Manhandling and ruthlessly ripping through afro hair is a major issue in the community. That's the reason why so many people are "tenderheaded". We make time for other things, but why is it so hard for us to be gentle and patient with ourselves? 😔💔 It's about time we start working with our hair and not against it.
Crazy because black people have the most fragile hair type, but many people think our hair is strong because we can braid and do all these styles. Then we manipulate it constantly and start to see the result, mostly in our late teenage years. (stunted growth, alopecia etc) and many just conclude they have bad genes.
@@actuallyjulieeYou're right. The tight kinks/curls/coils indeed do make it the most fragile; we literally should be babying our hair like a bunch of flowers. Your content is insightful and refreshing, keep it up, Sis!❤️☺️
You know when I realised that black stylist are rough? When I went to the Puerto Ricans and the white stylists. Lol! My current stylist is Polynesian and I can literally fall asleep when he combs my hair. I thank God that I learned to do my own hair. So that I can stop self-re-traumatizing. I actually love combing and brushing my hair now! My Mom just didn't know what to do.
@@marleyhill34 I'm sorry you had to endure that; our hair does NOT deserve that. Yes, I also love brushing and combing my hair now too since I know what to do!❤️
These are the same people that criticized Beyoncé for not styling Blu Ivy’s hair when she was a young child. Her hair was mostly in TWA style but folks just ridiculed her and Beyoncé. Now look how her hair has flourished.
It's so embarrassing how self hating many are. Even if her hair is still short. What's there to ridicule? They wanted that child wearing a 30 inch bussdown? Many were just mad she wasn't the 'perfect' light skinned baby with 'good hair' and smaller features so that they could live vicariously through her. It's why many Americans are so mad Tyla refuses to identify as black. It's so much easier to claim who isn't one of them than someone unambiguously black because they hate looking in the mirror.
It's not lost on any of us the comparisons people would make between Blue Ivy and North West when they were babies. If Blue Ivy had hair like North West there wouldn't be a critique in sight. Also...there are no Soulan people that are mad that Tyla refuses to identify as black. We don't care. We're just not calling her coloured. She's that foreign girl or the South African girl. That's it. Soulan people are under no obligation to validate the apartheid labels of another country. @@actuallyjuliee
It’s conditioning. We are taught to hate ourselves and literarily maltreat ourselves but will roll out a whole red carpet for someone who looks different from us. Both those who witnessed colonialism and those who didn’t are both affected by that mental illness passed down from generations . I think TV plays a big role too cos most people in the villages do not stress like we in the city do.
@@realmaureenoyakhilomeIt's the same with the divestment movement. The way they're gassing up these men of other races is if they're really that different. at their core the vast majority are misogynistic.
@@likemycommentifyouwantareplyAnd yet your lot spend billions on our so called dog hair to hide the carpet brillo pad afro with wigs weaves lace fronts extensions and looks ridiculous on a black and defo not in their DNA, we have a good laugh behind your backs making the Asians rich and mimicking desiring our hair texture oh and btw imatation is the sincerest form of flattery 😊😋🙋🏼♀️
I almost thought I was crazy for feeling that way because 70% of the comments I read were laughing or being dismissive of the problem with those videos. They seemed entertained by it. I was aghast.
Unpopular opinion: if your child can't take braids (which is most kids), I feel like the parents should stick to styles that are simple and will allow them to detangle and style the hair while damp. 3-strand twists, flat twists, larger single braids, etc. It might have to be redone more often though, which is likely a huge reason they put their kids through these torturous styles.
Exactly. There are so many kid friendly hairstyles that don't require all this stress to the scalp since many raiders can't braid without pain. But many parents just don't want to have to deal with the kids' hair at all.
My mom didn’t believe my braider was braiding too tight till my hairline started going back 😑 they’d just laugh. My kids will never. I do my hair and it never hurts so it won’t hurt them either
Water. Water. Water. This is really all you need for low porosity 4c hair. Because contrary to popular belief, our hair needs to be saturated with water daily.
I know my hair likes water every day...However....I live in London.....the tap water is terrible and filters are expensive to constantly replace... So I use a leave in mist instead. That's enough for my hair and a bit of leave-in cream conditioner about the size of an American 25 cent/British 50 pence coin for every 5 inches of hair. Most people are concerned with the water ruining their style...I'm like I have an afro...it's supposed to be frizzy and undefined...our ancestors had no edge control or silicone gel for 4000 years and more. Lol!
Actual 4c head of hair here :) naturally I’ve accepted my hair will never be as long and big unless I use heat or stretching products. Shrinkage is naturally beautiful learn to enjoy mini 4c afros on women.
Like anyone in their right mind, hearing the screams of children or watching them be in pain is highly triggering. I do kids hair often and we do have tears from time to time if the detangling gets too rough but I will immediately adjust. Add more conditioner/water or change the detangling tool. Pain in the black community is glorified, a lot of parents want to see their kids suffer. They think it’s funny. They also have no problems relaxing/ripping out their child’s hair. Why should it be longer than theirs? The abu*e is crazy.
The thing that traumatised me the most is when my dad cut my hair because it was "too long" and "male gaze"!!! I will never forgive him for that. Never.
Your dad's logic is extremely problematic. It also makes me think of how the community seems to have an issue with black girls being pretty/beautiful; in particular, the black girls who have a more typical black phenotype. If you look nice as a little black girl and you're feeling yourself, the older women will hit you with the "OH, SO YOU THINK YOU CUTE??" to bully you. It's also common for adults to attack a black girls beauty under any punishable circumstance (cutting her hair for getting bad grades, attacking her hygiene habits after catching her talking to boys, etc.) I really want to see someone dive into this theory because I don't understand what it's all about SMH. Your dad was wrong for that.
@@doll.ov.poetrii4682something I noticed is that they don't like black women or girls to have extremely high self-esteem but they also hate when we have extremely low self-esteem too. If you say self-deprecating things about yourself they will be very mad. That was my experience. I never had high self-esteem and I still don't but now I know better than to express that because I know people don't like that kind of talk but back then the way people hated me for hating myself was crazy.
@@LethalLemonLime girl, you gotta start taking back your power and thinking nothing but highly of yourself. They fear a confident black woman more than anything. And that's not your problem.
I'm a hair dresser and people do say "my hand is not painful" cos they experiment little to no pain while i braid their hair. Some customers on the other hand would keep asking me if the hair is tight and neat during the braiding process, almost like they don't trust that a hair that's not painful will be tight and neat. And i think this is a result of traumas we've been through in the hands of a lot of hair dressers that can even braid your scalp just to get that extra hold.
This. Pain = good job for most people, and that's why many of us start getting traction alopecia and stunted hair growth. I really love a hairdresser that doesn't seem like she's mistaking my hair for a chainsaw. 🙏
These clips were very hard to watch as it took me back to my childhood. I am so over the gaslighting tactics, insensitivity, laughs, & lies about people with 4b/4c hair not being in pain. Thank you sis for this video. It is very much needed, & I hope it goes viral because many black people need to hear this message.
I do my own hair and somehow don't give myself a headache. My sister gives me a headache when she braids so I think I'm only going to let her do two-strand twists or locs on me. Lol! Oh yeah when I went to the Puerto Ricans and the white stylists I didn't have a headache and the relaxer didn't burn....... It's always the ones closest to us who hurt us the most. 😩 My current stylist is Polynesian and he's so gentle even with a styling small tooth comb and a round brush when heat straightening my hair for a trim.
@@marleyhill34 I'm so sorry. You're right. There's this white stylists who went viral one time for doing black people's hair. Some people had a problem with her touching black people's hair. But she was literally so gentle with black hair. and didn't have those weird "no 4c allowed" rules I see on the modern day hair stylists. She really did her assignment. Just find where you're treated well and stick to that. ❤️
Agreed! I didn't even realize this was a thing. Why in the world would an adult want to do that to a child. Or anyone of any age for that matter. We are dealing with some truly sick individuals.
Some children or adults have Sensory processing sensitivity or Sensory processing disorder. Some children are ADHD and some are Autistic. Dismissing a child or adult’s pain as them Dramatic is inconsiderate insensitive apathetic and dismissive.
True. I have ADHD and have always felt things more deeply in just about every way imaginable. This comment makes me feel so seen, Thank you for acknowledging the nurodivergent people and our personal struggles!☺️❤️
I'm mexican-guatemalan with 3b hair, and i am always shocked when I find out ppl with curlier hair then me brush/comb starting from the ROOTS to the ends. That is utter blasphemy. In highschool I tried to explain this to my friend, she was african american and she refuted me saying "theres more control when you start from the top" and I'm like...."no u make new knotts when you do that, thats why you detangle from the bottom first" But to be fair, as a curly girl in a mexican family I had to learn on my own, no one else could help me bcuz no one else had my hair. So logically I went on youtube. Not everyone does that.
I saw a video from one of the natural girlies I watch saying that her hairdresser told her that the reason she has this long hair is because she doesn't comb her hair well and if she helps her comb it, it will cut and reduce. What???
I saw a video from one of the natural girlies I watch. She said she went to a hairdresser and the hairdresser told her that the only reason her hair is long is because she doesn't comb it well and if she( the hairdresser) helps her comb it, it will cut and reduce. What???
Videos like that break my heart. I can't imagine seeing a child in that much distress and deciding to make a intricate braid for...some clicks? Hair is a lot more manegeable when you are not fighting and abusing it.
Intricate braids for kids is just unnecessary. They don't even have the same pain threshold as adults. And many adults still cry making those styles. I think even for adults the intricate braids shouldn't be done back to back to avoid hair damage.
@@actuallyjuliee I've seen people advocate for braids as a protective style (I can't really speak on that as i don't use it) and I don't really care what adults choose to do with their own head. But to me, doing this and perms to a child is abuse. They don't even have choice to refuse all that 😮💨 and to have your image on the internet forever...the health issues..
Those videos of the little girls crying hurt me and brought back memories. I remember I stopped crying or making any noises in pain and learned to just sit through it. Hair dressers would compliment me and say to my Mum "wow she doesn't cry", and ask me if it hurts, I'd just say no even though it still hurt. My younger sister would still cry, but she eventually stopped as well. I remember feeling proud of myself for not crying or squirming in pain. I now realize that was not the compliment they thought it was. Of course, a child would cry and try to get away from the pain. I always love getting braids but dread the pain. I'm glad that my mum was not always ripping our hair out and gripping too tight. People and hairdressers would and still compliment me and my sister on how long and healthy our hair was, i always found it weird cause i just assumed every other black girl's hair was growing and healthy. There's a hairdresser that I dreaded going to cause she would rip my new growth out when blowdrying it before braiding. I felt like crying every time cause i could feel the hair being ripped out of my head. I still struggle with maintenance, but I'm learning and am so grateful that my family embraced our hair and didn't relax it against our will. I will admit i love getting my hair straightened, but i also love having my hair natural and free. I want to help other women and girls learn how to love and take care of their hair.
My father is a first gen Nigerian-American and my mother is African-American. They had already decided before I was born that they'd never perm my hair. I grew up hearing a lot of horror stories from my friends that they'd get their hair permed incredibly young, and were still recovering from it in high-school at the time. I couldn't understand why someone would want to do that to their child. The way self hate is talked about so casually sometimes makes me cringe, but it does make me happy that we're slowly healing one step at a time. I hope the next generation of black girls can grow up actually enjoying being a child instead of spending hours in salon chairs. Childhood is fragile.
True! I had a BW tell me I had "good hair" at an outing I attended recently and that I don't NEED weaves. I instantly educated her (politely of course) and told her that good hair is HEALTHY HAIR and actually, no one NEEDS weaves. I asked her "what does good hair mean to you, and what makes my hair "Good"?". We had an interesting conversation and I shifted her perception. I never say thank you when people tell me this because I know what's ACTUALLY being said; and it's not a compliment to elevate certain afro textures over others in the name of European beauty standards.
