Personal Experience

Growing up I always wanted perfect hair. Perfect hair being long thick hair that I could show off and flaunt to my friends, hair that would flow with the wind in the top down of my Mums Suzuki Vitara. (CRINGE I know but it was a while back!)  But alas I was blessed (or cursed) with naturally thick nappy hair which soon lost a war against chemicals, tight braids, skull caps and continuous weave. In a vain attempt I would pour gallons of hair creams down my scalp that “guaranteed” to give me “fast rapid growth” in “less than three months”. Well, lets just say its taken more than three years to get my hair back on track and that only occurred because I went back to Nigeria ( where there is an absence of social stigma around shorn cuts) and cut my hair, allowing it to grow back naturally.

Prior to this I felt a huge amount of pressure to have a reasonable hair length that was acceptable and this occurred throughout the course of my both my primary and secondary  school education. I always had my hair in extensions because I knew I would get ridiculed if I ever showed the world the state of my hair. I always envied the black girls with nice hair.Frequent question that I was asked were;

                           “Steph, I’ve never seen your real hair before how long is it?”

                                         “Why don’t you ever have your hair out?”

The responses were so rehearsed that I would actually believe them myself until the dreaded days would come in salon,s where I would have to take out my hair and all the hairdressers would complain about the state to the indifference of my mothers face.

In summary, growing up hair was important and a vital part of my image which I was very much aware of at a young age. Of course not everyone had this problem I did but I think I can rightly say that people within and beyond my age group felt the importance of hair.

Society, Media and Perception on Afro-Caribbean Hair

 We are all aware (unless you live under a rock 😛 ) the impact of media/advertising in our daily lives alone. From trainers to tampons being promoted on our TV screens, billboards, newspapers and even the channel you’re using to watch this blog. The same goes for fashion. And hair.

Take Rihanna for example, when she embraced the short look many people quickly followed her path. (Including me, I won’t even lie.)

The same goes for her signature red look and shaved mohawk look that Cassie and other celebrities have recently  acquired.

The impact of celebrity figures on your average Amy or indeed Rashonda is very evident.

Black hair is pride. This explains is the dozens of magazines filled with tons and tons of different innovative styles aimed at women of an ethnic minority.

Styles that are mostly come up are:

(Of course this is in no way exhaustive but I’m using it as a continuum.)

Now we all now that Afro-Caribbean hair is naturally like this:

So why is it that the majority of us don’t “embrace the fro?”

Why do we spend so much money on weave, relaxers, hot combs and straighteners when we have been blessed with our own naturally frizzy hair? Why aren’t we content with our own?

Because of the western dominated society we live in.

I’m going to use advertising  to help relay my point across:

The majority of people in the western world are Caucasian or “white”.

(Only 6% of the UK public make up the ethnic minority! Don’t listen to the BNP yob and read the Daily Fail)

When companies market their products they aim it at the majority audience because that increases potential earnings. Lets say for instance if there was a hair magazine that was based around dreadlocks, the target audience would be Rastafarian’s and the minority of people with dreadlocks. This would limit the number of people that would buy the magazine thus limiting the amount of revenue that could come in. So it would make more business sense to make a hair magazine that targets the majority population (white women :D)

Also it makes sense for companies in a certain country to promote whats relative to the country. This is the UK so our products are going to be aimed at British/white people.

Now, that doesn’t mean that advertising/media doesn’t affect the ethnic minority, au contraire, it does the exact opposite. The constant bombardment of certain products and images of what’s hot and whats not will certainly filter to the ethnic minority,  and the image of what determines lovely, fashionable hair gets everywhere and indeed everyone and this is a reason why black magazines show hairstyles from a “Caucasian perspective” instead of embracing our natural form of hair.

“Hell naw!This girl be saying my hairs like this cos i wanna look like a white girl…b*!@h please!”

(Stereotypical, I know. :P)

Hopefully readers of this blog don’t have their skulls filled with vaginal discharge,(semen for my male readers! Wooot! :D) or indeed kool-aid to understand what I’m trying to say.

Of course no one wants to be thought of as a trend/fad follower (those who actually think mind you) everyone wants to be seen/known as an individual, not a sheep.

But, if I’m frank, unless you have your own sewing machine, cloth and designs to make your own clothes you are actually a mindless consumer following fashion. *shrugs*

(I digress somewhat.)

When you move to another country, especially for the purpose of staying you gradually begin to internalise the culture, beliefs, ethics/social norms and indeed hairstyles therein, whether you are consicously aware of that or not.

This explains (to some extent) weave, extensions, braids, relaxed hair or what have you that black women adorn on their heads.

Of course there are other reasons like

“Natural hair is so hard to maintain man!”

“I’m trying to grow my hair.”

and my personal favourites;

“It gets cold in the winter/” Weave acts as a scarf.”

-___-

In conclusion, I think that:

“Hair extensions, braids, weave and relaxed hair are all part of an adaptive approach subconsciously taken by black females to fit in with the western perspective of what is deemed as beautiful (hair) as well as being as a result of unintentional external  pressures stemming from the society and the media.”

What do you think?

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