If you ask me, I’ll let you touch it! I’m talking about my hair! Well, it’s been 4 ½ years since I went to a Dominican hair salon to BC (that is, “big chop” in natural hair lingo) my relaxed hair. Like so many, I’d been addicted to the “creamy crack” like, forever. I accidentally became a kinky-coily-curly Type 4a naturalista, purely out of necessity.
After going to a new hairstylist for a relaxer and trim of my signature bob, 30 days later, my hair was falling out like I was undergoing chemotherapy treatment or something! I was loosing my tresses, strand by stand, until finally I HAD to cut it all off!
I wasn’t mad about the loss of my hair; but it really perplexed me about what caused it. I knew it wasn’t alopecia, since there were signs of hair growth. Anyway, it’s hair, and my hair grows fast, like a weed; so, I didn’t fret. I saw my BC as a fresh start, and I was inspired by the Afro of activist, scholar and author Angela Davis along with memories of my mother and aunt wearing the style in the 1970s. Because the styling of Black hair can be so labor intensive, I gave myself permission to embrace a new sense of freedom with my hair. My goal was to grow it out for three or four months, then get a relaxer for a short Halle Berry ‘do. That was January 2011. I haven’t had creamy crack in my hair since! Two years later, I met Davis, the ultimate soul sistah, at the Pan African Film Festival, and it was such an honor to take a picture with her, ‘fro to ‘fro.