My Word: Sometimes you just are your hair

When India Arie released the song, “I Am Not My Hair” in 2006, there was a lot of conversation around natural hair and the role it played in creating perceptions about the wearer of the hair.

Arie’s lyrics, “I am not your expectations” summed it all up and many women who were inspired by these lyrics began to embrace their natural hair. Arie’s song was about outward perceptions and it spoke about the internal turmoil a woman experiences when she is judged by how kinky or curly her hair is.

Today, I want to borrow the phrase for something a little bit different – the fact that what you eat, how you live and what you do to your hair affects the health of your hair. Also, your hair can tell you a lot about how healthy you actually are.

You’ve heard of “you are what you eat?” Today, I’d like to say this – you are what your hair is… you actually are your hair.

So you need to look in the mirror. If your hair is sparse, brittle, dry or discoloured, you need to take a moment to ask yourself what you have been doing wrong. Have you been eating wrong? Have you been resting and sleeping wrong? Have you been taking on too much? Or taking in too much?

Or perhaps you have just been giving your hair too much love? Changing braided hairstyles to often? Wanting your hair to always look freshly done?

Perhaps the problem is that you do absolutely nothing to it.