Having 4C texture hair, a descriptor used to determine the tightness of a curl pattern, as a Black woman doesn’t get you welcomed into the natural hair community with open arms.
Ever since I was younger, my mom and dad were set on relaxing my hair. My mom spent her life taking the same route, so the thought of living in natural hair was far beyond what she knew or accepted. Plus, her busy work schedule couldn’t coexist with maintaining natural hair for three daughters. It would’ve been another shift but without pay. Similar to most black fathers, my dad was just going with the flow. After all, he couldn’t really vouch for this area of my life.
A little Bre’Anna always ached for the long, flowy hair she saw on TV. Having no representation in the media didn’t help either. Every Black girl or woman had bouncy, loose curls or long flat ironed hair. I wanted the kind of hair that Disney characters, Nickelodeon stars and other child stars all had.
I learned at a young age how important hair was to Black women. If my hair was ugly, I was ugly. If my hair was beautiful, I was beautiful. So even though I hated to see the box of creamy crack (a.k.a. relaxer), all I could think about was how straight and long my hair would be afterward.
My mom wasn’t a fan of natural hair mainly because she wasn’t raised to embrace it. Unless it was my older sister who has looser curls, of course.
In the Black community, those loose curls are considered “good hair.” So, when my sister stepped into her journey of naturalness, she was embraced every step of the way.
I, on the other hand, would propose the idea and be shot down immediately. My “bee-bees” weren’t cute or appealing. I had “nappy” hair which was a negative connotation I carried for years in relation to my naturalness.
The first time I held a pair of scissors to my hair was during the COVID-19 quarantine. When my mom walked in on her teenage daughter sitting on the floor crisscrossed and cutting her hair off, her reaction was far from calm or understanding.
That was the day that I began to embrace my naturalness as a young black woman.
Wigs were my best friend as I tested different products and hairstyles for my natural hair. When it hit a certain length, I took pride in my short fro and my kinky curls.
This was until I decided to wear it to work and was smacked with the words, “I like your other hair better.”
The older Black man was adamant in letting me know how unattractive my naturalness was. The worst part is that I never even asked him. He ignorantly gave his opinion where it wasn’t needed.
Hearing those words from my own race, a brother, definitely stung.
Around five months before my freshman year of college, I decided to grow locs and went through the dreaded ugly stage. Locs are strands of hair that have been coiled, braided or palm-rolled into a rope-like appearance. The ugly stage is the awkward stage between shoulder length hair and when your hair is still going through the locking process. Trust me, everyone who went through their loc journey gets it. This was definitely another blow to my confidence. Whenever I saw guys choose other girls over me, I immediately assumed it was because of my hair. Those mind games you play on yourself can really trip you up.
By the time I reached January into my freshman year, my locs thrived and I felt beautiful. However, society tells you that there is a “right” kind of beauty and that natural hair is only acceptable if it fits society’s standards of what beauty is. When my hair grew, I felt like I finally fit into the box of society’s beauty standards for natural hair. I was my natural self but I still fought to feel fulfilled within myself.
Guys would be sure to say how my locs made me “natural” and how I was “different,” but at every corner I turned I saw other people with the same exact style. Women would compliment how beautiful my hair was and how they feared going through the loc process. And while the locs were the natural version of me, that didn’t mean it equated to the most honest and natural version of who I am. So…. exactly how true to myself was I being?
I stepped outside the box that my parents designed for me and still found myself inside of another box, fighting to make my natural hair acceptable.
I convinced myself that I was starting my loc journey to learn how to love my natural hair, but what I was actually telling myself was that I wasn’t beautiful until society deemed me as so. My locs flourished but my confidence wavered; my soul remained timid and seeking validation.
In May 2022, I left home and came back with all of my hair gone. My locs were packed into a zip-lock bag as I flaunted my new style: Finger waves.
I had been debating cutting off my hair for a while. Every loc that fell made me feel lighter, freer. I finally came to the conclusion that long hair doesn’t make me beautiful. Natural curls aren’t what make me beautiful. My soul is where my beauty is.
My new journey is learning how to love myself genuinely. Not when my hair hits a certain length, not when society sees me as desirable.
Now when I look into the mirror, I see a young woman who doesn’t let her hair define her and as a black woman, that’s a powerful place to be.
Bre’Anna Coleman is a sophomore political science major from Drew, Miss.
