The Top 20 Silly Things People Say When You Go Natural

The whole world and their mother seem to be going natural at the moment. I’ve heard the natural hair movement described as ‘cult-y’ which I suppose is true in some aspects and I have commented on that before.

But mostly I think that it’s it’s a great thing that women are at the very least finally paying more attention to their hair and learning healthy hair practices and learning to work with their natural textures.

Inspired by many youtube videos and forum threads, below is a rundown of the top 20 plain silly things you might hear from well meaning friends family and strangers after your big chop. Who knew there were so many!

1. You are so brave

2. So are you going to grow locs now?

3. Your hair looks like a poodle!

4. And you like it!?? (eyebrows raised)

5. And you are ok having your hair like a man’s? (TWA stage)

6. Does a comb ever get through?

7. So you don’t want straight hair?

8. I would go natural myself if I had “good hair”

9. So what are you going to do with it?

10. Are you mixed?

11. What did you put in it to make it so curly?

12. Are you tryna be like Indie Arie?

13. My boyfriend would freak if I went natural!

14. So you want to grow it out then perm it right?

15. Girl which weave* is that?

16. So do you go everywhere like that?

17. Did you fall out with your stylist?

18. Is that your real hair?

19. What did your man say?

20. Well, you can go natural because you’ve got that good hair . . .

Some comments in that list make me laugh and some are just downright mean and offensive. I have no problem with relaxed hair, on the contrary, I accept every woman has the right to do to her hair what she will but who knew that simply letting your hair remain as it grows from your scalp would be so controversial!

By far the most common comment even in my experience seems to be “You are so brave! I could never go natural because of . . . blah blah” I would just like to respond to that with this; Brave is soldiers going into armed combat on foreign soil. Brave is for a cancer patient fighting the disease with a smile on their face. Brave is even going in front of Simon Cowell for an audition! Brave is NOT letting my hair grow without chemically altering it.

I am a great believer in doing what suits your lifestyle first without completely compromising the health of your hair. If you find that for whatever reason you are not ready to return to your natural texture, I won’t sit here and convince you otherwise, it is a personal choice that you should go into wholeheartedly not because some random blogger says you should, but because you actually WANT to.

I can certainly recommend ways on how you can keep your relaxed/texlaxed hair healthy and yet I will also be here to support you should you ever change you mind and opt to go on a natural hair adventure. However when I hear the comment ‘Yeah but you’ve got good hair’ come out of someone’s mouth I lose all control.

<begin rant> I believe that all hair is good hair but I won’t pretend that I don’t know that when people say good hair they mean curly hair. Honestly, I was just as surprised as anyone to learn that my hair had a bit of a natural curl pattern but as a 4a with predominantly kinky* natural hair do I have truly wash and go hair? Not by a long shot!

Wash and go’s take 2-3 hours for me to complete, on a good day, and even then my itty bitty curls may disappear in a couple of hours but I’m cool with that.

I have learned the hard way that just because you can do a cute curly wash and go, doesn’t mean you should (for the sake of length retention). So when I am not wearing my kinks out, I choose to create curls with a simple braid out or flexi rods*, they much less of a hassle and better for length retention.

So when somebody says that I have “good hair”, I agree completely. But not because I have the naturally curly hair that they think I do, but because I have finally mastered my own hair enough to be comfortable in either kinks or curls. </end of rant>

What silly comments were you subjected to when you first went natural?