5 popular myths about natural African hair

We all know that rite of passage that we had to go through growing up as young girls. Yup, when you had to chemically-process your hair, for you to ‘look good’ and ‘fit in’.

I vividly remember having to perm my hair simply because I was a flower girl at one of the church women’s wedding. It was actually a requirement in some girls’ boarding schools, while others had to suffer the consequence of going to a rural school that required them to shave their hair.

Of course there were those few lucky ones, who would have a ‘good’ blow-dry done that would make your hair just like Indian hair. Or perhaps, similar. You may think it is just hair, right? But hair, is a woman’s crowing glory. It is a reflection of a woman’s self-esteem and identity. But there are those few ideologies that were planted into our young minds that we have carried all the way to adulthood.

It is time we uproot them, lest we risk planting them into the next generation. Here are 5 myths about African natural hair that we know all too well:

We have treasured this particular one in our hearts, and that is why we have resorted to other measures to curb this supposed ‘epidemic’. You know how our mothers would literally have us sit in between their thighs right on the floor so that they could straighten that ‘steel-wool’ hair.

I see no difference between that position and sitting on an electric chair. How vulnerable it was, to have them literally pull life out of you as they collected huge chunks of your hair from the floor and that dreaded afro comb. And those Somali neighbours’ children didn’t make it any easier.

Those rascals would always refer to you as ‘Nywele gumu’, not only because of the fact that they probably lack the ‘ng’ syllable in their language, but simply because they wanted to put you down. The truth is, however, that African hair is beautiful in its own unique way. It is not hard; it just tends to tangle a whole lot more than the hair of people from different races.

When we see a typical African woman with full, healthy-looking long hair that is beyond the ‘usual’ shoulder length, we quickly assume that they are mixed race. We naturally assume that it is too far-fetched to achieve waist-length hair like women from other parts of the world. But this is a legend that needs be buried.

The main reason why our hair remains waist-length, in most cases, is because it breaks at the same rate it grows. As the ends are the oldest part of our hair, they break off easily mostly due to negligence. There are plenty of ways and techniques that are used to take care of natural hair; the society just needs to be informed about it.

Now this one just makes me cringe. You can never fail to meet a woman going to the salon just before her job interview. The scrutiny that you go through in an interview compels you to have your hair ‘more presentable’ to increase your chances of being considered for the job.

According to history, the abolishment of slave trade compelled the freed slaves to want to fit in into the white hair culture. They carried out all kinds of procedures just to make their hair straight and shiny-looking. The main one, which is still practiced today, is adding chemicals to the hair to make it straight all through.

This, however, destroys the natural curl pattern of the hair and even strips the hair of natural oils produced in the scalp. I am not totally against the use of chemicals on hair, but if you really have to use them there is the option of texlaxing. That way, you will get all the nutrients vital for your hair growth while still chemically treating it.

Watch out for Part 2 of myths about natural hair