My new standard of beauty.

I love Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger, but according to her, I don’t stand a chance at finding love.  For a few reasons according to her, but one of them being my curly, short hair. And as a black woman, well, I guess I’m totally screwed.  As of one week ago, I have shed my last damaged hair for the last time! That’s right, I am wearing my natural, curly hair.

So what’s the big deal? Well if you’re black I don’t have to answer this question for you. It is drilled into our heads all throughout our lives that our ‘nappy’ hair isn’t good enough. And not just by today’s unrealistic standards of beauty. This shit started a long time ago. If they weren’t telling us to straighten our hair they were telling us to lighten our skin. And that message is still shoved in our faces today-sometimes even by our own kind, or maybe even our own mind.

Never in my life did I imagine I would come to this place. I grew up in CA in 80’s and went to school with predominantly white students. So I didn’t really even know what natural hair was. My family would always press my hair with a hot comb, and since every other black girl around me was the same way I didn’t know there was another way. Yet in the back of my mind, I told myself that in order to fit in, I had to have hair just like everyone else. What else was I to believe in a world of pretty girls with light/white skin and long hair getting attention and Sassy & 17 magazines showing me faces and hair that looked nothing like my own? I’ve never really been one to have long hair (unless I purchased it), but even short hair was ‘better’ than curly hair.

In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed all the hoops I’ve jumped through to have straight hair were coming back to haunt me. There was the damage to my hair line from braids that were a little too tight, the continued breakage of hair beyond typical shedding, and not to mention the cost. And perhaps it was that with a I-don’t-give-a-hoot attitude I managed to rekindle after age 35, but I decided enough was enough. February of 2010 was my last chemical relaxer. Instead I chose a brazilian blowout treatment to soften my hair while I decided what I wanted to do with it. But one thing was clear to me- I was done with chemicals once and for all. During the summer I put a weave in my hair to combat D.C.’s unforgiving humidity which allowed me to not only escape the heat, but to grow my hair and spare it from heat from a flat iron. After 2 months I took the hair out and felt nice, thick, healthy, nappy hair. And then and there I decided my next step was going to be the BC.

Drum roll please…..

When I first cut off my relaxed hair, I cried. I cried in part because of years of self loathing, of no longer fitting into those standards of beauty that were never really meant for us anyway, for saying goodbye to my comfort zone. The other part was sheer joy. Joy at seeing how beautiful black hair can be. On ME. And it was liberating. Perhaps I’ve cut a pool of potential suitors out of my life, perhaps the next job offer will elude me- so be it. I feel good in my skin, and I am going to celebrate it.