Whites also used terms like baby fine hair, which have no body (bad hair) I'm black, and had very thick hair between 3b-4a When I relaxed it, they wished for thick hair
Childhood: 🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️ Being called ‘tender-headed’ meant nothing other than an inconvenience to the person doing my hair. Teenage hood: 🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️ These are the years where I bought into the ‘pain is the price for beauty’ lie. I lost a lot of hair trying to keep it straight. Anything else was called ‘nappy.’ Adulthood: 🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️ I don’t play that anymore. I treat my kinks like gold and wear it big 90% of the time. I went to get my hair dyed a few months back and someone tried to blow dry my dry hair in its natural state to straighten it for dying. I said ‘no ma’am, please hand me a water bottle and the blow dryer.’ I took 30 min doing it myself. NO ONE will care for you like you, ladies. Speak up - their happiness is not your responsibility, but your health IS your responsibility. Loved the video Julie! This was really good!!❤❤❤
its no wonder people growing up thinking their hair is painful. when i was in secondary school, girls would boast about how their broke combs, therefore they had to relax it. keep posting!! dont ever stop, even if its a different commentary lol
For starters they be using the wrong comb! My goody Afro comb lasted nearly 20 damn years. I only threw it away because the coating was coming off and I didn't want my ultra-fine hair snagging on it.
I had very long hair as a child but at some point in your education in Ghana depending on your school, you’d have to cut your hair so now that I can finally grow it out I’m still trying to get a hang of it. I think that in itself is a problem which stems from colonialism and causes a lot of us to be inexperienced about our hair.
I'm sad that African countries expect people to cut their hair..I swear that's straight out of a "colonizers and conquerors" textbook. Even in Native American tribal battles, the prize was to take the hair and scalp of your enemy after victory. In the Caribbean, we stopped cutting hair with the end of slavery and colonization. In the 80s and 90s people struggled to accept dreadlocks but after 2000 it became acceptable.
yea my mom is from ghana and i always tell her that cutting the hair in school isn’t about convenience. back in the day the Akan hairstyles reflected your stayus in your tribe, your marital status, possibly your family occupation, the tribe you are from, etc etc. the colonizers cut it to distance us from our culture. and in the britush schools, it was more than just teaching academics. that is where they taught colonial mentality and started demonizing our culture to us, which included our hair
@@veronicahaney6005 I love this. At one point I will do the ancestry DNA to find out what is my predominant African tribe as a Caribbean person. Then I can confidently travel to and indulge in the hair and culture of my ancestors. I've been to Nigeria and was welcomed very well by my friend's father who was a tribal chief. I wanted to cry when he said welcome to your ancestral home. That meant so much.
One thing I'm really proud of as a mother is not making my daughter cry while washing and styling her hair. We play music and sing along to songs while I wash/detangle her hair. She loves her natural hair. I always tell her tight hair is never a good thing. Only two other people have touched her hair (my husband/ her father) he tried to wash and style her hair when I had terrible morning sickness while pregnant- it didn't go so well lol. The second person was a hair braider (big mistake). My daughter was 6yo when she got cornrows done for vacation, and even though the hair didn't look tight the first couple of days... my daughter's hair broke off at the sides and back a little bit. She's 8yo and wants all the other styles her friends have, but I try to educate her on hair health. The styles her little friends have are tight and with extensions, so I tell her its not worth damaging her long hair. Its really tough, but I hope one day she understands.
Aw. That's so sweet. I don't think she will damage her hair if she gets those styles she wants once in a while. As long as the braider isn't heavy handed and she doesn't do it every other week, she should be fine. ❤️
My answers to the questions, Childhood: ❌❌❌❌❌❌✅❌ Teenage hood: ❌❌✅❌❌❌❌ Adulthood: ❌❌❌❌❌✅✅✅❌❌❌ I’ve been growing my natural hair since 2016. It’s long now and I style it myself. I have 4b/4c curl pattern and my hair is healthy. Thank you for this video! One day I might make a video of me styling my hair! Love yourselves black women! #BlackWomenDeserveTheBest 💖💖💖
NATURAL HAIR TIPS 🦋AFRO/KINKY/COILY HAIR🦋 Always detangle your hair before you was it get it good prepoo section hair into 4 parts apply prepoo and wash it out! Use shampoo! I know we all heard dirty hair grows faster but thats a LIE!! Use shampoo our hair needs water! Our scalp needs to be clean. Never detangle on dry hair, always start on damp hair, and get you moisturizer and start detangling from ends to root,(or you can finger detangle), be gentle with detangling your hair. Get a silk bonnet to sleep in and use silk scrunchies regular hair ties rip out your hair. If you use rubber bands dip them in oil before you put them in your hair. Low manipulative hairstyles! Mini twist mini braids! Probably more but these are ones i love First always moisturize your your and then and your hair oil, if you just put oil in your hair you are just sealing in dryness. Always keep your hair MOISTURIZED our hair is prone to breakage and dry hair no moisture = breakage!! THATS IT FOR NOWW🤍🤍🦋
I never heard 'dirty hair grows faster'...like what in the world? My mother and father have 4 daughters...she washed, braided and occasionally hot combed our hair for church. Now THAT effs with a little black girl subconsciously because everyone fussed over your straightened hair telling you how pretty you look, but not your natural hair.
I was one of those crying children back in the 70's. Hot comb on the stove. Locked my hair in 2000 after years of relaxing. damage, chemical burns and nowhere near the length or health I wanted. I have been so happy with my hair. It should not need to be painful or traumatic. It is sad that it still is for many after years of better products and education.
Hugs...I noped out of breaking my combs pretty quick. then mom put in a kiddie perm and then a curly perm. I decided to do my own hair. Failed with my first relaxer and when to natural at 15. Then I learned how not to break my combs with my hair. Lol! mainly by detangling with an afro comb!! I still was breaking my hair but at least I was no longer in pain and buying combs every week. Lol! So I had natural hair in the 90s. a stylist who didn't know any better told me I had to relax it for my graduation and at 18 I trusted my hair and had it relaxed with glued-in weave....omg. Lol! She could have given me a closure instead of relaxing my leave out!! I never liked my hair straight and I never really liked bone-straight wigs and weaves. It always had to have a curl or a wave or a kink to it. I hope you are healing from that hair trauma. I am and I've been natural for over 10 years now....no immediate plans to go back to non-kinky hair.
I hated the process of relaxers as a kid. I remember how before ever getting a relaxer I was only allowed to touch my hair in order to take it down for wash day. I would stand in the mirror, examine it and fluff it and I recall liking it just as it was. My mom made it seem like my hair was so unmanageable without a relaxer and it even broke off when I was around 11/12 years old. I got the blame for it breaking off even though I wasn't allowed to touch my hair and ridicule from peers as well. At this point, my mother expected me to just magically know how to do my hair because she said she knew how to do hers when she was my age. None of the advice I was given really helped either. Fast forward to 18 and it started growing on its own a little. I went natural when I was about 24/25 and it really started growing. I was inspired by the tips I came across on TH-cam from women with my hair type and it turned out well. The crazy part was that my mom tried to take credit for my hair growing as fast as it did in that time frame and had remarked that I "finally started listening" to her... Childhood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️ Teenagehood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️ Adulthood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️
I vividly remember feeling so itchy when the relaxer was in but I wasn't allowed to scratch 😭😂 Then when I'd sneakily scratch I'd have bits of my scalp under my nail beds. Used to hurt like crazy. Omg 😭😭 Thought I repressed that memory.
My mother had no interest and patience with hair. Lol! She still doesn't at 73. She keep hers mostly wrapped. Lol!..even at the beach! Lol! Meanwhile I'm sticking my head under the water and not worrying about my style. My hair was developed in the African Savannah and forest next to the mighty rivers. I know the ancestors must have had a daily swim!
My hair broke off around the same age and I got all the blame, as a child!!! After that and ridicule from peers, once I was old enough to work, I made sure to get my hair done professionally, meaning perms, until university, because there were no black hair stylist nearby (I’m from the US, went to a PWI) so of course my hair went back to breaking. Now I’m 100% natural and my hair has never been happier, honestly and feel so much freedom with my natural hair.
Im going into 2024 weening off of high manipulation braids. We really gotta be fr with the protective style excuse at some point. Thank you for this video essay ♡
I have been likened to an old lady for having short natural hair 🤦♀️ yet when you talk about this topic some women get uncomfortable and think you are picking on black women but it is a problem that exists and needs to be addressed.
That's interesting to me. I've always felt like natural hair makes us look more youthful and fresh. Most weaves I see, especially the straight ones or the ones with very loose waves age black women's faces. It's just my own observation though.
Honestly, I used to hate our hair as a child but now I choose our hair every time. It's a learning process no matter how old or how experienced but that's what I love about it. Without it I would never get to experience the 'hair styling trains' generations of women in my family would do as well as styling eachothers hair, learning new tips and cry-laughing with frustration but at least we're crying together 😂Even my brother has started his own natural hair journey and it's sort of like bonding when I help him loose his hair. Maybe I'm just a bit whimsical but at the end of the day, we've been taught to hate our hair (by both black and white communities) but unlearning that starts with you.
I get the most compliments on my hair in London from white people. I don't always were wigs and weaves and when I do it actually matches my natural texture which amazes both the black and white people. I grew up in a black-majority country in the Caribbean which I'm so grateful for because we accept all hair types. I had a teacher at secondary school who rocked a bald head and all the boys were attracted to her even though she had no hair. Lol! I had to go to a party recently where the theme was Goddess and I wanted to go as an African Goddess so I looked at traditional tribal African hairstyles and styled my 4c hair and 4c clip-ins to suit and because it was so unusual, I got compliments from black and none black people. I wanted to pay tribute to the ancestors before the colonizers came.
Childhood: ✔️✔️❌✔️✔️✔️❌✔️ Teenagehood: ❌✔️❌✔️❌✔️✔️ Can’t answer for adulthood since I’m in that limbo between teenhood and adulthood, but I’ve started to grow out my natural hair and while I do still wear wigs, it’s because I’m using them as a protective style not because I hate my natural hair. Actually, I will sometimes walk around my dormitory with my natural hair out, which is something I couldn’t do last year within my own home
Saw my picture in your video😊. It's funny how some people till this day find it hard to believe a black woman can grow long hair. You'll post on tiktok/IG and a stranger will call you a liar or that you're wearing extensions.
As a child my mom was gentle with me and my sisters hair. We got burned by that comb and that grease. JESUS CHRIST THE PAIN, then the burn. My five yr old doesn’t scream but will move. I make sure I’m gentle and apply water and a cream to make it easier. We never had weaves put in our hair, and didn’t get relaxed until I was 11, first and last.then my next one was age16 off and on until twenties. I didn’t relax often it would be months in between and a waste of money. Mostly natural throughout. Now thinning edges from tight braids. My hair is fine , low porosity and I’m on a journey to grow it back to waist length. I’m currently bra strap and natural and growing my daughter natural hair. I’m not a braided but I try. I do not add hair to her natural hair. I only let one person braid her hair occasionally and she’s gentle and have three daughters. I would never let someone braid her hair and they being ruff and she’s crying. That person would have a bad day.
Girl, me. 😂 Just so I can give their hair all the love it deserves. And you don't even have to be a mom for that. My nieces or little girls in my family will always have their hairs pampered if I lay my hands on it. 😂
I always ask stylists, can you please not add soooo much hair? Thats what harms my hair, when the added hair is so heavy at the roots. I don’t get why braider feel like it needs so much added on.
I know what you mean. They will literally try to install a jumbo braid on 9 strands of hair; it's too heavy! This happened to me a few years back and the braid ended up falling out... with my real hair in it! 😭 Ever since then, I've learned to box braid and my hair has been thriving since.
Since I learned to braid my hair (both crochet and traditional braids) I save so much money and I am gentle with my hair the way stylists never have been in my life.
I went through the same as child my mom gave me permanent hair around my edges I told myself once I became a adult no one is touching my hair but me I braided my own for many years without pain I have small size locs for 4 years now best decision for my 4c texture ladies if you want to see your thrive the most lock it up
I know a lot of us lack knowledge about our hair and some of us just have a lot of internalized racism so we resent it, but a lot of African people with coiled hair act so stupid over taking care of our hair. If something is dry the only thing that will hydrate it is water, the only time you should be combing through your hair is when it’s damp and lubricated with conditioner. Water relaxes the kinks in our hair so it’s easier to detangle and oil/conditioner locks in that hydration from the water. If it hurts it means you’re ripping hair out due to the hair being dry and breaking from lack of hydration and moisture, this is why it can be hard to retain length.
