The last time I relaxed my hair, I cried. Hawaiian Silky was my poison of choice. At the time, freeze curls was the look - you know where they spray the spritz from the hot pink bottle onto some strands of hair and fry it to a hard crisp with a blazing hot curling iron? Kind of similar to the wisps and feathers they're doing today to make the mohawks and cokatoos. Anyway, this Hawaiian Silky burned so badly that tears began streaming from my eyes involuntarily!!!!! It was like someone had taken a veggie peeler, ran it over my scalp several times, poured alcohol over it, and then set a match to the whole thing. This wasn't the worst part of it. When the hair dresser went to rinse that bad boy - OH MY SNAP!!!!!! The water took it to an unprecedented level to a world known as hell. Hell was exploding on my head. Still this wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that I did NOTHING!!!! I said NOTHING!!! I paid this woman $50 for this torture, thanked her for the style and vowed with gleem in my eyes to return in a couple of weeks for more.
I was a grown ass woman when this happened to me, imagine what little girls go through in this process. By default we tell them that their hair is bad, that something needs to be done with it, that what they have naturally growing from their beautiful heads is not worth the time it takes to moisturize, condition, and honor. We have ritualized this torture treatment to become something that we spend $10 billion dollars a year on in the name of what we have been forced to believe is beautiful.
Think about it. There are typically more than 75 ingredients in a box of relaxer. Yes, there's some shea butter, olive oil, water, wheat protein, etc., but the majority of this poison has some great issues to reckon with. Perms contain ingredients that are known to cause cancer, cause reproductive and hormonal problems, and of course skin irritation and sensitivity. Lets say it doesn't permeate the skin and scalp, which it does, but lets just say it doesn't. Do I still want to put this cocktail of toxicity on my child's hair and skin?
OK, so if all this bad stuff comes from a box of perm, why does the government allow manufacturers to make and sell it? I am a former manufacturer of natural and organic beauty care products. Trust me when I say, there is not enough regulation in the cosmetics industry. European government has banned more than 1,100 toxic ingredients from beauty care products made in their country. The US has banned 10.
Think about this too. Our government still allows the sales of cigarettes even though we know it causes cancer, and some companies even market to our youth. In this county, if it makes money, it makes sense. Perms affect Black women. Who cares? Our false sense of beauty is worth tens fo billions every year. Who gives a flip if there are more Black women under 35 with breast cancer than any other group? Who cares if Black women have more incidences of breast cancer death than any other group?
Peace & Beauty does and we're doing something about it. Education, not judgement, information, not ridicule, sharing and celebrating our true selves, and most importantly planting seeds of self awareness for our girls so that they know that their hair is naturally beautiful. Back in the day, I didn't realize that my natural crown was beautiful. I didn't even realize there were real options to relaxing my hair. Relaxing my hair, as if it was tense or uptight anyway, was a part of everyday life and I never, ever, ever thougth twice about it. In fact, I wondered why the few girls that I did see with natural hair didn't perm their hair. I considered them to be out-of-order with the way things should be. I was always perplexed with these women. Now, I honor what they did to keep themselves safe, healthy, and free of these toxic, harmful chemcials.
Join http://www.peaceandbeautyproject.org/ to keep learning, becoming aware, and spreading the love. Whether you relax your hair or not, we embrace you sisters.
Honey, it's STILL that way with little black girls... in my daughter's 5th grade class, she was the ONLY one out of 8 chocolate girlpies with unaltered hair. The same in my 2nd grade daughter's class. Second grade, people. Little girls with perms—at 8. My girls' hair is strong and healthy and incredibly beautiful—just the way God intended it to be. And there isn't a day that goes by that I don't tell them so, because folks—BLACK FOLKS—stand at the ready to give me, their mama, a hard time about their "nappy" heads. Thank you for making plain what we all know: No child should be subjected to the torture that is a perm. Ever. When they're old enough to make the decision for themselves, then they have the right. But I intend to tell my girls the all-the-way truth so that when they can actually decide for themselves, they'll know better than to defile what God gave them with that poison.
ReplyDeleteBless, sister, for keeping it all the way real.
Nevermind the pain and scarring caused by such chemicals on such young scalps, the first thing that came to my mind when I read this title was 'why would we encourage, in a child, the idea that her natural hair is so wrong we need to pay someone to change it?' Surely this is just as damaging to their self-image as the chemicals are to their skin and hair?
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