Beauty Talk: This Natural Hair Rave

Image source: Afronoire

Sometimes, I just don’t understand the trends of what’s fashionable and what’s not. It appears like things are changing so quickly and people like me are constantly struggling to keep up. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t having permed hair the ‘in thing’ back in the day?

As far back as I can remember, even in the days when my own mother was young (as I've been told), every woman wanted to have permed hair. Even the men applied relaxers to their hair and called it ‘blowing’ just for the sake of improving the texture of the 'stubborn' African hair.

If you had ‘virgin’ unpermed hair then, you were regarded as being too spiritual or something. I remember that as a young girl in secondary school, I could hardly wait for my mother to declare me as qualified to have my hair relaxed. Even though the harsh chemicals damaged and coloured our hair, we would put up with it. 

Relaxing the hair made it possible to do the nice styles, everything looked nicer with permed hair – braids, twists, hair extensions, weave-ons, rolling and setting, Ghana weaving – everything! And every woman wanted the European kind of hair.

And then in the last couple of years, the hair game got upgraded. African women no longer wanted synthetic hair wigs and weave-ons; it now had to be human hair. Then came the likes of Indian hair, Peruvian hair, Bolivian hair, Brazilian hair, just any hair that was originally on the head of some other woman (Just definitely not another African woman, and I wonder that there isn’t a market for Mexican hair even, I kinda like the richness and texture of their hair). 

Image Source: therighthairstyles.com

However, times have changed again for the African woman in terms of her hair. Now the African woman wants her own hair back. One begins to hear of such things as ‘transitioning’ and doing the ‘big chop’ now. A lot of Nigerian women have chopped off all the years of relaxed hair to start growing their hair all natural again. You will be amazed at the number of women around sporting heads full of THEIR OWN HAIR! It’s amazing, and more, it’s so beautiful. 

As beautiful as the natural hairstyles are though, there are some snags to it. You see, natural hair costs a lot more time, effort and money to maintain. You can’t simply ignore your natural hair for any length of time and expect it to be easily manageable. But a lot of Nigerian women are making it work. Take some of the popular ladies for example - Chimamanda Adichie, Omoni Oboli, Ty Bello (that her 'fro should be patented sef), Nse Etim Ikpe, Kate Henshaw, etc. These women have gotten wearing their natural hair down to a science.

Image Sources: weddingdigestnaija, pinterest

The question for ladies like me now (who already love and are comfortable with their permed hair) is whether to take the bold step of doing a big chop and transitioning to the natural hair look. Do I have the courage? How long will the rave last? Will I chop off all my hair simply to find that every one has moved on again?!!!