Agreed! It's so frustrating that we would rather blame our hair texture instead of just admitting that we don't know what we're doing; but then again, that takes self reflection, self awareness, accountability, and humility. Those virtues are lacking in these spaces when we're trying to have honest conversations about black women and the self hate we harbor as a collective over our afro textured hair. To make matters worse, this information/education is easier to access than ever before and it's still not researched by many who are struggling with their natural hair.
@@doll.ov.poetrii4682 I tell people that my hair is made for the hot savannah next to a river like my ancient ancestors from 4000 millennia ago. My hair likes warm and hot weather and daily moisture. It likes being put in a twisted or braided style....that I can still go swimming with so that rules out anything that can't be wet daily like a wig or a weave. Lol! Our ancestors were busy doing everything by hand and hunting and gathering...they didn't have 8 hours to do hair every day! Look at how the Himba, Mbalantu, Hamar, Mwila and the pre-colonial Zulu and Fulani tribes do their hair!
@@marleyhill34 Wow, you're right! Your comment is beautiful. Afro hair is a biological advancement to protect our scalps. My hair never grew more in my life than when I was in basic training in the Oklahoma sun and marching in the rain. I think of our hair the same as vegetation; specifically flowers since it loves sun, water, and grows up to the sky. You're right about the precolonial African tribes. My father is Ghanaian and Ashanti, I'm always studying ancient motherland tribes and how they styled their hair and It's amazing!❤️
My hair Matt’s up when wet. I found that my hair detangles better when I use olive oil. So, maybe some of you can try that to see if that works better because not everyone has the same hair journey so it’s nice to learn new things that may help along the way.
I have long thick 4a natural hair and I dealt with a lot of bad stylists in the past. They will make comments about my hair being too long, too thick, and blamed me because it took them a long time to do my hair. They would often overcharge me as well. They would also cut a lot more than what I asked for off. I also had a really bad experience with a stylist earlier this year where she not only talked bad about about my hair being too long and thick, she braided my hair too tight to the point that I was in pain and couldn’t even sleep at night. I was getting faux locs but she put my real hair in cornrows before attaching the faux locs to my hair. I took the style down and some of my hair came out. It wasn’t a lot but I literally cried when I saw that some of my hair came out after a DAY of wearing faux locs. Fortunately I started going to my sister in law to do my faux locs, twists, and braids. I wash, detangle, and trim my own hair now. I can do plaits which is what I do to my hair after I wash it but I can’t do other braid hair styles so that’s why I go to my sister in law. I also came across strangers and ex friends who would ask me if my hair was real or if it was a wig. I have also been denied jobs in the past for wearing my natural hair. I wasn’t natural all of my life though. My mom relaxed my hair at the age of 4. My hair was relaxed until the age of 17 when I decided to cut my hair off to go natural. I remember being taught that straight hair was good and afro textured hair was bad and you needed straight hair if you wanted to get a job. When I first did my big chop, I got nothing but nasty comments of people comparing me to Side Show Bob and calling me “ bald headed “. I was literally bullied when my hair was a TWA and I use to get a lot of stares and people would laugh at me with their friends. That motivated me to grow my long hair. I still get stares now after I grew my hair long and often times I’m the only one rocking my natural hair when I walk into a room.
Also….sometimes these kids don’t like their hair being touched at all causing a lot of these reactions. I know because I used to be one of those kids. It wasn’t that it was painful I just didn’t want my mom doing my hair. And then we she switched me to my sister & aunt doing my hair & it was night & day-i would literally fall asleep in the chair. Parents also need to realize that if they start out doing their kids hair very rough & heavy-handed they will NEVER trust you in their head, even if you eventually learn how to properly handle & detangle their hair.
Like I always say this and it's not even just the conditioning through being enslaved like to take on a new identity and not be able to take care of our hair traditionally, but also westernized culture tends to have a lot of chemicals in everything... So it's like we put chemicals on our hair we eat processed foods or foods that are like high in sodium, the air and the water is like slightly contaminated... So yeah it's like a lifestyle thing... It's because of the shallow nature and like obsession with cosmetics. Because when you think about it usually our hair is pretty long until we get around Middle School age and then we feel like oh we need to put a relaxer on it or start pressing it out or wear wigs and that's when it starts suffering the most. But usually before that our hair is pretty long like at least shoulder and collarbone length
I remember one time my mom took me to an African Hair Braiding shop to get Senegalese twists. It was my second time being taken to the same place; the first time I had relaxed hair. They gripped tight, but it wasn’t excruciating. The second time I went was after I went natural. The way they yanked through my hair with a comb and a blow dryer is something I’ll never forget. I was young so I didn’t say anything about it, but I was so upset inside because I had been working so hard on my natural hair journey and I KNEW they were destroying my hair. Then the braiding came, and omfg. They were gripping my scalp SO. DAMN. TIGHT. I literally couldn’t help but start crying. I just sat in the chair and cried as they braid. The owner of the shop saw me crying and literally started scolding me for it; yelling, asking me how old I was (12) and saying I was too old to be crying and that I needed to stop. I never set foot in a braiding shop after that, and anytime I wanted braids afterwards I just did my own. I never got too great at them, but they lasted well enough. Nowadays I just wear my natural hair in different styles, still haven’t been to an actual hairstylist in years.
Very interesting subject! Watching the video makes me so grateful for my mum. I do not remember a time in my life where I did not like my hair. We are 3 girls and she managed to do our hair regularly (and cut my dad's hair).She has always been super gentle. I remember that an aunty once told my mum to relax my 2 year old sister's hair. To this day I'm still shocked. Of course my mum did not do it. But since my sister hated to have her hair touched, my mum simply cut it until my sister asked when she was 4 or 5 to have braids with her own hair. I have been natural all my life except for only 1 year when I was 18 (my mum and the stylist were against it and the stylist refused to make me pay since she believed it was a huge mistake). I think the fact that my mum also has dense thick hair played a huge role in why she has always been so patient and gentle. Sorry for any mistake. English is not my first language. Keep up the good work
Im a boy but my parents always had trouble combing my hair when i was little. Now me taking care of my hair now i only trust myself 😂. Learned my lesson for the last time after my mum did my braids extremely tight last year. Almost completely healed the large bald spot 🤸😌
Disclaimer: I have a looser curl pattern (3c/4a) so my experiences are going to be a bit different. There are also a few answers where I wish there was a “sometimes” option. Childhood 🙋🏾♀️❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️❌ Teenager ❌❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌❌🙋🏾♀️ Adulthood ❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌🙋🏾♀️❌❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌❌ I am so glad there are people talking about the normalization of painful hair styling for children. It’s NOT NORMAL even though it is sadly common. There were things that I had to find out by myself as my mother and I have 2 different hair textures, but my hair has thanked me over the past 3 years for how I treat it now. From shoulder length to waist-length hair I am never going back. I also want to make it a point with any children I have to avoid the mistakes of our predecessors.
I got a bald fade fro-hawk this summer. My hair is short. It looks better and is healthier short. I live a busy lifestyle and don't have time to be styling my hair and a wig. I also swim. I actually refuse to be something I'm not for the sake of society's propriety. I'm neurodivergent and it never made sense to me. I want to exercise and not worry about my hair. I want to ride my bicycle, swim, watch documentaries and read my books and not spend all my day off in a damned salon! I mean I know people who love the salon but that's not me. Any man who thinks women with short hair are not worthy are not even worth my time. You can lose your hair from illness like alopecia, Covid or cancer. I actually have a slight form or alopecia due to susceptibility to stress and being a thalassemia carrier. No good genes or bad genes. I have a friend with relaxed hair. It's healthy and thick and she has all her edges. She took a college course to learn how to do hair although she is a qualified scientist. She relaxes her hair because she had a back injury and can't have her hands up for long periods needed to detangle and style natural hair. She just sweeps hair hair in a pony tail or bun or quick updo. She can't use a flat iron or curling iron also because of the time her hands have to be up. I give her no judgement for her relaxer because it literally causes her less pain than natural hair and I do not want her to be in pain at all for something such as hair! Childhood 🙅♀🙅♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀. It's a trauma. teenage-hood 🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙅♀🙅♀🙅♀🙅♀ This is when the rebellion started Lol! I'ma do what I want with my hair and everyone else just has to deal with it. Lol! I was a terrible teenager. Lol! adulthood 🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙋♀🙋♀🙋♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀ It was a wild ride but I'm 42 with all my edges and hairline and no active bald spots. I have stress-induced and nutrient-deficiency alopecia. It's based on my genetics as a Thaleseemia carrier and being neurodivergent. The hair falls out or breaks at a weak point but it always grows back although it can be a little weak and thin. I just use bond builder and protein to strengthen the hair plus I'm aging so it's natural that my hair will thin and go grey. The greys are strong and stubborn. Lol! I've been natural since 2009. I have no immediate desire to go back to relaxer due to my sensitive scalp. Most relaxers are not made for sensitive scalp or ultra-fine hair. I might consider a keratin treatment or a texture release on pixie cut-length hair but for the moment I'm not really interested in that as I live in London and it's too cold to sport that style year round. I need to live somewhere warm for that very short style.
You rock! Really love/appreciate your take on this. Keratin treatments always drastically reduce hair loss. But I don't think it works the same for people with alopecia. Either way, I love that you're enjoying life regardless. You seem so cool. 😍
@@actuallyjuliee Thanks. I just want to be true to myself now instead of the 30 years I spent trying to get other people's approval in work, relationships and societal groups.
Childhood: 🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️ Teenagehood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️ Adulthood: 🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️ This video was at the perfect time because I'm detangling my sons hair right now. I do all I can to prevent crying by letting him have treats, watch shows ( we are a screen free family except for hair time). I will only finger detangle, till all knots are out them gently comb and twist, to avoid crying I will often do this while he is asleep and position my body to fit his resting position not my own comfort. He is 3 and we've never cut his hair. It pretty thick and long to me. I can get away with only doing his hair a few times a year cuz he's a boy, I cannot imagine the pressure if I had a girl.
I think fingers are the best tools for detangling. We also have to avoid thinking our hair needs to be detangled all the time. A lot of the hairstyles we do don't need detangling, we just need to put some conditioner in and fluff it out a lot of the time.
my hair grows pretty fast, actually. in the last two months, i think my hair grew about an inch and a half? before i had chemotherappy, i think i cut like a few inches off to get a shoulder length style. lol then it all fell out 😅
Childhood 🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙅🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ *To the question about growing up with permed hair... my mom did not want my hair permed. At all. My grandmother put one in my hair behind her back when I was like 3 or 4. She was furious ... my grandmother managed to get me a couple retouches before my mother outright threatened her. So grew out the perm. It wasn't until until begged and pleased and then destroyed my hair trying to copy styles by using half a jar of black gel before my mom finally allowed me to get a texturizer and then years later a perm as a young teen.. and it was really against her desire and she cried multiple times about it. So...I gave both responses to that question and that's why i have one more answer than everyone else. Actually besides my yes and no answer to the perm question my answers are exactly the same as yours! As I'm sure are most 😅
I was so blessed growing up my parents took good care of my hair but my mother moved when I was about seven and I started going to salons until I was 14 and my hair got so short and dry they weren’t too rough not that I can remember but my hair health was bad. I also found it hard to take care of because it wasn’t soft at all. When I lived with my mother again I went back natural and I loved it but my family members and other black people constantly spoke badly about my hair. I’m so grateful that I learned how to take care of it and that I love it today but I think we need to help each other out with compliments and knowledge because the hate is still so strong and I feel so sad for others 😢❤
This video is extremely disturbing. I always knew little black girls suffered lots with their hair being done, but never saw it so explicitly. Even when I see girls with those locks I assume they are fake and didn’t involve pain, trauma and frankly sadism. It’s awful. There has to be a better way of dealing with this problem…and sorry I feel no sympathy for the adults (moms and grandmas etc) almost torturing their kids this way without any remorse. Wth?
