3 Quirky Things That We Have Noticed About the Natural Hair Community

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are certain little nuances within the natural hair community that are just absolutely funny. Then there are those things that are a little questionable, those things that cause people to pause and go “Wait, what?”

Here are three of the quirky things about the natural hair community that are quizzical to say the least:

Hair envy with a seemingly underlying split personality complex?

That’s really the only way I know how to describe our lust affair or appetite for styles that sometimes seem to contradict the natural hair journey we are on. We naturalistas will lust over short haircuts.

Don’t believe it? Just check social media. We’ll be longing for length and almost develop OCD with that tape measure, checking to see how much hair has grown since yesterday like “Why don’t you just grow already?” Ranting and raving to anyone who’ll listen: “I can’t do nothin’ with this TWA!”  or “I’m about to get fed up with this BSL now, the goal is hip length and it seems I done hit a plateau”.

Of course there will be those of us who are very proud of our progress thus far cause we’ve never passed neck length until now.

Some of us remember the struggle of trying to create a ponytail when in fact we were really only capable of an oxtail, so it’s understandable that after hitting APL we start channeling Rapunzel. Then a pic will come up in our news feed and we’re like: “Oooh Chile this cut be givin’ me life!”

You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones we might have sported if we hadn’t been delivered from that “creamy crack,” those slick, laid down shaved sides, bangin’ undercut with dope designs and that itty bitty section of hair on top.

We can go ga-ga in a second for those styles; sitting before the computer screen, shears and clippers in hand going ” Lawd deliver me from temptation”, tagging the stylist to indicate our desire for the latest must-have work of art, or volunteering our girlfriends for the style so we can fulfill our dream through them.

Ten to one if a natural hair pic shows up it won’t get the same 20,000 likes that a short haircut would. I always get a kick out of this. At least we can appreciate the versatility that our hair lends itself to.

A child’s hairstyle is grounds for a Bill of Law or full blown Constitution

So maybe that’s a bit of a stretch but where else have you seen people clamor for a petition or call for a trip to the big house on the grounds of a hairstyle? This one has several levels to it though so where do I begin.

Signing a petition for a child’s hair to be groomed to our standards? Accusing parents of child abuse on the basis of a hairstyle? It seems to me that some of us forget that it wasn’t that long ago that we would get the slanted Asian eyes from having our braids pulled so tight we could almost see stars, or we’d have that hot comb kissing our ears. No one cited child abuse then.

It would be remiss of me not to mention instances in which we are just downright mean in the way we go after a child whose hair is not slicked down to our satisfaction and adorned with bows and headbands*.

Hey wait a minute, can’t that be classified as child abuse? How about the way we have a heart attack over a child sporting cornrows we think are ‘too grown’ for a child.

I’ve even seen cases where we look at a child’s gorgeous hair and feel the need to say it’s not healthy just from glancing at a pic. Seriously? This is one of the not so pretty traits that exist in the natural hair community, traits that have others wondering what the purpose of the movement is.

We really do get uptight about some things that are just plain ridiculous. We need to let our hair down (no pun intended) and lighten up a bit sometimes. No one is saying there aren’t instances in which you may need to show concern but sometimes the way we go about it is just unwarranted.

YouTube forms a part of the Holy Grail

This is our go to for style inspiration, hair aspirations, recipes for those times we want to treat our strands to some natural homemade goodness and product proofing.

I honestly don’t know what the natural hair movement would look like without YouTube. Seriously, can you say you don’t nor have you ever gone on YouTube for hair related help? If you can say that hats off to you, but for many of us it is an automatic part of our routine.

In every family you’re bound to have the good, the bad and the indifferent. Let’s not forget that the community was born out of the need for a space where we can learn and teach each other about our kinks, curls and coils; a place of empowerment where we define our own standards of beauty. Let us keep the funny things about us and work on sifting out the negative ones that make our ugly show.