Madame Noire | Black Women's Lifestyle Guide | Black Hair | Black Love

There is no 1 size fits All beauty regimine. I have 2 sisters & we all have different hair needs. Unfortunatly I always hear in this (long hair circle) these competitive statement comparing how much they wash their hair in comparison to how much other women do. Its no1′s buisness as long as you have good general hygeine you should wash your hair when it “feels” like you need to.

Let me say, kudos to you for wanting to truly understand hair textures so utterly and completely different from yours. Part of the reason we cant get along is because we refuse to take the time to get to know eacth other.

Now, a great deal of what you erroneously percieve as anger is actually hurt and frustration.

You see, as has been explained previously, blacks in america have been vilified, demonized and marginalized for quite some time as a justification for treating human beings as chattel and regarding same as 3/5th of a person.  Both overt and covert racism is still prevalent today in schools, hiring practices, and housing. Certain ugly stereotypes are perpetuated, applied to an entire group without regard for socioeconomic status or education then exported to other countries by the media.  What has this to do with hair you may ask?

Everything.

Since YOU directly benefit from the constant message that eurocentrism is best and that anything that deviates from it is less than, dirty or just somehow unacceptable the reaction seems strange. This psychological warfare begins very early, is deeply embedded in american society and affects us as blacks. From the time we are very young, our own families view straightening hair as a rite of passage and to make our hair more “manageable”.

Later we are subjected to ridicule by other women’s uninformed comments (some here on this site for example), and in the dating pool sometimes rejected by our own men because they too have been indocrinated against the textured hair that grows out of the scalps of women that resemble their mothers. A great deal of our culture and the knowledge to bring our beautiful, coily, curly, wavy kinky hair to its shining glory had been lost to us. Thankfully, some of it is resurfacing online. Youtube, curlynikki and other sites are instilling a sense of pride in our non chemically altered hair.

So dear Cat, since you may have a black daughter and yes the world will view and treat her as black make no mistake about that, I think it is great for you to be curious, acquire the skills to care for her hair and to arm her with the knowledge that her hair is beautiful.

All the best to you and yours.

And also the touching thing is universal, I’d say. Even my cousin touching my hair makes me mental!
Touch your own hair, no one else’s!!