I’m watching this but can only relate to a little of this because I don’t have 4c hair… I remember the pain from getting my hair done and pressed as a child and relaxing it in my preteens. But I didn’t have any real trauma about my hair because my hair was always long down my back and thick. I did recognize that most of my friends who were black had short hair. I didn’t understand how important hair was for a young girl’s self esteem and a woman’s self esteem until I had a daughter of my own with 4c hair. I stopped relaxing and did a big chop to help her embrace her natural beauty. I’m happy I did because she went from a 6 yr old who thought her hair was ugly to a confident 17 yr old who loves her natural hair. We both hate the maintenance of natural hair I must say, so we have locs 😅 to make maintenance easier. Loving your natural hair I think is important. We have to love ourselves before we can love others, that includes our husband and children.
Quality content (sorry I couldn't participate in the poll, was listening while doing chores). Actively encouraging my girls about the beauty of their hair but realizing that telling them to tolerating pain, tight hairstyles counters that narrative.
I don’t remember having these issues growing up because I had got a relaxer when I was about seven or eight years old. I do remember sometimes my cousin and her mom would do my hair and I knew I hated it because they were super rough now as an adult I only let certain people do my hair because they’re not rough 😂
i actually never wanted a relaxer as a kid and begged my mom to go natural at 12. All the women even children in my family had tore up,thin stiff relaxed hair. Two of my aunts had alopecia issues and still used the relaxers,wigs and weave. Even at 12 that was just strange to me. So i learned to care for my hair with the very little information we had on youtube. Funny because when i decided at 12 to go natural and told everyone i wanted to grow it long. My family members kept saying my hair wont grow long because no one in our family has long hair. Now at 25 i have long thick natural hair. I always thought straight loose waves that BW lust over is underwhelming hair. But i will say i have wished God made 4c hair easier to care for because i have very dense hair and its time consuming
12:12 smh, this one really made me mad, not even detangling her coily hair right, root to ends.. like do you just want your kids to suffer??? Part her hair first, use water moisturizer to detangle it, ends to root and you will be good wtf wrong with people.
I remember once where I hid in the family closet for 5 hours to avoid getting my hair braided. Once my sister found me my mom decided not to do my hair. Wash days and braiding days were never fun for me
Thank you for this video. Makes me consider doing less complex styles for my future children and do something simple and cute. Putting so much stress on a scalp so early in life seems like it would degrees the health of their hair. I remember crying so much as a kid getting my hair pulled, I ended up getting locks. It gave me a little more independents to style my hair as I pleased and I still had my natural hair. I combed them out at age 18. I’m 25 now and got the hang of things so far. I learned hair care from a lot of YT vids.
Hair is growing all the time.. just feels like a feed in to a negative rhetoric.. should say why you aren’t retaining length… Ppl are so ignorant that today, even with me wearing my natural hair I’ll be asked if its “mine” in its twisted state not blow out, no perms. No straightening. Im realizing that ppl just don’t pair authentic beauty and black women together.
Your last sentence is the TRUTH. I'm also asked "Is that all your hair?" quite often and I never answer. I just, look at them with a blank face and act like I didn't even hear what they just said 🤣🤣. Either that or I ask the question back to them instead of answering.
For childhood:🙅♀️🙅♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️.I’m still a teen so:🙋♀️🙅♀️🙋♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️. Thank you for this video😊. It was nice learning since my dad never allowed me to grow my hair from the age of one till I left secondary school. He said all his girl child will continue cutting their hair till they are out of secondary school. After secondary school I’ve had pretty bad experiences with hairstylist and what broke my last thread was when my mum took me to another stylist and I wanted medium sized cornrows but my mum told her to make the cornrows really little and the pain was terrible when the lady was done not to talk of my mum forcing me to relax my hair but that painful cornrow experience broke the camel’s back and I shaved off my hair totally and now I’m on the internet learning ways to care for my hair since I was never taught and the hairstylist I’ve been to found it hard to braid my hair when it’s not blow dried. Now that I’ve experienced tiny growth, I’m researching on how to care for my hair and also possibly learn how to braid it when it has grown to a certain extent. I’m sorry for the rant😅
All of the questions were a yes for me except for the hairdressers apologizing and the hating to do my hair as a child because im still a child (15) and when i was younger i never had to do my hair myself. I hated having to get my hair braided because it used to hurt so bad that i couldn't sleep for like 2 days after i get it done. I discovered natural hair on TH-cam at late 13 years old but it was difficult to get to these kinds of content because if you first type how to grow hair, you are exposed to the DIYs promising to grow your hair in unrealistic length in 2 weeks. It took time to find the right TH-camrs and learn all these concepts like moisture, breakage and how to detangle properly. I also learnt it is absolutely not normal for your scalp to hurt while manipulating it. Ive been in the natural game for two years and my hair is now lower mid back length and about 3 inches away from waist length. I took this to my family and they are now all inspired to start taking care of their natural hair too. I even preach this at school. We can grow our hair we just dont know how to care for it. Im privileged to be young and learn this early. Im happy not all people that look like me share these devastating ideas of natural hair is bad/ unprofessional or not the standard. I loved my hair short took care of it and it grew long.
🙋🏾♀️ I grew up getting perms. I remember the burning 🔥 and was told that's how you know it's working. I now have locs, and I haven't relaxed my hair in 15 years.
Childhood: 🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️na🙅🏽♀️(3 yes, 4 no, 1 non applicable) Teen: na 🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️ na 🙅🏽♀️ (1 yes, 4 no, 1 non applicable) Adult: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️ (2 yes, 9 no) I am a guy (yes thats me in my pfp). I wanted to participate as well because I thought it would be an interesting thing to see how my answers compared to your female participants. My relationship with my hair has always been positive. I would say I didnt really give any thought to hair until I was 14. I always wanted long flowy hair, but that really was just a style choice. I was more or less forced to have short natural hair (or little to no hair) due to my parents "rules": girls (my sisters) can have long hair, but men's hair (and nails) should be short, neat, and clean. I hated that rule and wanted to grow my hair out since 14. Furthermore, I have done tons with my hair over the years post 2014 : locs, big afro, s-curl, dye (honey blonde). I always loved my hair which is primarily 4b. I do truly feel that type 4 hair is really beautiful and versatile. Since I loved my hair, learned it, cultivated it, etc., it grew beautifully and after I cut my locs back in Sept. 2019 (at 19 years old), I grew my loose virgin natural hair until Feb. 2020 and made the decision to permanently straighten my hair. The reason I did that is because I have always wanted straight hair in the back of my mind, I just forgot about that and just loved and grew my natural hair. Then one day I was like...wait I always wanted straight hair, so why not do it. I had never had it before so I made an appointment for Japanese Hair Straightening and have been having straight hair since then. It was the best decision I made for my hair and I love it. It's long, silky straight, dark colored and looks unreal. If you truly love your hair, it shows, and you can grow it regardless of if it's natural or not. However, I am a man and was a young Black boy. I fully acknowledge that boys' attractiveness, value, or overall social status is not partially contingent upon having beautiful, long, luscious hair. That saved me from a lot of pressure, redicule, or even possible self hate or self loathing.
That's so interesting hearing the perspective of a guy and seeing how you answered your questions. Yes, the difference between how males are brought up to view their hair or physical appearance in general is so different from females. Thank you for sharing your story. Glad you're enjoying your hair.
JULIE…. they not ready for this one chile!!! Those videos make me sick to my stomach, I’m happy to hear you analyze the phenomenon of laughing at our children’s pain.
Agreed! This makes me think of how often I would see adult black people laughing and watching a child be spanked very hard. I observed this as a small child and it disturbed me. They would also laugh at us children when we hurt ourselves in pretty much any physical or emotional way. When I had my first heartbreak, my mother joked about it to the whole family and I lost over 15 pounds from that depression. Why are we, as a collective, so prone to neglect pain? 😔
I remember when I went natural as a 14 year old because i was tired of relaxing, and my mother stopped taking me to community events with her out of shame. That left a big impression on me
12:20 this part abt naija is so true. I was shocked last year that the stylists could not handle my natural 4c. They made comments abt needing relaxer and gathered around touching my hair in shock. I had to wash and blow dry my own hair so they could make braids
I was born, raised, and still live in Mississippi. I was raised in the 2000s and I’ve had ALOT of good experiences with my hair. I was natural from 0-6 with having my first perm at 6 years old. I used to want to looks like the girls on the perm boxes. I was relaxed from 6-14 nearly 9 years and I went back to being natural before my 15th birthday. It’s been 12 years, 10 officially wearing an Afro or curls naturally and it’s been a ride. For both. Like my cousin said, it doesn’t matter which way you go, it’s always a process. Growing up, I never compared my hair to little white girls or ethnic girls. Yes, I consciously knew that all girls of different races had different textures and that for black girls only way for us have long hair is if you just naturally had long hair or added extensions or tracks. For me it was just different options and knowing that we all different but possible that we can do just about anything to our hair. I was never teased about my hair until I got to 7th grade. My mom always talked about trimming my hair or just keeping my hair short, which I hated. She always kept hers short but nice. My mom’s hair is the type to cut it one day and it grows back within 2 weeks. I used to/still am a little jealous. She never really liked long hair as she doesn’t like things touching neck. Me on the other hand, am a bit obsessed. Looking back and now, my family is the type to have, in my words, “ancestral amnesia” or “lack of texture education”. While I myself along with my brother have the same hair texture: 4C (combined with our mothers 4a/4b texture and our fathers’ 4b/4c respectively), my familial ancestral line including relatives’ average texture is around 3a-4a. (KIM: My brother and I have different dads but the genetics are nearly similar) My mother’s mom and aunts (mom’s side) have a thin textured hair, ranging 2c-3b even when not permed. My mother’s father’s side is somewhere between 3b-4b. My father’s mother’s side is around the same and my father’s father’s side is around 3c-4c. Almost all of my aunts including great aunts, cousins, uncles, great uncles, and upward and outward all have looser textures with VERY FEW being close to mine and brother’s textures. Even my other siblings on my dad’s side ranges between 3b-4a. I didn’t notice this until a few years ago. A few sly remarks came from some relatives because, well, my hair was/is the thickest. 😢😅 It’s like, they understood it but didn’t. I used to hate it for sometime: wondering why my hair was different from everyone else’s, why my hair held so much heat, and why my hair took on so much humidity. Oh man, used to hurt my feelings, ALOT. Longing for perfect straight hair (not only because of other races of women but because of black women with long or shoulder length hair) Now, I know how to tame it and control, but sometimes I either put on a wig or just keep it twisted because I don’t want to be brothered with it. For months, I’ve been contemplating a perm cause, well, I miss my straight hair. Also, 10 years ago was when I started wearing an afro so I wanted to mark it as an anniversary. I even just recently bought a perm box. 2 actually. And I put only have of the product into my hair and, though it didn’t straighten it, it did loosen it a bit. It’s been 12 years, I completely forgot going back to natural will not be easy, as it’s been a long time. We’ll see how it goes…
I HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO SAY IT SOME BLACK PEOPLE JUST DONT KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR HAIR , LIKE WHY TF ARE YOU COMBING FROM ROOT TO END THATS WHY YO DAMN BABY CRYING IT HURTS!!! NO MOISTURE WATER CONDITIONER JUST COMBING ON DRY HAIR WITH OUT PARTING IT AND NOT USING THE RIGHT TOOLS, THATS WHY YOUR HAIR ISNT GROWING YOU RIPPING OUT ALL THE RETAINED LENGHT!!AND DONT KNOW HOW TO DETANGLE HAIR PROPERLY THERE IS NO MORE EXCUSES WE HAVE TH-cam TIKTOK AND MORE LIKE YOU CAN LOOK UP HOW TO TAKE CARE OF OUR HAIR STOP THE EXUSES YOU JUST DONT WANNA LEARN. I SAID WHAT I SAID.
Manhandling and ruthlessly ripping through afro hair is a major issue in the community. That's the reason why so many people are "tenderheaded". We make time for other things, but why is it so hard for us to be gentle and patient with ourselves? 😔💔 It's about time we start working with our hair and not against it.
