An Open Letter to The Hair Bonnet: Silky and Smooth, But NOT Stylish for Outdoors

April 24th, 2012 - By IndigoBlack

Source: http://silkywraps.storenvy.com

Dear silky and smooth hair bonnets,

Man, you and I go way back. We go back through my many hairstyles and states. You’ve been with me since I was rocking a relaxer with rollers in my head to keep my curls tight; You’ve helped me keep my texturizer moist, and when my natural fro was ready to cave in and get dry on my pillow, the thought of you woke me up out of my nap and beckoned me to throw you on my head. If it weren’t for you, why, I would look crazy as hell on many an occasion. Maybe that’s why I have three of you. I have a bonnet for every occasion. Depending on my mood, I reach for your color: black when my hair is clean and fresh, pink when I’m trying to hide my dirty hair, and purple for post scalp greasing (I know I’m not the only one who still does this). Your smooth bands have kept dents out of my forehead for years, and when I woke up after a restless sleep, covers all in disarray on the floor, pillow next to it, you still, somehow, stayed on my head. Tight head wraps often make my head ache, and smash my ears in, but you bonnet, you’ve kept me comfortable in a whimsical fashion that has let my hair breathe and stay beautiful. That’s probably why I have so much respect and love for you!

And maybe all that respect is why I can’t stand to see your a** on people’s heads on the streets. B0nnet! Baby! What are you doing to yourself? If you’re not on the head of a person running for their life during a fire, I would prefer not to find you on the head of some woman waiting for the bus by my place, working on an elliptical machine at my gym, or on the head of someone who was a witness to some sort of rachetness on the news. You are bold, and you are beautiful, but if you don’t stay your behind in the bathroom next to the bobby pins and hair spray and off the bus, I’m going to scream. I don’t know when people thought to make you the new it-fashion for when they didn’t want to finish their hair, but this has got to stop. You can camouflage yourself in any kind of color and/or design that you want, but that still doesn’t make you a hat! And while I can understand using you not to sweat your hair out sometimes, nor to have it be destroyed by humidity, there’s got to be another way! Maybe put a hat, or at least a nice scarf over you? But to be exposed to the world while accompanying something other than pajamas or lounge wear has forced me to resent you sometimes. YOU LOOK CRAZY! But alas, I guess you are a step up from the hideous shower cap that started feeling itself and became the alternative to umbrellas…

I know, it makes me sad too. I want you to keep your dignity. I want us to go back to the relationship we had before, when I loved to pick you up and plop you on my head. However, a part of me hates you because you don’t know how to stay in the damn house. I guess I should hold more blame with your owners than I do with you, but like the Rob Base song says, it takes two. Stop selling out just to sell yourself and stick to showing out and showing yourself off INDOORS. It would be much appreciated from this day forward bonnet. Peace…and hair grease.

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  • Pam

    You have echoed my very sentiments.  I wondered if it was just me and the mess I see in Memphis. I have wanted to snatch those bonnets off of the very heads I see them on, even risking the an impending altercation.  It is HOR-RI-BLE and we are the only race who does this mess.  Thank you for this letter, but sadly as Bluehue has stated, the very ones that need to read this probably will not.  Have a great day!!

  • Chanda

    That’s the generation we live in now. Our foremothers would never leave the house wearing a bonnet, they dressed to impress. It’s to the point were jobs and schools have dress codes were you’re not allowed to wear bonnets and doo-rags. Looking like ol’ mammy. I don’t know what’s worse satin bonnets in public or plastic wigs. I guess with these economic times sistas just can’t afford to get their hair done

    • Hello

      Plastic Wigs!!! I hate them…cheap and ghetto.  Just rock a natural style if you can’t afford to get your hair done.  (I’m not a natural hair sister, but I’ll go natural before I wear a cheap barbie hair wig.)

    • Hello

      Plastic Wigs!!! I hate them…cheap and ghetto.  Just rock a natural style if you can’t afford to get your hair done.  (I’m not a natural hair sister, but I’ll go natural before I wear a cheap barbie hair wig.)

  • Puddingpop

    I would NEVER wear anything on my head in public. I talk about everyone that I see (mentally).  I wont even wear it to bed with a man around– enough said. 

  • when doves cry

    Maybe I don’t get out enough, but the idea of wearing a bonnet out in public makes me cringe.  I would be mortified if someone saw me out in public with a bonnet on my head, that’s meant to be worn in doors and not out doors.

  • LiiSH

    I reserve the right to wear my bonnet to the grocery store and / or exercising. I have no shame in my game (NONE), I just make sure its relatively clean (not caked up with hair products) or not too busted looking (a hot, holey, stretched out mess). I am not worried about portraying black women in a bad light or looking crazy. Who is to say they are some kind of disgraceful secret? No I probably won’t be donning it for fashion purposes, but for a quick errand run i have no problem putting my dear old bonnet on display. (Oh and for a record, a scarf doesn’t make it less ratchet.)

