The Moment I Felt Let Down By the “Natural” Hair Movement

Remember when the 4C hair type was the celebrated wallflower?

It was the year 2012.

Not the end of the world as the Mayans “predicted” or as Hollywood would have us to believe, but it was the end of my world of relaxers and straightening combs.

I’m not quite sure when the movement truly began, but literally every commercial that year showed Black women with high afros that were soft and frilly and even Chris Rock affirmed that we should embrace our own hair when he came out with the film, Good Hair, detailing Black women who obsessively use “creamy crack” and other modes to tame their wild kinks.

All of a sudden, I wanted that “baby hair” look. I wanted my hair to be frilly, soft and with some curl and I thought to myself, “My problem is that my baby hair got damaged! My hair shouldn’t be so course that it requires straightening. I want the waves and high afro.”

Right then, I looked at my box of PCJ(I think that was it) and threw it away. I fondled my long tresses that only reached just past my shoulders if you count the split ends. No matter what I did, my hair was limp after relaxing. So, no more relaxers.

I did what the commercials told me to do.

I immediately went out and bought creams for those of us wanting to go natural. All this time, I noticed women cutting their hair down completely — “the Big Chop”, to start all over. I was too afraid of that. Perhaps I was still traumatized from that time my aunt cut me and my sister’s long, gorgeous hair back in the day and we had to go through grease, hellfire and dad spending months taking us to hair salons for certain styles that were chic.

I didn’t want the big chop.

I just let the strands do what they do. I washed my hair daily or every other day and put “curling jellies” in my hair. By this time, I chopped my ends only to reveal that my terrible ends made my hair appear long when in fact, after scissoring half my hair, I looked as if I chopped it all off anyway.

Off to the store I went. I bought cute flower bows(I love flowers) and decided to cute-fy my look. I had to do something, because now I had a teeny weeny ‘fro and knew next nothing about doing natural hair.

Overtime, I began watching YouTube videos and visiting Pinterest for more hair care tips because only the top of my head looked kinda curly. I have 4C hair but other mixtures in the front and back of my head too, so the “soft, curly look they advertised on television, became falsehoods.

The women doing the natural hair videos looked nothing like me. Okay, I take that back, many of them did have my phenotype, but their hair was a lot looser and it’s crazy how many of us with true 4c hair did not notice this at first.

What kind of sorcery is going on to where we seriously thought our hair would be flowy, soft and blow in the wind, simply because we used some product and chopped our hair?

Needless to say, comments online from those with 4C were HIGHLY disappointed. We listened to Chris Rock. We listened to the commercials. We bought the products, yet some of us were finding out that wearing wigs and straightening our hair made us “feel” better than the Herculean pressure of managing our natural tresses.

There are a few YouTubers I found after sifting through the Goldilocks of the bunch. Chazzisawesome has an amazing channel and so does NappyFu. These ladies keep it real with haircare and you get lessons on knowing the difference between hair type and hair porosity. If you know these things, you will know what will work for your own hair.

For instance, “snot-like” products with lots of slip, works for most areas of my hair, but at the same time, my hair thrives off just plain hair grease and water on good days. I rock different wigs at times if I am going for a quick, dramatic look. That will probably never change.

It has been about 11 years now and I have rocked afros with my natural hair so beautifully that people ask me how I do it. I’ve also worn cornrows, faux locs, or just twisted my own hair(or my hubby would do it for me).

My hair has gone through various stages and I’m sure yours has too.

While advertisements told us we can have fluffy hair, those of us who really wanted to be naturally 4C and beautiful at the same time, were silently told to sit back and let the 3b/3c hair dolls show up and show out. In fact, it became so prevalent, that we thought natural meant curly — and in essence, it does! Natural simply implies wearing your hair how it grows out of your head, so it’s not just a Black thing.

It’s just that us Black, 4C hair women wanted assurance that the natural strands we grow would finally be obedient and let us relax without the relaxers.

Some have achieved this, with much work of course. Brava to them!

Overall, I am happy with my hair. It is wild, kinky and messy sometimes like a fussy baby, but it’s healthy, shines like a gem and is natural.

Thank you for reading!

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