Welcome to the soul of natural hair. The positive expression of black aesthetics by Lady Kinnks. Visitors may surf our site and blog to celebrate natural hair.
Get Your Exclusive Kinnks Tee...
Next entry: Noisettes - Never Forget You
Previous entry: Better by Melky Jean
I had the pleasure of co-planning a natural hair gathering with Kenyata and Malaka . Can you belive we had over 80+ people show up for hair fellowship? Read more about her story…
I am not my hair.
Corny, right? But honestly I’ve never been the person who put too much thought into hair. In fact I often refer to it as a completely separate entity. I, Malaka, spent an hour curling her hair only for her hair to decide that it rather be flipped. Go figure. I give a huge deal of credit to my mother for me and my sister’s attitude toward our hair. It was always “just hair” nothing that was super serious. I watched my mom over the years go from jheri curled to long and relaxed to short and relaxed to all of a sudden one day it was just gone. She went to her stylist at the time and demanded that it all be cut off. I was sort of taken back by it. Though it was “just hair” that would grow back should she want it to it was gone. All of her features that seemed small and delicate before were now big and while still beautiful it was…different. I was in middle school at the time and I remember telling a friend that I would “NEVER cut all my hair off like that.” And for the most part I didn’t. I, like my mother went from one crazy hairstyle to the next. Long and stick straight, shaggy cuts, blunt bobs, cherry cola red (I fought hard for that one in middle school) and I would tell everyone who asked why I did whatever to it that it was just hair, it’ll grow back if it doesn’t I’ll just go buy some. It always grew back thank God.
Then after high school and one semester away in college I got sick. The doctors didn’t really know what was going on but I was in pain and I was stressed and my hair that I didn’t pay much attention to started falling out. Doctor after doctor test after test for almost 2 years and finally an answer, I have Fibromyalgia. Fibromy-what?! I got all the books and websites and everything I could find and wow yeah that was me. I had an answer but now what? Oh here are some pills and the insomnia that’ll ease up eventually and the near constant pain you should try exercising that’ll help. Yeah…I can barely get out bed and you want me to do what?
Over time I’ve learned to live with fibromyalgia but my hair? My hair didn’t take too kindly to not being combed often because I was too tired. Nor did it like when I did find time to do it having a relaxer thrown on it. It reacted by falling out in the front this time in large spots. Okay hair I get it. I decided to go natural. I grew out my relaxer over a few months and chop! It was gone. Not as short as my mom did way back when but a few curly inches. I didn’t tell too many people what I was doing so there were a few folks kind of surprised when I posted the first pic on Facebook. I was shocked that everyone was so supportive. My dad, who didn’t care for my mom’s hair when she chopped years ago, said you look like you did when you were a baby this is exactly how your hair was then. I grew it out over a year. I loved it. It was me the way I was supposed to be. During this time, though, I was looking for a new job. I had several interviews all seemed to go well but I was getting thanks but no thanks. The very last interview I went on with my natural hair I remember the hiring manager, who was black (with probably the worst weave I have ever seen) kept staring at my hair like it offended her in some way. Needless to say I didn’t even get a call back. The next week I scheduled another interview with another company. I decided to blow my hair out. I got that job. My first day I came in with my hair curly and I got some interesting looks from my new co-workers. I was there about 6 month before I relaxed it. My hair responded by falling out…again. I was relaxed all of 3 or 4 months before I chopped again. This time it was super short and I wasn’t totally confident with it so after about 5 months I relaxed again. I knew my hair was going to hate me for it. It fell out…again.
So right now I’m on my third and final transition. I’m on month 14 now and I’m tired of dealing with 2 very different textures so I’m going to (not so) big chop soon. I’ve learned a lot about my hair during all these changes over the years. I know what it likes and what it doesn’t like mostly through trial and error. I’ve learned that my hair loves me more than I love myself sometimes. It wants the very best for me and it won’t act right until I’m doing all the right things for it. That means I do have to eat right and exercise and be careful about what I put into and onto my body. I’ve learned patience and that there is never a quick fix for the thing that you want the most. Yeah I know that’s a lot to learn from hair but that’s been my journey.
I am not my hair, but my hair wants me to be my very best me.
