess a grandma was taking her grandbaby to school. She said "Hm, It's about time for you to get a perm. Your hair is naaapppyyyyy. Nappy nappy nappy. You would be a lot cuter when you tame that." Keep in mind, this child had to have been 5 or 6.
That really pissed me off…first off, the child was a baby, and you're already littering her head with the idea that she can't be cute without straight hair. Children are so impressionable at that age. I know everyone has their own resiliencies, and there's no telling how often that poor child hears that, but i'm sure her grandma is causing(or has already) caused a complex in that child(SHES LIKE 5!!)
Oh, here's the kicker though, as I was getting off the bus, granny complemented me on my hair (which was out in a huge curly fro). -___-
the worst comment I have heard. From my daughters 93 year old grandma. You really showing that nigga hair, huh.
Just saw this on the Oprah website. Andre Walker's response kinda bothered me and seems to perpetuate "natural" myths….Read on:
"JW: Solange Knowles made headlines when she decided to go natural. What's your advice for women who want to embrace their own hair?
AW: If you want to embrace you natural texture, you should accept that your styling choices are limited to what your texture can do, and that is different for everyone."
Sooo….permed hair or even naturally straight hair is unlimited. I always felt I had more options with my natural texture than w/ it straightened (and I think most curlies have voiced the same opinion).
The truth is everyone's hair texture is limited to what it can and cannot do. Naturally straight haired women complain about volume, lift, holding a curl…etc. Every woman in the world has to embrace what her hair does/doesn't…not just "naturals" (i.e. black women who don't perm).
Maybe I'm reading too much into that statement, but I felt he could have offered better advice.
The craziest thing to me is that people don't even recognize that I'm natural. Because my hair is curly with or without a relaxer & I'd often WNG when I was relaxed, being "natural" isn't the issue–it's having short hair that I get the most ignorant comments about.
I try to avoid conversations about hair but sometimes it comes up & I've heard the "well I don't have good hair like u" comment. Or "my hair is too nappy". I've been asked if I'm trying to "find" my african roots. I've also been told that I only went natural b/c I have good hair & to look hispanic.
Some excuses I have heard are:
1) Im too conservative for that "look"
2) That's for "artsy" "eccentric" people
3) I can't be lookin' like a wild woman
and my favorite
4) I would love to go natural but I have a certain image at work I have to look professional.
SMDH!!
all the above lol.
"It's not for me" HOW is rocking the hair that GOD gave you not "for" you?!?!
when people say, " You have the head for it, I don't" . My thoughts: you have the head for chemically straightened hair that's not natural, why not the head for your hair that just grows out of your scalp like God and nature intended!
I say, "Um hum," and keep it moving.
The lamest: "Well natural hair suits you , it wouldn't look right on me"
-__________________________________- It's a God-given feature, there's no way your NATURAL hair won't suit you.
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My mother, who lives 3000 miles from me told me that she once explained to her current sylist that both me and my sister are wearing our hair natural (sis has locs) and that we had been trying to convince her to do the same. He then gasped and exclaimed, "Natural hair is A LOT OF HARD WORK!!!!" That burned me so much, that the next time I visited Mom, I intended to pay Mr. Stylist a visit, but I was stopped…by Mom. :o)
"Not everyone can go natural." Actually they can; just stop using chemicals to alter the hair's texture.
"Natural doesn't look good on everybody." I agree that SHORT hair requires a certain face/head shape. However, I have a hard time believing that kinks, coils and curls are less flattering than pin-straight hair.
"Natural hair takes too much time to manage." Yes, managing hair of a certain length gets to be a task. But really, natural hair is the most time consuming when you're trying to get it to do things that it's not meant to do. If you want to spend 5+ hours a week to get your kinks to appear curly, by all means!
Prime example, I had my birthday party this past weekend and my former hairstyler attended. She kept looking at my hair. I asked her what was up, because there wasn't anything wrong, she stated that you need your hair done, but you still look cute. I had my hair in a ponytail. The texture of the ponytail matched the texture of my hair as if it came from my own scalp. Everyone else thought I was on point and there were an abundance of naturals at my party. I made it my business to compliment each and every one of them in there glorious manes, that rocked it….
