Naivety World

“Oh my God!! I love your hair. How did you make it like that?”

If there is one question that makes me tongue tied, it’s this one right here. Because the answer is not that simple. Though, if you are asking how I got my hair to look this way this morning, I basically sprayed it with water and fluffed it out with my hands. My answer will leave you looking at me skeptically because why don’t I want to share my hair secrets with you. Do you have time for a brief 10 minutes lecture please?

How do I explain that my hair is this soft cause of hot oil treatments and deep conditioning masks? How do I explain in 1 minute that your naturally kinky hair does not like extreme heat and small combs and humidity and that you should trim it at least twice a year? The time limit does not allow me to say anything more than “I sprayed it with water”. My hair looks this way as a culmination of specific routines I follow and products I apply.

So here I am, talking about my hair journey.

There was a time I did not love my hair. I hardly had it out. It was either in braids or blow dried with the highest heat so that it lay flat and straight like I saw it on TV. I loved the long haired girls I saw, the ones who sat in front of the mirror and combed their hair 100 times till it shone. I actually tried that. I combed my hair 100 times. *I apologize to my hair for taking it through that*

All through primary and high school, I learnt that my hair was deemed more beautiful when it was flat and straight. I would brace myself every time at the salon, when it was time to have it blow dried because I knew, in my little mind that the hotter it got, the more beautiful it would look. I kid you not. And so my hair thinned, and broke with every swipe of my comb.

I started my hair journey about three years ago. I still had moments where my hair would get “unmanageable” so back to that blow dry. Then there were some salonist I would go to, who couldn’t plait or braid without the hair being straightened. So I succumbed often. I’m not saying blow drying your hair is bad, it isn’t. Kinky hair actually needs to be straightened in order to trim it effectively. But I digress. Just stop taking your hair through that extreme heat. If you listen closer, you’ll hear the coils in your hair screaming for help.

“So, how do I comb my hair?”

Fun fact, you do not have to comb your curly, coily and kinky hair every day. I comb my hair at least twice a month when detangling and I detangle when I want to wash it. These other days, my fingers do the “combing”. That’s in quotes because it’s more like fluffing it out than combing through.

Sometimes I still get a little surprised when people compliment my hair. I was so focused on trying to grow it longer than make it healthier, because there seemed to be a certain acceptable “natural hair standard” on social media. It had to look a certain way which mine doesn’t. I felt like I still have a long way to go.

All this is to say, it’s not magic. You won’t try my hair routine and have your hair looking like mine. But you can have your hair looking like the best version of itself. Love and embrace your hair and it will love and embrace you back.