DON’T BE FOOLED BY WHAT’S ON TV

Sir,

As a young black woman, I know how tough it can be to deal with the blessing and curse that is my hair.

I’ve cut, coloured, curled, and deep fried my hair so many times it was about to lodge a complaint with the CCMA. I’ve had more hairstyles in the last fiscal year than Elizabeth Taylor had husbands in her entire lifetime. My sister from another mister, don’t be fooled by what you see on TV and assume it is readily translatable to you. One day it was there and the next it had disappeared like the father who told you he was going to buy bread and has been gone longer than Mandela was in prison.

Hairline

My hairline struggle game is Super Saiyan. My hairline is so struggly I have to ask the girl braiding my hair to start at the back while I talk my baby hairs out of hiding. Don’t let this happen to you, love thy hairline. You get off the kombi outside your place of work and a gust of wind blows that wig clean off your head. What do you do? Because you can’t just leave it to roll away like tumble-weed in an old cowboy movie. But are you willing to sacrifice your dignity and give chase? Are you willing to ride or die for your hair? Kick off those heels, hitch up your skirt like a primary school girl playing rope at break time and run! Your dignity will be wounded, but walking into work with those dusty, six-week-old cornrows would be worse.

Braiding

Most of us probably grew up braiding or cornrowing our hair, so the habit of washing once or twice a month never really took hold because it would ‘ruin’ our hairstyles. Please, I beg you, let it take hold now. Whether you’re wearing a weave or rocking thick, Bequisha braids, washing your hair is important not just for you, but for those of us standing close enough to smell you. You can’t look fresher than a room full of yellowbone babies with your hair smelling like the Madonsa rubbish dump. AlekWek can wear a platinum blonde wig on the runway like it aint nothin’ because she is a supermodel. We, lest we forget, are mere mortals.

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