Crazy because black people have the most fragile hair type, but many people think our hair is strong because we can braid and do all these styles. Then we manipulate it constantly and start to see the result, mostly in our late teenage years. (stunted growth, alopecia etc) and many just conclude they have bad genes.
@@actuallyjulieeYou're right. The tight kinks/curls/coils indeed do make it the most fragile; we literally should be babying our hair like a bunch of flowers. Your content is insightful and refreshing, keep it up, Sis!❤️☺️
💯💯🤬
You know when I realised that black stylist are rough? When I went to the Puerto Ricans and the white stylists. Lol! My current stylist is Polynesian and I can literally fall asleep when he combs my hair. I thank God that I learned to do my own hair. So that I can stop self-re-traumatizing. I actually love combing and brushing my hair now! My Mom just didn't know what to do.
@@marleyhill34 I'm sorry you had to endure that; our hair does NOT deserve that. Yes, I also love brushing and combing my hair now too since I know what to do!❤️
These are the same people that criticized Beyoncé for not styling Blu Ivy’s hair when she was a young child. Her hair was mostly in TWA style but folks just ridiculed her and Beyoncé. Now look how her hair has flourished.
It's so embarrassing how self hating many are. Even if her hair is still short. What's there to ridicule? They wanted that child wearing a 30 inch bussdown? Many were just mad she wasn't the 'perfect' light skinned baby with 'good hair' and smaller features so that they could live vicariously through her. It's why many Americans are so mad Tyla refuses to identify as black. It's so much easier to claim who isn't one of them than someone unambiguously black because they hate looking in the mirror.
It's not lost on any of us the comparisons people would make between Blue Ivy and North West when they were babies. If Blue Ivy had hair like North West there wouldn't be a critique in sight.
Also...there are no Soulan people that are mad that Tyla refuses to identify as black. We don't care. We're just not calling her coloured. She's that foreign girl or the South African girl. That's it.
Soulan people are under no obligation to validate the apartheid labels of another country.
@@actuallyjuliee
@@actuallyjulieei think blue ivy always has had gorgeous hair. It’s a shame society doesn’t agree.
@@actuallyjuliee Facts Juliee, that’s a good point.
It’s crazy. I was watching something about doctors ignoring black womens pain but look how black women ignore these little kids pain ………
It’s conditioning. We are taught to hate ourselves and literarily maltreat ourselves but will roll out a whole red carpet for someone who looks different from us. Both those who witnessed colonialism and those who didn’t are both affected by that mental illness passed down from generations . I think TV plays a big role too cos most people in the villages do not stress like we in the city do.
Exactly
whatever....you still know right from wrong....its all excuses....its child abuse which ever way you look at it@@realmaureenoyakhilome
@@realmaureenoyakhilomeIt's the same with the divestment movement. The way they're gassing up these men of other races is if they're really that different. at their core the vast majority are misogynistic.
Who is teaching us to hate ourselves at this point, though?
We need accountability - not more blaming OTHERS for the things we KEEP DOING TO OURSELVES
Its so weird some black people just dont wanna learn to take care of their hair and continue to hate their hair.
They don't like themselves or people that look like them.
@@ladybluelotusExactly 100% correct, it's not hair It's more like carpet
@@DebbieSmith-pd9fzit’s not carpet🙄. Anyhow carpet is more expensive than dog hair. See, anyone can be negative, not just you 😊
@@likemycommentifyouwantareplyAnd yet your lot spend billions on our so called dog hair to hide the carpet brillo pad afro with wigs weaves lace fronts extensions and looks ridiculous on a black and defo not in their DNA, we have a good laugh behind your backs making the Asians rich and mimicking desiring our hair texture oh and btw imatation is the sincerest form of flattery 😊😋🙋🏼♀️
Literal child abuse those videos were so hard to watch
Exactly! And completely unnecessary.
I almost thought I was crazy for feeling that way because 70% of the comments I read were laughing or being dismissive of the problem with those videos. They seemed entertained by it. I was aghast.
Fr 😭
Tbh it triggered my ptsd
Had to skip.
I don't think our natural hair hates us. But we hate our natural hair and out hair responds to that hate.
Unpopular opinion: if your child can't take braids (which is most kids), I feel like the parents should stick to styles that are simple and will allow them to detangle and style the hair while damp. 3-strand twists, flat twists, larger single braids, etc. It might have to be redone more often though, which is likely a huge reason they put their kids through these torturous styles.
Exactly. There are so many kid friendly hairstyles that don't require all this stress to the scalp since many raiders can't braid without pain. But many parents just don't want to have to deal with the kids' hair at all.
My mom didn’t believe my braider was braiding too tight till my hairline started going back 😑 they’d just laugh. My kids will never. I do my hair and it never hurts so it won’t hurt them either
Water. Water. Water.
This is really all you need for low porosity 4c hair. Because contrary to popular belief, our hair needs to be saturated with water daily.
I know my hair likes water every day...However....I live in London.....the tap water is terrible and filters are expensive to constantly replace... So I use a leave in mist instead. That's enough for my hair and a bit of leave-in cream conditioner about the size of an American 25 cent/British 50 pence coin for every 5 inches of hair. Most people are concerned with the water ruining their style...I'm like I have an afro...it's supposed to be frizzy and undefined...our ancestors had no edge control or silicone gel for 4000 years and more. Lol!
What about high porosity
@@littleleah310 I have high porosity hair. I mist it daily with a leave in. sometimes twice daily.
I think her mean high porosity, bc most black people have it@@littleleah310
Actual 4c head of hair here :) naturally I’ve accepted my hair will never be as long and big unless I use heat or stretching products. Shrinkage is naturally beautiful learn to enjoy mini 4c afros on women.
"All they have is a rat tail comb, grease and rage in their hearts." laadd yes!
😅
Like anyone in their right mind, hearing the screams of children or watching them be in pain is highly triggering. I do kids hair often and we do have tears from time to time if the detangling gets too rough but I will immediately adjust. Add more conditioner/water or change the detangling tool.
Pain in the black community is glorified, a lot of parents want to see their kids suffer. They think it’s funny. They also have no problems relaxing/ripping out their child’s hair. Why should it be longer than theirs? The abu*e is crazy.
You're right. We glorify pain.
The thing that traumatised me the most is when my dad cut my hair because it was "too long" and "male gaze"!!! I will never forgive him for that. Never.
Your dad's logic is extremely problematic. It also makes me think of how the community seems to have an issue with black girls being pretty/beautiful; in particular, the black girls who have a more typical black phenotype. If you look nice as a little black girl and you're feeling yourself, the older women will hit you with the "OH, SO YOU THINK YOU CUTE??" to bully you. It's also common for adults to attack a black girls beauty under any punishable circumstance (cutting her hair for getting bad grades, attacking her hygiene habits after catching her talking to boys, etc.) I really want to see someone dive into this theory because I don't understand what it's all about SMH. Your dad was wrong for that.
@@doll.ov.poetrii4682something I noticed is that they don't like black women or girls to have extremely high self-esteem but they also hate when we have extremely low self-esteem too. If you say self-deprecating things about yourself they will be very mad. That was my experience. I never had high self-esteem and I still don't but now I know better than to express that because I know people don't like that kind of talk but back then the way people hated me for hating myself was crazy.
Omg that's awful. I'm so sorry. This just stems from misogyny.
@@LethalLemonLime girl, you gotta start taking back your power and thinking nothing but highly of yourself. They fear a confident black woman more than anything. And that's not your problem.
I’m sorry you went through that. I hope you have healed from that type of trauma. You deserved to feel as beautiful as you are.
I hate the my 4c hair could never comments as well..
Agreed!
Fr like, who asked?! ...
@@littleleah310literally, and it would be a video of some doing a simple hairstyle and theyd be like “me with 4c hair” “my 4c hair could never”
@@Butterfly-yk9bwikr like bruh i didn't ask for your opinion 💀
I saw someone say this under a photo of braids… like damn even braids!?
I'm a hair dresser and people do say "my hand is not painful" cos they experiment little to no pain while i braid their hair.
Some customers on the other hand would keep asking me if the hair is tight and neat during the braiding process, almost like they don't trust that a hair that's not painful will be tight and neat. And i think this is a result of traumas we've been through in the hands of a lot of hair dressers that can even braid your scalp just to get that extra hold.
Fd
This. Pain = good job for most people, and that's why many of us start getting traction alopecia and stunted hair growth. I really love a hairdresser that doesn't seem like she's mistaking my hair for a chainsaw. 🙏
These clips were very hard to watch as it took me back to my childhood. I am so over the gaslighting tactics, insensitivity, laughs, & lies about people with 4b/4c hair not being in pain. Thank you sis for this video. It is very much needed, & I hope it goes viral because many black people need to hear this message.
😞😞😞😞
I do my own hair and somehow don't give myself a headache. My sister gives me a headache when she braids so I think I'm only going to let her do two-strand twists or locs on me. Lol! Oh yeah when I went to the Puerto Ricans and the white stylists I didn't have a headache and the relaxer didn't burn....... It's always the ones closest to us who hurt us the most. 😩 My current stylist is Polynesian and he's so gentle even with a styling small tooth comb and a round brush when heat straightening my hair for a trim.
@@marleyhill34 I’m sorry you had to go through that, but I’m glad you found someone who is gentle. You’re so right about it being our own.
@@marleyhill34 I'm so sorry. You're right. There's this white stylists who went viral one time for doing black people's hair. Some people had a problem with her touching black people's hair. But she was literally so gentle with black hair. and didn't have those weird "no 4c allowed" rules I see on the modern day hair stylists. She really did her assignment. Just find where you're treated well and stick to that. ❤️
Agreed! I didn't even realize this was a thing. Why in the world would an adult want to do that to a child. Or anyone of any age for that matter. We are dealing with some truly sick individuals.
"we grew up hating our natural hair, and it hating us in return" beautifully said ❤️
All that 'Beauty is pain' nonsense just led to them being bald with no hair.
ANYONE CAN GROW LONG HEALTHY HAIR NO MATTER YOUR RACE AND ETHNICITY JUST AS LONG AS YOU TAKE CARE OF IT!!!
Exactly!
Some whites with FINE hair, can't grow long hair.
EVEN 4C can grow long hair..if it's not too fine
Some children or adults have Sensory processing sensitivity or Sensory processing disorder. Some children are ADHD and some are Autistic. Dismissing a child or adult’s pain as them Dramatic is inconsiderate insensitive apathetic and dismissive.
True. I have ADHD and have always felt things more deeply in just about every way imaginable. This comment makes me feel so seen, Thank you for acknowledging the nurodivergent people and our personal struggles!☺️❤️
Recording someone in pain and posting online is just wild.
I'm mexican-guatemalan with 3b hair, and i am always shocked when I find out ppl with curlier hair then me brush/comb starting from the ROOTS to the ends. That is utter blasphemy. In highschool I tried to explain this to my friend, she was african american and she refuted me saying "theres more control when you start from the top" and I'm like...."no u make new knotts when you do that, thats why you detangle from the bottom first" But to be fair, as a curly girl in a mexican family I had to learn on my own, no one else could help me bcuz no one else had my hair. So logically I went on youtube. Not everyone does that.
Hairstylists sometimes are the enemies of progress tbh
We need your hair routine and hair growth tips btw.
I'm working on it! ❤️
Yes, i had a styist who would try to get me to put chemicals in my hair or try one of her expensive products. You're so right, though.
Blk ppl are actually the most discriminatory against our hair. Its wild and ashame
I saw a video from one of the natural girlies I watch saying that her hairdresser told her that the reason she has this long hair is because she doesn't comb her hair well and if she helps her comb it, it will cut and reduce.
What???
I saw a video from one of the natural girlies I watch. She said she went to a hairdresser and the hairdresser told her that the only reason her hair is long is because she doesn't comb it well and if she( the hairdresser) helps her comb it, it will cut and reduce.
What???
So much natural hair care need to be taught to our people. I never comb through my children hair this rough smh
Right, and they wonder why it won’t grow when they’re breaking it off while combing it or cutting their kids’ hair off when they get in trouble
My inner child and myself wanted to cry watching those clips..