    • Amija James

      LMBFAO!  You are a mess!  

      • Mls2698

        In more ways than one!

    • Brownielocks

       I kinda agree. How is a bonnet any different from a scarf? One is flat and one has some elastic… If both are clean, keep steppin…

      • Mls2698

        A scarf can always be worn elegantly ( around the head, waist, neck by any ethnicity), but the bonnet is ghetto garb ( exclusive to people who can’t be convinced otherwise). Hated to use the “G” word, but that sums it up

  • Bubbs5797

    Too funnayyyyyyyy!!!

  • Is It 5:00 Yet?

    I hate to see women wearing their night caps out in public. Like they literally just rolled out of bed and went to the store. While your at it, throw pajamas and moo moo dresses in with them. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/deangala.miller DeAnga’la Sugafreesprite Mille

    I got my bonnet on my head right now I will say this I have worn it out of the house while doing my hair in a roller set or putting in a treatment. BUT I either put a pretty scarf or hat over it so I dont look a total mess. Trust me I seen chicks that dont even bother to comb their hair out in public. wearing the bonnet out would be a step up in ratcheness for them!

    • Mari42

      NO it’s not….they’d be better off just combing it back, putting on a baseball cap, or wearing a bun/ponytail! This mess is ridiculous b/c a ppl use a “bad hair day” as carte blanche ro oput forth ZERO effort. Explain to me why I see women in school, Bible study, the store, every where with these things on? IT’s atrocious!

  • DoinMe

    Sheeeetttt. I’mma keep it all the real. I don’t wear a bonnet, but I will wear my scarf out for a quick run to the store and back. If my hair is in a roller set or some other ‘prep’ stage, I be damned if I’m going through the headache of taking it all down just to go out for 10 or 15 minutes. I don’t have wash-n-go hair. 

  • RedButterfly81

    I own one but I wouldn’t be caught dead with it on outside in public. I go to school and even my school had ban the bonnets because so many women come with those things on.

    • Mls2698

      Can you imagine if those women ever needed a recommendation from one of their professors? The first thing they would probably think of is that dang bonnet. DENIED!

  • FromUR2UB

    I should’ve finished reading the title.  I thought this was going to be about hair care accessories and where to find them.  I need a good silky bonnet, because my scarf keeps sliding off at night.

  • L-Boogie

    I use my outside while exercising.  But you probably already know that. 

    • Amija James

      LOL!  I was totally just going to admit that I wore mine at the gym a couple of times.  Mine is all black and doesn’t look like that at all.  

  • Truthhurtz

    Lol! This was cute. And I agree…the bonnets need to stay indoors. lol.

  • Prissy

    Now THIS was a very humorous piece!!! Please write more things like this!!! 

  • Lovelygirl

    It’s sad that people dont take the time to look presentable in public.  The photo above looks like a mother of one of my students.  She wore pajama pants and a hair bonnet to a graduation ceremony.  I cant forget the bag of cheetos in her hand. 

    • Caroneisha

      LMAO!!! You have got to be kidding!!!

    • Vee

      That is so hood and ghetto. She embarrassed herself and her child coming to the graduation ceremony like that. Then some of us wonder why people stereotype us *smh*

      • Chanda

        LMAO!! Especially something as important as graduation.

    • Mari42

      WOW…that’s deep! My girlfriends and I talk about this ALL the time. She is from New Jersey and I’m from south Florida, She was in culture shock when she moved down here and saw the hoards of women (of a certain age might I add!…women, who HAD to wear stockings to be considered ‘dressed up’) wearing these things in  public. I RESENT IT! I’m a teacher too and I ALWAYS tell my girls to not to wear these things to school. I saw a woman walking her son to school with a bonnet on her head and guess what?… her toddler daughter had a baby sleeping cap on too…WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Bluhue

    Thank you for this letter. However, the people who need to read it probably will not. I KNOW WE ALL have bad hair days but please stop the madness. It makes you look bad, your family, your race. Black is beautiful ! Please act and display yourself in a way that everyone will believe it! I am a flight attendant and you will NOT believe how many sisters I see coming through the airport with this rag on and it is nothing more than a rag and you look raggedy!!!! I have seen women dressed in killer heels, awesome dresses and then you get to the head they have the sillk bonnet on . Really Really, why do we do this to ourselves. I rather you wear a headscarf tied beautifully on your head. Please start respect yourself and your beauty. Youtube has many headscarf directions, for bad hair days.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRkfUH3BuxE&feature=related.

    • Mls2698

      Makes me cringe every time I see it. The bonnet is the Devil in disguise, and one of his workers used to be the Velcro wrap.

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