Curl Up and Dye

By Montrese Turner/VOX Staff

“I am not my hair/ I am not this skin/ I am not your expectations/ I am not my hair/ I am not this skin/ I am the soul that lives within,” sings India Arie in her song “I Am Not My Hair.” I wish I could be as strong as India, but the fact for me and many other black women is unavoidable — we are our hair.

For years, black females have been obsessing over looking more like the white starlets, celebrities and models the media deems as the ultimate in beauty. We have been known to go to extreme lengths such as skin bleaching to seem whiter. However, one area where most of us embrace our black heritage is with our hair. But the question is, are we embracing it or are we obsessing over it?

The Lengths We Go To
Hair gel. Moisturizers. Oil sheen. Hair grease. Mousse. Flat irons. These are just a few of the items I use to transform my unruly hair into what people see on a daily basis. I wash my hair. Comb it into a wrap. Sit under the dryer for an hour. Comb the wrap down. Flat iron the hair. Then I hope it doesn’t get out of hand before the week is over with. And then I do it all over again and again, week after week.

I’m not the only one who goes to such lengths. My friend Fareeda Wray, 17, a senior at McEachern High School, says she wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to fix her hair. Most of my friends and I do the same thing. We don’t have to be to school until 8:30 a.m. but it takes us hours to get ready in the morning. It usually takes me about three hours to get everything right, and two and half of those are devoted to my hair alone.

We do this because at school there is a certain social expectation that you’ll walk in every morning looking fabulous. If you don’t meet this expectation on a regular basis, then you just aren’t good enough to be in the in crowd. My friends and I go through all this trouble for our hair because we are afraid of what people will think of us if we don’t keep our appearances perfect.

The Price We Pay
But even when we look great, we don’t always feel great about it. “Sometimes trying to make sure you look good when you aren’t even doing it for yourself can make you feel empty,” said my friend and fellow senior Lauren Walden.

It’s not just black teenage girls who struggle with the hold their hair has over them. My beauty salon is packed every Friday and Saturday with black women of all ages getting fresh relaxers and weaves. We pay $45 for a relaxer — a process that straightens out our naturally curly hair using chemicals — that will last only a month for most of us. And we go back to the salon two weeks later for a touch up that costs $25. That’s $70 a month on our hair — not including anything else we might do such as get extensions or coloring — and more than $600 a year at the salon. And there’s hundreds of dollars more we spend on hair products for home use.

My hair prevents me from doing a lot of fun things with my friends like going to the movies or the mall, because I won’t go if my hair isn’t done. For instance, awhile back, a couple of friends and I were supposed to go to a really big concert — called the Birthday Bash — thrown by hip-hop radio station Hot 107.9. All kinds of celebrities were going to be there, including TI, Young Dro, Young Jeezy, Keisha Cole and more. I was going to get my hair braided the same day, but my appointment wasn’t until 3 p.m. and the concert was to start just three hours later. I wanted to get micro-braids, but they take about six or seven hours to do. I told my friends I wasn’t going to the big concert because I didn’t want to go without my hair done. They thought of a million alternatives, but I just didn’t feel comfortable with any of them, so I didn’t go. I now regret my choice because I missed out on being with my friends and having a lot of fun. To make it worse, they even had a chance to go back stage and meet a few of my favorite artists.

My hang-up with my hair also hinders my relationships with guys. I have been told that guys are attracted to a girl’s confidence, so when I go out I am sure to be bold (but not cocky, of course). If my hair doesn’t look perfect, I don’t feel as confident as I would any other time. In fact, if a guy tries to talk to or flirt with me and my appearance isn’t on point, I probably will not even talk to him for fear about how he might judge me.

I have male friends and we talk all the time about girls and how long it takes us to do our hair or get ready to go out. My friend Kenny Glover, 17, another senior at McEachern High School, said, “If I am in a relationship, I like the girl no matter what she looks like or what her hair looks like.” Despite that knowledge, I can’t help the fact that I let the status of my hair determine my self esteem.

A Mutual, But Divided Obsession
My friends from different backgrounds are equally obsessed about their hair and overall appearances, despite our differences in finances and style. Some of my friends are from the suburbs and some are from “da hood.” However, these two groups of friends have different standards about what hair styles are acceptable.

The suburban girls are more particular, and say wraps are the most accepted hair style for black girls to wear on an everyday basis. My friends from the hood, on the other hand, say anything goes. Whatever color, style and cut you want are fine — as long as it is executed perfectly.

I must admit that we can be downright cruel in how we treat each other when it comes to our hair. In one particular situation, a friend of mine wanted to go out with the group. But because she didn’t have her hair done, we didn’t want her to go out with us. It would have been way too embarrassing to be seen with her in public — her hair was styled in what I would call a cross between a mullet and a matted straw set. So we told her that our plans fell through and that we weren’t going anywhere. In reality, we went to the club without her. Afterward, I felt really bad about what we had done, but I can’t honestly say I would do things differently the next time around.

Out of Control — For Now
No matter how I rationalize things, my obsession with hair has almost complete control of me. I think it may stem from the time during my sophomore year in high school when my hair started to fall out. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked and I broke down completely; I fell into a state of utter emotional distress. I resorted to wearing braids and weave ponytails to hide my shame. Along with my hair, I lost my self esteem and I am still trying to get it back.

I think my obsession with all things hair-related is an over-compensation for my trauma, and an exaggeration of how most black women feel about their hair. To this day, I still wear my micro braids, but maybe in the future I will be bold enough to get rid of the weave and be proud of my hair — and myself — as we are naturally.

Montrese is a senior at McEachern High.