Videos like that break my heart. I can't imagine seeing a child in that much distress and deciding to make a intricate braid for...some clicks? Hair is a lot more manegeable when you are not fighting and abusing it.
Intricate braids for kids is just unnecessary. They don't even have the same pain threshold as adults. And many adults still cry making those styles. I think even for adults the intricate braids shouldn't be done back to back to avoid hair damage.
Right? Just give that baby some loose twists. A style ain't worth the pain😓
Same😞😞💔
@@actuallyjuliee I've seen people advocate for braids as a protective style (I can't really speak on that as i don't use it) and I don't really care what adults choose to do with their own head. But to me, doing this and perms to a child is abuse. They don't even have choice to refuse all that 😮💨 and to have your image on the internet forever...the health issues..
Those videos of the little girls crying hurt me and brought back memories. I remember I stopped crying or making any noises in pain and learned to just sit through it. Hair dressers would compliment me and say to my Mum "wow she doesn't cry", and ask me if it hurts, I'd just say no even though it still hurt. My younger sister would still cry, but she eventually stopped as well. I remember feeling proud of myself for not crying or squirming in pain. I now realize that was not the compliment they thought it was. Of course, a child would cry and try to get away from the pain. I always love getting braids but dread the pain.
I'm glad that my mum was not always ripping our hair out and gripping too tight. People and hairdressers would and still compliment me and my sister on how long and healthy our hair was, i always found it weird cause i just assumed every other black girl's hair was growing and healthy.
There's a hairdresser that I dreaded going to cause she would rip my new growth out when blowdrying it before braiding. I felt like crying every time cause i could feel the hair being ripped out of my head.
I still struggle with maintenance, but I'm learning and am so grateful that my family embraced our hair and didn't relax it against our will.
I will admit i love getting my hair straightened, but i also love having my hair natural and free. I want to help other women and girls learn how to love and take care of their hair.
My father is a first gen Nigerian-American and my mother is African-American. They had already decided before I was born that they'd never perm my hair. I grew up hearing a lot of horror stories from my friends that they'd get their hair permed incredibly young, and were still recovering from it in high-school at the time. I couldn't understand why someone would want to do that to their child.
The way self hate is talked about so casually sometimes makes me cringe, but it does make me happy that we're slowly healing one step at a time. I hope the next generation of black girls can grow up actually enjoying being a child instead of spending hours in salon chairs. Childhood is fragile.
Childhood is indeed very fragile.
More black people that think we cant grow long hair, still use the word nappy, good hair , bad hair need to see this.
True! I had a BW tell me I had "good hair" at an outing I attended recently and that I don't NEED weaves. I instantly educated her (politely of course) and told her that good hair is HEALTHY HAIR and actually, no one NEEDS weaves. I asked her "what does good hair mean to you, and what makes my hair "Good"?". We had an interesting conversation and I shifted her perception. I never say thank you when people tell me this because I know what's ACTUALLY being said; and it's not a compliment to elevate certain afro textures over others in the name of European beauty standards.
"DREADlocks"
@@littleleah310 That one too. There sure is nothing dreadful about locs at all. ❤️
Whites also used terms like baby fine hair, which have no body (bad hair)
I'm black, and had very thick hair between 3b-4a
When I relaxed it, they wished for thick hair
@@doll.ov.poetrii4682thank you so much for educating her ignorance.
Childhood: 🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️
Being called ‘tender-headed’ meant nothing other than an inconvenience to the person doing my hair.
Teenage hood: 🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️
These are the years where I bought into the ‘pain is the price for beauty’ lie. I lost a lot of hair trying to keep it straight. Anything else was called ‘nappy.’
Adulthood: 🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️
I don’t play that anymore. I treat my kinks like gold and wear it big 90% of the time. I went to get my hair dyed a few months back and someone tried to blow dry my dry hair in its natural state to straighten it for dying. I said ‘no ma’am, please hand me a water bottle and the blow dryer.’ I took 30 min doing it myself. NO ONE will care for you like you, ladies. Speak up - their happiness is not your responsibility, but your health IS your responsibility.
Loved the video Julie! This was really good!!❤❤❤
its no wonder people growing up thinking their hair is painful. when i was in secondary school, girls would boast about how their broke combs, therefore they had to relax it. keep posting!! dont ever stop, even if its a different commentary lol
Yes. I never enjoyed my hairstyles till about four days later when the pain became bearable. Then I started dreading when I had to make a new one.
For starters they be using the wrong comb! My goody Afro comb lasted nearly 20 damn years. I only threw it away because the coating was coming off and I didn't want my ultra-fine hair snagging on it.
I had very long hair as a child but at some point in your education in Ghana depending on your school, you’d have to cut your hair so now that I can finally grow it out I’m still trying to get a hang of it. I think that in itself is a problem which stems from colonialism and causes a lot of us to be inexperienced about our hair.
I hope your journey with hair growth is smoother and you get it right. ❤️
I'm sad that African countries expect people to cut their hair..I swear that's straight out of a "colonizers and conquerors" textbook. Even in Native American tribal battles, the prize was to take the hair and scalp of your enemy after victory. In the Caribbean, we stopped cutting hair with the end of slavery and colonization. In the 80s and 90s people struggled to accept dreadlocks but after 2000 it became acceptable.
yea my mom is from ghana and i always tell her that cutting the hair in school isn’t about convenience. back in the day the Akan hairstyles reflected your stayus in your tribe, your marital status, possibly your family occupation, the tribe you are from, etc etc. the colonizers cut it to distance us from our culture. and in the britush schools, it was more than just teaching academics. that is where they taught colonial mentality and started demonizing our culture to us, which included our hair
@@veronicahaney6005 I love this. At one point I will do the ancestry DNA to find out what is my predominant African tribe as a Caribbean person. Then I can confidently travel to and indulge in the hair and culture of my ancestors. I've been to Nigeria and was welcomed very well by my friend's father who was a tribal chief. I wanted to cry when he said welcome to your ancestral home. That meant so much.
my children will never have this experience. i will be gentle and make it a pleasant experience and ritual for them like our ancestors did.
One thing I'm really proud of as a mother is not making my daughter cry while washing and styling her hair. We play music and sing along to songs while I wash/detangle her hair. She loves her natural hair. I always tell her tight hair is never a good thing. Only two other people have touched her hair (my husband/ her father) he tried to wash and style her hair when I had terrible morning sickness while pregnant- it didn't go so well lol. The second person was a hair braider (big mistake). My daughter was 6yo when she got cornrows done for vacation, and even though the hair didn't look tight the first couple of days... my daughter's hair broke off at the sides and back a little bit. She's 8yo and wants all the other styles her friends have, but I try to educate her on hair health. The styles her little friends have are tight and with extensions, so I tell her its not worth damaging her long hair. Its really tough, but I hope one day she understands.
Aw. That's so sweet. I don't think she will damage her hair if she gets those styles she wants once in a while. As long as the braider isn't heavy handed and she doesn't do it every other week, she should be fine. ❤️
My answers to the questions,
Childhood: ❌❌❌❌❌❌✅❌
Teenage hood: ❌❌✅❌❌❌❌
Adulthood: ❌❌❌❌❌✅✅✅❌❌❌
I’ve been growing my natural hair since 2016. It’s long now and I style it myself. I have 4b/4c curl pattern and my hair is healthy. Thank you for this video! One day I might make a video of me styling my hair! Love yourselves black women! #BlackWomenDeserveTheBest 💖💖💖
That's so beautiful. I think that's around the time I started growing our my hair again too. Would love to see a video of you styling it too.
Omg!!!!!!!!!!!!! Warm water and cream goes a long way!!! This is ridiculous!!! I can’t finish this!
I hope that black women and girls will see the beauty in our hair🥺🥹🙏🏾🖤
NATURAL HAIR TIPS
🦋AFRO/KINKY/COILY HAIR🦋
Always detangle your hair before you was it get it good prepoo section hair into 4 parts apply prepoo and wash it out!
Use shampoo! I know we all heard dirty hair grows faster but thats a LIE!! Use shampoo our hair needs water! Our scalp needs to be clean.
Never detangle on dry hair, always start on damp hair, and get you moisturizer and start detangling from ends to root,(or you can finger detangle), be gentle with detangling your hair.
Get a silk bonnet to sleep in and use silk scrunchies regular hair ties rip out your hair.
If you use rubber bands dip them in oil before you put them in your hair.
Low manipulative hairstyles! Mini twist mini braids! Probably more but these are ones i love
First always moisturize your your and then and your hair oil, if you just put oil in your hair you are just sealing in dryness.
Always keep your hair MOISTURIZED our hair is prone to breakage and dry hair no moisture = breakage!!
THATS IT FOR NOWW🤍🤍🦋
I never heard 'dirty hair grows faster'...like what in the world? My mother and father have 4 daughters...she washed, braided and occasionally hot combed our hair for church. Now THAT effs with a little black girl subconsciously because everyone fussed over your straightened hair telling you how pretty you look, but not your natural hair.
I was one of those crying children back in the 70's. Hot comb on the stove. Locked my hair in 2000 after years of relaxing. damage, chemical burns and nowhere near the length or health I wanted. I have been so happy with my hair. It should not need to be painful or traumatic. It is sad that it still is for many after years of better products and education.
Sorry about that experience. I hope we make it better for the new generation. We can't continue this same cycle.
@@actuallyjuliee It has to get better.
I’m fortunate to have adults in my life take my feelings into consideration. When I complained about pain they’d immediately fix
I used to literally cry from having my mom untangle my hair. And yes, the combs broke every damn time😢
Hugs...I noped out of breaking my combs pretty quick. then mom put in a kiddie perm and then a curly perm. I decided to do my own hair. Failed with my first relaxer and when to natural at 15. Then I learned how not to break my combs with my hair. Lol! mainly by detangling with an afro comb!! I still was breaking my hair but at least I was no longer in pain and buying combs every week. Lol! So I had natural hair in the 90s. a stylist who didn't know any better told me I had to relax it for my graduation and at 18 I trusted my hair and had it relaxed with glued-in weave....omg. Lol! She could have given me a closure instead of relaxing my leave out!! I never liked my hair straight and I never really liked bone-straight wigs and weaves. It always had to have a curl or a wave or a kink to it. I hope you are healing from that hair trauma. I am and I've been natural for over 10 years now....no immediate plans to go back to non-kinky hair.
Unlearning the hair hate. To me, the Afro looks like a natural crown gifted to us by the gods.
I hated the process of relaxers as a kid. I remember how before ever getting a relaxer I was only allowed to touch my hair in order to take it down for wash day. I would stand in the mirror, examine it and fluff it and I recall liking it just as it was. My mom made it seem like my hair was so unmanageable without a relaxer and it even broke off when I was around 11/12 years old.
I got the blame for it breaking off even though I wasn't allowed to touch my hair and ridicule from peers as well. At this point, my mother expected me to just magically know how to do my hair because she said she knew how to do hers when she was my age. None of the advice I was given really helped either.
Fast forward to 18 and it started growing on its own a little. I went natural when I was about 24/25 and it really started growing. I was inspired by the tips I came across on TH-cam from women with my hair type and it turned out well. The crazy part was that my mom tried to take credit for my hair growing as fast as it did in that time frame and had remarked that I "finally started listening" to her...
Childhood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️
Teenagehood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️
Adulthood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️
I vividly remember feeling so itchy when the relaxer was in but I wasn't allowed to scratch 😭😂 Then when I'd sneakily scratch I'd have bits of my scalp under my nail beds. Used to hurt like crazy. Omg 😭😭 Thought I repressed that memory.
@@actuallyjuliee Omg, the itchy/burning feeling was the worst part of the process! 🥲
My mother had no interest and patience with hair. Lol! She still doesn't at 73. She keep hers mostly wrapped. Lol!..even at the beach! Lol! Meanwhile I'm sticking my head under the water and not worrying about my style. My hair was developed in the African Savannah and forest next to the mighty rivers. I know the ancestors must have had a daily swim!
My hair broke off around the same age and I got all the blame, as a child!!! After that and ridicule from peers, once I was old enough to work, I made sure to get my hair done professionally, meaning perms, until university, because there were no black hair stylist nearby (I’m from the US, went to a PWI) so of course my hair went back to breaking. Now I’m 100% natural and my hair has never been happier, honestly and feel so much freedom with my natural hair.
