Ene Abah: The Struggles of a Woman with Kinky Hair

I’ve noticed that there is a natural hair movement, or so it seems…

I’ve always had hair so thick and tough that when I was growing up, I did not look forward to my hair being washed, or loosened or combed. In case you don’t get that, I’ll explain. A person of African descent has hair that is curly, kinky, curly, coily… (so many words could go into describing our hair), might not always have the pleasure of just running hands through. When water touches our hair, it shrinks and becomes the toughest it can be.

I remember back in secondary school, school mates would refuse to plait my hair because of how thick, full and tough my hair is. So at the end, their fingers would hurt (well, that’s what they said!). Bless my school mother, Anne, she would always come to the rescue. As difficult as my hair was to manage, it was made worse because I could not keep plaited hair for more than a week, as it would make me look untidy – well except it was plaited so tightly that it would give me little boils at the edges from how tight it was. I had to make that sacrifice sometimes sadly.

Everyone thought my hair should be relaxed, they all said I had no business with my hair being natural. I agreed to this, seeing that relaxed hair looked easier to manage. I had long, full, thick and dark hair. My mother, on the other hand, would not allow me relax my hair until I got into senior secondary school. That was our compromise. But I’m assuming she might have held if off longer. She always said the chemicals were quite strong and I was still growing. Anyway, when I got into senior secondary school, I started relaxing my hair during holidays…it made my life so much easier. But the part where I had to plait my hair weekly didn’t change. In general, when I plait my hair, it finds ways to get out of the cornrows.

My experience with relaxers was that my hair didn’t relax properly. My scalp is tender while the hair on it is tough, there is only so long I could leave relaxers on for. My scalp always got burnt when I relaxed my hair. The edges wouldn’t look nice for a few days until it would dry and peel off. It annoyed my dad all the time! Then, two weeks after relaxing my hair, my hair would not be so sleek anymore and from there, it would just get worse. If I made a mistake to let water touch my hair, it would be another story. Except I planned to go to a salon where so much setting lotion would be put in that it would drip down into my clothes.

I liked to relax my hair every two months but at some point, my hair dresser advised that I relax my hair every six weeks because of the nature of my hair. This went on for years, I changed relaxers constantly as I was looking for a suitable one for my scalp and hair.
Eventually, my hair/scalp would not only burn but I would lose my edges once I used relaxers. The last few times I relaxed my hair, I noticed that the edges would disappear, all around, and my hair had stopped growing. So I decided in July 2013 that I would not continue. I decided to return natural but I had no clue how I would manage my hair. While I was looking for solutions, I mostly had the hair in protective styles. Each time I went to a salon, the stylists would complain about how much growth there was that needed to be retouched with relaxers. I intentionally turned deaf no matter how many times it was said to me. I had been looking around for people who might know how to manage natural hair as there were people with natural hair around, then I found a group on Facebook!

In May 2015, I decided to do the big chop…I cut off my relaxed hair and I was pleased to share this in the group. I was encouraged and told what to do. I learnt all the hair terminologies like the big chop, deep condition (DC), moisture DC, protein DC, inversion, bantu knots, twist out, hair regimen and so much more. I was excited. Then I started to see some who bashed people with natural hair and others who bashed those with relaxed hair. I wondered, why? There is enough room for all right? Just what is good for the goose might not be good for the gander.

A Vietnamese friend of mine saw my natural hair for the first time back in 2010 and laughed so hard at it. She was genuinely stunned. My hair had been in a protective style with extensions. She came to visit me while I was taking out the extensions, then loosened the cornrows. The whole time, she was fascinated. The minute I finished loosening the cornrows, like it was timed, she burst out laughing. I wondered at first then asked what was funny, she was choking on her laughter that she could only point. Previously, she had seen my hair in protective styles or it was sleekly relaxed. I struggled to explain how our hair is and she got curious, but never managed to go to the salon with me.

I’ve had people from other races talk about our hair, how we change hair styles all the time and how we seem to change with our hair. Recently, I had a Canadian, Dutch and French talk about my hair, saying they always tend to meet me with different hair styles. We laughed about it. The French went on to feel the extensions I have on, and I don’t remember his exact words, but my reply was “nature has been kind to you and you have it so easy”. He didn’t find that funny and was beginning to protest that nature was also kind to us. I laughed at him and told him that there was no need to get sensitive, nature had blessed us all in different aspects and it was laid to rest.

People are a bit too sensitive for my liking these days. There shouldn’t always be a deeper interpretation of what’s said. Can’t we just have normal conversations anymore? But, that’s a matter for another day!

Now, my edges are yet to fully recover but I am managing, I have learnt how to care for my hair and I am still learning, it has been a journey indeed and yes, I change my hair a lot because our hair cannot be sleek and nice without relaxers.

In its natural form, it stands right up there. Even with our hair, there are different hair types, I am still unsure which I have, but I think I have 4b in some places and 4c for the most part. More people are aware now that there are ways to care for and maintain their natural hair, even for people like me.

I have heard things like ‘hair brings out the feisty side of you’ or ‘it must feel like a new you, more powerful’. For me, it’s just hair! Just as there are other parts of my body, my hair is one part. I am only excited that I can groom my hair and not lose all my edges, I am happy to learn how to care for something that is a part of me, I am happy not to have to keep my hair a certain way that society expects but how I please.  There have been stories of women like me losing jobs over hair, really?! I think it is rather shallow minded to expect people of all races to look the same. The races are different and all races come with different packages…More women of African descent are standing up to this injustice, see two of such stories here and here.

Hair for me is not a movement, it’s not a political statement, it’s hair. The big deal is that more people have become aware of the constraints we have and how much time and energy have to go into us maintaining our hair. More people want to maintain their hair in its natural glory and not be pressured to make it look a certain way. But when we have a bad hair day, please bear with us, it’s not as easy as grab, twist and tuck. It sounds more like deep condition, do the LOC/LCO (Leave in conditioner, Oil and Cream), twist or make into bantu knots, leave overnight, loosen and fluff the next morning. Or if I need to make a protective style, I’ll sit in the salon for four to eight hours, if not more.

So, before talking about hair being a political statement or a movement, remember that we did not choose our hair type, we woke up like this, we were born this way. So it is more about recognising that there are differences and letting everyone just be the way they are.