I thought that was rude, but she has a weave and won't be seen without it, for whatever reason. A slave to the rhythm I guess.
I heard so many!!!!! IDK how, but I learned to ignore IGNORANT comments.
I am very happy with who I am and still recovering of 20 years (mind you, I am 25!) of relaxing my hair.
… Wish I can have my black and thick hair [sigh]
"I won't be taken seriously in the professional world because people will be intimidated by my natural hair."
"A short hair do' doesn't look good with nappy hair. Your hair has to lay down if you have short hair" "It's too much maintenance"
I HATE when someone tells me that they can't be natural because they don't have the time, the money, or the energy! I get complimented often on my hair, but unless it's another natural, some self-deprecating comment tends to follow.
Scared Permie: "My hair is too thin to be natural." (or, "Your had thick permed hair")
Me: Well, I guess so after you dissolved half of it w/the creamy crack! (Yeah, and now I have RIDICULOUS natural hair)
Scared Permie: "I'm not really all that afrocentric."
Me: I was raised to give back to the community and the planet–most of my clothes are preppy labels like Gap, Banana Republic, or Express, but come from upscale thrift stores. Kente cloth or a dashiki is not a requirement.
Scared Permie:"You can pull it off because you're light-skinned."
Me: Huh? So, I get special hair privileges?
The worst is when people think I'm growing it out so that I can loc it(because the fro and locs are our only options). When I first BC'd and later when I started wearing double-strands, I got that one CONSTANTLY!! It's called HAIRSTYLING, people! :oD
1. Being ridiculed in high school for having a Jheri Curl.
2. "What are you mixed with?"
3. "Your hair is texturized, right?"
4. My all time most annoying thing – When people try to tell you how to flat iron your hair. The assumption is that you don't know how since you are choosing to wear your natural texture.
People have told me this. "I'd love to go natural, but I like wearing my hair in different styles." I wear my hair in different styles all the time. Why would my friends think natural hair isn't versatile?
"I have too much African in my family" – a friend, meaning her hair is "too kinky" to go natural. It just comes down to lack of knowledge on how to properly take care of one's hair without a perm, and also a result of the colonized mind. Many of us honestly still believe in "good" hair being long and straight. Brainwashed, but that mindset is reversible!
I hate when they say natural hair isn't professional looking. *sigh*
I've hear; "It looks good on you, but I don't have the face for it." And "my hair is so nappy; it won't grown with out a relaxer"…
My reply is, it's healthier and it's what you were born with.
The most common thing people say to me which leaves me bewildered everytime is, "Girl… I WISH I could go natural. See you got that "good hair" so you can do that…but I can't."
Huh? I mean, I think my hair is great and gorgeous and all but what is she talking about "good hair?" My hair texture is probably the same as hers… 4a.
…hmm not a myth per se but it does irk me same way (the ridicule of it)…
"Where'd u buy that weave??" or "Is that a curly weave u wearing??"
SMH…so they mean to say that natural hair cannot look as "good" as a weave???
"Well that works for your hair, cuz you have good hair, but my hair is too nappy to go natural"—So dumb!
I’ve heard this from several ladies who relax their hair: “Oh girl, I’m trying to be like you. I haven’t done ANYthing to my hair in days.” Being natural does not mean that we don’t maintain my hair. For relaxed, unkempt ladies to insinuate that letting your relaxed hair look jacked up is the same as being natural is nuts. All hair, whether relaxed or natural, requires basic maintenance.
hahahahahahaha @ sara Yve.
Lamest to me – "I won't be able to get my hair wet" HUH?
Lamest to me was, "i'm trying to find a man so i gotta stay cute." said while wearing a nappy half wig. say wha??
"I won't be able to wear my hair straight" Usually comes from someone who has grilled their cuticles and boiled their cortexes by blow drying and triple flat-ironing(2 passes to straighten and again to get that spiral curl). My correction technique depends on the person. I usually ask them "how do you know?" then drop some science.
I have too much KUNTA KENTE in my family :???
difficult to manage
Everybody says 'But I don't have good hair'. I tell them that good hair is healthy hair and that they really don't know what their hair is like because the minute they have new growth, they're covering it with crack.