Im going into 2024 weening off of high manipulation braids. We really gotta be fr with the protective style excuse at some point. Thank you for this video essay ♡
I have been likened to an old lady for having short natural hair 🤦♀️ yet when you talk about this topic some women get uncomfortable and think you are picking on black women but it is a problem that exists and needs to be addressed.
That's interesting to me. I've always felt like natural hair makes us look more youthful and fresh. Most weaves I see, especially the straight ones or the ones with very loose waves age black women's faces. It's just my own observation though.
I experienced this too when my hair was in its shorter stage. Or they ask if it's for religious purposes. 💀
well when I shave my hair into a Fro-hawk a Jamaican man asked me if I was a lesbian. Lol! 😅😅 I cannot with society. Lol!
@@marleyhill34 a guy asked me that when I cut my hair as well. So weird.
@@doll.ov.poetrii4682 not that it made me look older but shorter natural hair is classified as an older woman’s hair style to this person 😂
Honestly, I used to hate our hair as a child but now I choose our hair every time. It's a learning process no matter how old or how experienced but that's what I love about it. Without it I would never get to experience the 'hair styling trains' generations of women in my family would do as well as styling eachothers hair, learning new tips and cry-laughing with frustration but at least we're crying together 😂Even my brother has started his own natural hair journey and it's sort of like bonding when I help him loose his hair. Maybe I'm just a bit whimsical but at the end of the day, we've been taught to hate our hair (by both black and white communities) but unlearning that starts with you.
I get the most compliments on my hair in London from white people. I don't always were wigs and weaves and when I do it actually matches my natural texture which amazes both the black and white people. I grew up in a black-majority country in the Caribbean which I'm so grateful for because we accept all hair types. I had a teacher at secondary school who rocked a bald head and all the boys were attracted to her even though she had no hair. Lol! I had to go to a party recently where the theme was Goddess and I wanted to go as an African Goddess so I looked at traditional tribal African hairstyles and styled my 4c hair and 4c clip-ins to suit and because it was so unusual, I got compliments from black and none black people. I wanted to pay tribute to the ancestors before the colonizers came.
Everything you said. 😁❤️
Childhood: ✔️✔️❌✔️✔️✔️❌✔️
Teenagehood: ❌✔️❌✔️❌✔️✔️
Can’t answer for adulthood since I’m in that limbo between teenhood and adulthood, but I’ve started to grow out my natural hair and while I do still wear wigs, it’s because I’m using them as a protective style not because I hate my natural hair. Actually, I will sometimes walk around my dormitory with my natural hair out, which is something I couldn’t do last year within my own home
Same here. I started loving my hair more in college bc my family would clown me for being the only one who wore their natural hair
Saw my picture in your video😊. It's funny how some people till this day find it hard to believe a black woman can grow long hair. You'll post on tiktok/IG and a stranger will call you a liar or that you're wearing extensions.
Aw. 😍 Timestamp?
2:58 thefrotales
As a child my mom was gentle with me and my sisters hair. We got burned by that comb and that grease. JESUS CHRIST THE PAIN, then the burn. My five yr old doesn’t scream but will move. I make sure I’m gentle and apply water and a cream to make it easier. We never had weaves put in our hair, and didn’t get relaxed until I was 11, first and last.then my next one was age16 off and on until twenties. I didn’t relax often it would be months in between and a waste of money. Mostly natural throughout. Now thinning edges from tight braids. My hair is fine , low porosity and I’m on a journey to grow it back to waist length. I’m currently bra strap and natural and growing my daughter natural hair. I’m not a braided but I try. I do not add hair to her natural hair. I only let one person braid her hair occasionally and she’s gentle and have three daughters. I would never let someone braid her hair and they being ruff and she’s crying. That person would have a bad day.
Who else is excited to be a mom so you can clap back at these hair stylists. I am ready to fight
Girl, me. 😂 Just so I can give their hair all the love it deserves. And you don't even have to be a mom for that. My nieces or little girls in my family will always have their hairs pampered if I lay my hands on it. 😂
@@actuallyjuliee they are super lucky to have an auntie like you! ❤️
I always ask stylists, can you please not add soooo much hair? Thats what harms my hair, when the added hair is so heavy at the roots. I don’t get why braider feel like it needs so much added on.
I know what you mean. They will literally try to install a jumbo braid on 9 strands of hair; it's too heavy! This happened to me a few years back and the braid ended up falling out... with my real hair in it! 😭 Ever since then, I've learned to box braid and my hair has been thriving since.
Braiders suck. I can’t stand them.
Since I learned to braid my hair (both crochet and traditional braids) I save so much money and I am gentle with my hair the way stylists never have been in my life.
I was one of those children back in the day and I’m still tender headed today old as I am it’s so sad hearing them babies cry
I went through the same as child my mom gave me permanent hair around my edges I told myself once I became a adult no one is touching my hair but me I braided my own for many years without pain I have small size locs for 4 years now best decision for my 4c texture ladies if you want to see your thrive the most lock it up
This was one reason i use to hate my hair. And always wanted it straightened and caucasian like because they. Dont. Suffer. 😂 but now my hair is easy.
I know a lot of us lack knowledge about our hair and some of us just have a lot of internalized racism so we resent it, but a lot of African people with coiled hair act so stupid over taking care of our hair. If something is dry the only thing that will hydrate it is water, the only time you should be combing through your hair is when it’s damp and lubricated with conditioner. Water relaxes the kinks in our hair so it’s easier to detangle and oil/conditioner locks in that hydration from the water. If it hurts it means you’re ripping hair out due to the hair being dry and breaking from lack of hydration and moisture, this is why it can be hard to retain length.
Agreed! It's so frustrating that we would rather blame our hair texture instead of just admitting that we don't know what we're doing; but then again, that takes self reflection, self awareness, accountability, and humility. Those virtues are lacking in these spaces when we're trying to have honest conversations about black women and the self hate we harbor as a collective over our afro textured hair. To make matters worse, this information/education is easier to access than ever before and it's still not researched by many who are struggling with their natural hair.
@@doll.ov.poetrii4682 I tell people that my hair is made for the hot savannah next to a river like my ancient ancestors from 4000 millennia ago. My hair likes warm and hot weather and daily moisture. It likes being put in a twisted or braided style....that I can still go swimming with so that rules out anything that can't be wet daily like a wig or a weave. Lol! Our ancestors were busy doing everything by hand and hunting and gathering...they didn't have 8 hours to do hair every day! Look at how the Himba, Mbalantu, Hamar, Mwila and the pre-colonial Zulu and Fulani tribes do their hair!
@@marleyhill34 Wow, you're right! Your comment is beautiful. Afro hair is a biological advancement to protect our scalps. My hair never grew more in my life than when I was in basic training in the Oklahoma sun and marching in the rain. I think of our hair the same as vegetation; specifically flowers since it loves sun, water, and grows up to the sky. You're right about the precolonial African tribes. My father is Ghanaian and Ashanti, I'm always studying ancient motherland tribes and how they styled their hair and It's amazing!❤️
Asante have many cool traditional hairstyles. I’m Asante and Fante.
My hair Matt’s up when wet. I found that my hair detangles better when I use olive oil. So, maybe some of you can try that to see if that works better because not everyone has the same hair journey so it’s nice to learn new things that may help along the way.
I have long thick 4a natural hair and I dealt with a lot of bad stylists in the past. They will make comments about my hair being too long, too thick, and blamed me because it took them a long time to do my hair. They would often overcharge me as well. They would also cut a lot more than what I asked for off. I also had a really bad experience with a stylist earlier this year where she not only talked bad about about my hair being too long and thick, she braided my hair too tight to the point that I was in pain and couldn’t even sleep at night. I was getting faux locs but she put my real hair in cornrows before attaching the faux locs to my hair. I took the style down and some of my hair came out. It wasn’t a lot but I literally cried when I saw that some of my hair came out after a DAY of wearing faux locs. Fortunately I started going to my sister in law to do my faux locs, twists, and braids. I wash, detangle, and trim my own hair now. I can do plaits which is what I do to my hair after I wash it but I can’t do other braid hair styles so that’s why I go to my sister in law. I also came across strangers and ex friends who would ask me if my hair was real or if it was a wig. I have also been denied jobs in the past for wearing my natural hair. I wasn’t natural all of my life though. My mom relaxed my hair at the age of 4. My hair was relaxed until the age of 17 when I decided to cut my hair off to go natural. I remember being taught that straight hair was good and afro textured hair was bad and you needed straight hair if you wanted to get a job. When I first did my big chop, I got nothing but nasty comments of people comparing me to Side Show Bob and calling me “ bald headed “. I was literally bullied when my hair was a TWA and I use to get a lot of stares and people would laugh at me with their friends. That motivated me to grow my long hair. I still get stares now after I grew my hair long and often times I’m the only one rocking my natural hair when I walk into a room.
This needs to go viral! Very important video sis!
Older black women think pain= good when it comes to hair
Also relationships, but that’s another topic for another day
@@likemycommentifyouwantareply😭😭
Also….sometimes these kids don’t like their hair being touched at all causing a lot of these reactions. I know because I used to be one of those kids. It wasn’t that it was painful I just didn’t want my mom doing my hair. And then we she switched me to my sister & aunt doing my hair & it was night & day-i would literally fall asleep in the chair. Parents also need to realize that if they start out doing their kids hair very rough & heavy-handed they will NEVER trust you in their head, even if you eventually learn how to properly handle & detangle their hair.
Like I always say this and it's not even just the conditioning through being enslaved like to take on a new identity and not be able to take care of our hair traditionally, but also westernized culture tends to have a lot of chemicals in everything... So it's like we put chemicals on our hair we eat processed foods or foods that are like high in sodium, the air and the water is like slightly contaminated... So yeah it's like a lifestyle thing... It's because of the shallow nature and like obsession with cosmetics. Because when you think about it usually our hair is pretty long until we get around Middle School age and then we feel like oh we need to put a relaxer on it or start pressing it out or wear wigs and that's when it starts suffering the most. But usually before that our hair is pretty long like at least shoulder and collarbone length
I remember one time my mom took me to an African Hair Braiding shop to get Senegalese twists. It was my second time being taken to the same place; the first time I had relaxed hair. They gripped tight, but it wasn’t excruciating. The second time I went was after I went natural. The way they yanked through my hair with a comb and a blow dryer is something I’ll never forget. I was young so I didn’t say anything about it, but I was so upset inside because I had been working so hard on my natural hair journey and I KNEW they were destroying my hair. Then the braiding came, and omfg. They were gripping my scalp SO. DAMN. TIGHT. I literally couldn’t help but start crying. I just sat in the chair and cried as they braid. The owner of the shop saw me crying and literally started scolding me for it; yelling, asking me how old I was (12) and saying I was too old to be crying and that I needed to stop. I never set foot in a braiding shop after that, and anytime I wanted braids afterwards I just did my own. I never got too great at them, but they lasted well enough. Nowadays I just wear my natural hair in different styles, still haven’t been to an actual hairstylist in years.
Very interesting subject! Watching the video makes me so grateful for my mum. I do not remember a time in my life where I did not like my hair.
We are 3 girls and she managed to do our hair regularly (and cut my dad's hair).She has always been super gentle. I remember that an aunty once told my mum to relax my 2 year old sister's hair. To this day I'm still shocked. Of course my mum did not do it.
But since my sister hated to have her hair touched, my mum simply cut it until my sister asked when she was 4 or 5 to have braids with her own hair.
I have been natural all my life except for only 1 year when I was 18 (my mum and the stylist were against it and the stylist refused to make me pay since she believed it was a huge mistake).
I think the fact that my mum also has dense thick hair played a huge role in why she has always been so patient and gentle.
Sorry for any mistake. English is not my first language.
Keep up the good work
That's really nice that your first experience with your hair was pleasant. Big ups to mom. 😊 Your English is fantastic.
