Natural Hair Melodrama Is A Major Put Off When You Ain’t So Natural Yourself

I like to speak correctly, yes I’m one of those annoying people who like to correct grammar when it is glaringly wrong. So you know there’s a problem when I use the colloquialism ain’t in the title of this post.

I went to a natural hair event a few days ago had an interesting time trying to condense the wisdom that I’ve gathered about hair in the last 4 years 3 months and 4 days into a shampoo recommendation or the best way to style natural hair. No mean feat I’ll tell you!

Anyway my hubby, who had come with me for support, didn’t understand the hair melodrama and passion bordering on hysteria that natural hair advocates seem to be shrouded by. While I suppose I’m lucky that I don’t have a ‘My-Mama-Put-A-Relaxer-In-My-Hair-When-I-Was-4-And-After-Transitioning-To-Natural-I-Have-Now-Discovered-The-Real-Me‘ type story there are plenty of people out there who have found that they are finally at peace with themselves after accepting their natural hair texture. A fact that I patiently explained to my husband.

Now I know a few of you may disagree with me but this is something that I have noticed a lot in the natural hair community and it gets on my last nerve: Judgmentalism.

Anyway, when we got home and I was looking through my blog feeds on curlynews, I came across an article that had a bunch of comments where everyone was giving their own opinion on what they considered to be natural hair.

There were the usual diverse opinions and it wasn’t long until the natural nazi’s made their appearance. I was particularly taken aback by a comment that talked about how ladies who color their hair have no business calling themselves natural and that they all seemed really desperate to be seen as part of #teamnatural.

Oh no she di-in!

The commenter of course has her own blog where she sings the benefits of twists, braids, a popular conditioner brand that she loves and occasional posts about make up. Like children, men can be brutally honest sometimes. ‘Hahahah’ my husband laughed. ‘She’s telling people not to color their hair and in this picture she’s got her afro, bright red lipstick and that black stuff you women put on your eyes’. Ah yes 21st century make up, the most natural thing known to man.

I mean seriously, we all know that a lot of the things we come into contact with in our daily lives are full of unnatural chemicals, some of which are confirmed carcinogens and many of which can be found it the cosmetics we use. And instead of working together to come up with ideas and alternatives to these harmful products, we are busy dissecting the meaning of ‘natural hair’, a term I might add that means absolute zippo to people of other races.

‘Isn’t all hair natural?’ my white colleague once asked me when I tried to explain the premise of what I write about. Looking at what I believe to be the true definition of natural hair – It is hair that has not been chemically or mechanically altered. That would obviously rule out conditioning, combing and especially braiding.

When you start ranking people’s personal natural hair stories into a competition where one is judged on their degree of natural-ness, you turn the whole natural movement into an exclusive club that no average person really wants to be a part of. I’ll pass on the #teamnatural for now thanks, I’d rather be unrelaxed.

I am a grown woman and I refuse to be told off like a schoolgirl for stretching my roots with heat because I dont like the thick roots look. I will certainly not be berated for flat ironing my hair when I get bored of wearing a twist out. It’s only hair right?

I’m far from perfect myself but I believe that aspiring to live a natural life and reducing your chemical load is a far better pursuit of anyone’s time. Think about that next time you walk out of the house with your twist out and your facepaint on.