Im a boy but my parents always had trouble combing my hair when i was little. Now me taking care of my hair now i only trust myself 😂. Learned my lesson for the last time after my mum did my braids extremely tight last year. Almost completely healed the large bald spot 🤸😌
Taking matters into your own hand literally. Love that for you. 👏
Me, myself? I tjink boys should have short hair
Fades should be the thing..
@@kathleenking47what you think doesn’t matter though does it
Disclaimer: I have a looser curl pattern (3c/4a) so my experiences are going to be a bit different. There are also a few answers where I wish there was a “sometimes” option.
Childhood
🙋🏾♀️❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️❌
Teenager
❌❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌❌🙋🏾♀️
Adulthood
❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌🙋🏾♀️❌❌❌🙋🏾♀️❌❌
I am so glad there are people talking about the normalization of painful hair styling for children. It’s NOT NORMAL even though it is sadly common. There were things that I had to find out by myself as my mother and I have 2 different hair textures, but my hair has thanked me over the past 3 years for how I treat it now. From shoulder length to waist-length hair I am never going back. I also want to make it a point with any children I have to avoid the mistakes of our predecessors.
Everything you said ❤️❤️
I got a bald fade fro-hawk this summer. My hair is short. It looks better and is healthier short. I live a busy lifestyle and don't have time to be styling my hair and a wig. I also swim. I actually refuse to be something I'm not for the sake of society's propriety. I'm neurodivergent and it never made sense to me. I want to exercise and not worry about my hair. I want to ride my bicycle, swim, watch documentaries and read my books and not spend all my day off in a damned salon! I mean I know people who love the salon but that's not me. Any man who thinks women with short hair are not worthy are not even worth my time. You can lose your hair from illness like alopecia, Covid or cancer. I actually have a slight form or alopecia due to susceptibility to stress and being a thalassemia carrier. No good genes or bad genes. I have a friend with relaxed hair. It's healthy and thick and she has all her edges. She took a college course to learn how to do hair although she is a qualified scientist. She relaxes her hair because she had a back injury and can't have her hands up for long periods needed to detangle and style natural hair. She just sweeps hair hair in a pony tail or bun or quick updo. She can't use a flat iron or curling iron also because of the time her hands have to be up. I give her no judgement for her relaxer because it literally causes her less pain than natural hair and I do not want her to be in pain at all for something such as hair!
Childhood
🙅♀🙅♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀. It's a trauma.
teenage-hood
🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙅♀🙅♀🙅♀🙅♀ This is when the rebellion started Lol! I'ma do what I want with my hair and everyone else just has to deal with it. Lol! I was a terrible teenager. Lol!
adulthood
🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙋♀🙋♀🙋♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀🙅♀🙋♀ It was a wild ride but I'm 42 with all my edges and hairline and no active bald spots. I have stress-induced and nutrient-deficiency alopecia. It's based on my genetics as a Thaleseemia carrier and being neurodivergent. The hair falls out or breaks at a weak point but it always grows back although it can be a little weak and thin. I just use bond builder and protein to strengthen the hair plus I'm aging so it's natural that my hair will thin and go grey. The greys are strong and stubborn. Lol! I've been natural since 2009. I have no immediate desire to go back to relaxer due to my sensitive scalp. Most relaxers are not made for sensitive scalp or ultra-fine hair. I might consider a keratin treatment or a texture release on pixie cut-length hair but for the moment I'm not really interested in that as I live in London and it's too cold to sport that style year round. I need to live somewhere warm for that very short style.
You rock! Really love/appreciate your take on this. Keratin treatments always drastically reduce hair loss. But I don't think it works the same for people with alopecia. Either way, I love that you're enjoying life regardless. You seem so cool. 😍
@@actuallyjuliee Thanks. I just want to be true to myself now instead of the 30 years I spent trying to get other people's approval in work, relationships and societal groups.
Childhood: 🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️
Teenagehood: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️
Adulthood: 🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️
This video was at the perfect time because I'm detangling my sons hair right now. I do all I can to prevent crying by letting him have treats, watch shows ( we are a screen free family except for hair time). I will only finger detangle, till all knots are out them gently comb and twist, to avoid crying I will often do this while he is asleep and position my body to fit his resting position not my own comfort. He is 3 and we've never cut his hair. It pretty thick and long to me. I can get away with only doing his hair a few times a year cuz he's a boy, I cannot imagine the pressure if I had a girl.
❤️❤️
I think fingers are the best tools for detangling. We also have to avoid thinking our hair needs to be detangled all the time. A lot of the hairstyles we do don't need detangling, we just need to put some conditioner in and fluff it out a lot of the time.
Keep boys hair SHORT👔😁
@kathleenking47 The men in my family have long hair. We just have cultural differences.
Black women hair can grow. I'm a black woman, and my hair grows every time I cut it
my hair grows pretty fast, actually. in the last two months, i think my hair grew about an inch and a half? before i had chemotherappy, i think i cut like a few inches off to get a shoulder length style. lol then it all fell out 😅
I hope, everything is going well with you & your health (& hair) continues to flourish.
I hope you regain it all back if that's what you want and I wish you good health! ❤️
Childhood
🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️ 🙅🏽♀️ 🙋🏽♀️
*To the question about growing up with permed hair... my mom did not want my hair permed. At all. My grandmother put one in my hair behind her back when I was like 3 or 4. She was furious ... my grandmother managed to get me a couple retouches before my mother outright threatened her. So grew out the perm.
It wasn't until until begged and pleased and then destroyed my hair trying to copy styles by using half a jar of black gel before my mom finally allowed me to get a texturizer and then years later a perm as a young teen.. and it was really against her desire and she cried multiple times about it.
So...I gave both responses to that question and that's why i have one more answer than everyone else. Actually besides my yes and no answer to the perm question my answers are exactly the same as yours! As I'm sure are most 😅
Wow. That's so interesting. Did your mom have natural hair too?
I was so blessed growing up my parents took good care of my hair but my mother moved when I was about seven and I started going to salons until I was 14 and my hair got so short and dry they weren’t too rough not that I can remember but my hair health was bad. I also found it hard to take care of because it wasn’t soft at all. When I lived with my mother again I went back natural and I loved it but my family members and other black people constantly spoke badly about my hair. I’m so grateful that I learned how to take care of it and that I love it today but I think we need to help each other out with compliments and knowledge because the hate is still so strong and I feel so sad for others 😢❤
I've noticed that it's black women with your exact hair type that have the worst things to say about your hair. It's crazy.
@@actuallyjuliee yup soo true
This video is extremely disturbing. I always knew little black girls suffered lots with their hair being done, but never saw it so explicitly. Even when I see girls with those locks I assume they are fake and didn’t involve pain, trauma and frankly sadism. It’s awful. There has to be a better way of dealing with this problem…and sorry I feel no sympathy for the adults (moms and grandmas etc) almost torturing their kids this way without any remorse. Wth?
I’m watching this but can only relate to a little of this because I don’t have 4c hair… I remember the pain from getting my hair done and pressed as a child and relaxing it in my preteens. But I didn’t have any real trauma about my hair because my hair was always long down my back and thick. I did recognize that most of my friends who were black had short hair. I didn’t understand how important hair was for a young girl’s self esteem and a woman’s self esteem until I had a daughter of my own with 4c hair. I stopped relaxing and did a big chop to help her embrace her natural beauty. I’m happy I did because she went from a 6 yr old who thought her hair was ugly to a confident 17 yr old who loves her natural hair. We both hate the maintenance of natural hair I must say, so we have locs 😅 to make maintenance easier. Loving your natural hair I think is important. We have to love ourselves before we can love others, that includes our husband and children.
That wig smell still makes us gag.
I literally soaked a wig in fabric softener for 24 hours and still smelled like corn chips and raw fish.
Quality content (sorry I couldn't participate in the poll, was listening while doing chores). Actively encouraging my girls about the beauty of their hair but realizing that telling them to tolerating pain, tight hairstyles counters that narrative.
I want you to make another show about which natural hair for the black woman is most comfortable. I'll go first the locks, no crying. Yes, beautiful.
I don’t remember having these issues growing up because I had got a relaxer when I was about seven or eight years old. I do remember sometimes my cousin and her mom would do my hair and I knew I hated it because they were super rough now as an adult I only let certain people do my hair because they’re not rough 😂
Childhood hair trauma …. 🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️
These videos are awakening my own trauma and headaches when seeing the tight hair
Sorry b 😭
@5:37 This. I've always found it odd how black people across the diaspora trauma bond over pain. It's sad to say the least.
i actually never wanted a relaxer as a kid and begged my mom to go natural at 12. All the women even children in my family had tore up,thin stiff relaxed hair. Two of my aunts had alopecia issues and still used the relaxers,wigs and weave. Even at 12 that was just strange to me. So i learned to care for my hair with the very little information we had on youtube. Funny because when i decided at 12 to go natural and told everyone i wanted to grow it long. My family members kept saying my hair wont grow long because no one in our family has long hair. Now at 25 i have long thick natural hair. I always thought straight loose waves that BW lust over is underwhelming hair. But i will say i have wished God made 4c hair easier to care for because i have very dense hair and its time consuming
Love that for you!
These women are so cruel and mean, you think they would be empathetic but they aren’t
12:12 smh, this one really made me mad, not even detangling her coily hair right, root to ends.. like do you just want your kids to suffer??? Part her hair first, use water moisturizer to detangle it, ends to root and you will be good wtf wrong with people.
I remember once where I hid in the family closet for 5 hours to avoid getting my hair braided. Once my sister found me my mom decided not to do my hair. Wash days and braiding days were never fun for me
That's heartbreaking! 😞
Thank you for this video. Makes me consider doing less complex styles for my future children and do something simple and cute. Putting so much stress on a scalp so early in life seems like it would degrees the health of their hair.
I remember crying so much as a kid getting my hair pulled, I ended up getting locks. It gave me a little more independents to style my hair as I pleased and I still had my natural hair. I combed them out at age 18. I’m 25 now and got the hang of things so far. I learned hair care from a lot of YT vids.
Hair is growing all the time.. just feels like a feed in to a negative rhetoric.. should say why you aren’t retaining length…
Ppl are so ignorant that today, even with me wearing my natural hair I’ll be asked if its “mine” in its twisted state not blow out, no perms. No straightening.
Im realizing that ppl just don’t pair authentic beauty and black women together.
Your last sentence is the TRUTH. I'm also asked "Is that all your hair?" quite often and I never answer. I just, look at them with a blank face and act like I didn't even hear what they just said 🤣🤣. Either that or I ask the question back to them instead of answering.
For childhood:🙅♀️🙅♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️.I’m still a teen so:🙋♀️🙅♀️🙋♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️. Thank you for this video😊. It was nice learning since my dad never allowed me to grow my hair from the age of one till I left secondary school. He said all his girl child will continue cutting their hair till they are out of secondary school. After secondary school I’ve had pretty bad experiences with hairstylist and what broke my last thread was when my mum took me to another stylist and I wanted medium sized cornrows but my mum told her to make the cornrows really little and the pain was terrible when the lady was done not to talk of my mum forcing me to relax my hair but that painful cornrow experience broke the camel’s back and I shaved off my hair totally and now I’m on the internet learning ways to care for my hair since I was never taught and the hairstylist I’ve been to found it hard to braid my hair when it’s not blow dried. Now that I’ve experienced tiny growth, I’m researching on how to care for my hair and also possibly learn how to braid it when it has grown to a certain extent. I’m sorry for the rant😅
All of the questions were a yes for me except for the hairdressers apologizing and the hating to do my hair as a child because im still a child (15) and when i was younger i never had to do my hair myself. I hated having to get my hair braided because it used to hurt so bad that i couldn't sleep for like 2 days after i get it done. I discovered natural hair on TH-cam at late 13 years old but it was difficult to get to these kinds of content because if you first type how to grow hair, you are exposed to the DIYs promising to grow your hair in unrealistic length in 2 weeks. It took time to find the right TH-camrs and learn all these concepts like moisture, breakage and how to detangle properly. I also learnt it is absolutely not normal for your scalp to hurt while manipulating it. Ive been in the natural game for two years and my hair is now lower mid back length and about 3 inches away from waist length. I took this to my family and they are now all inspired to start taking care of their natural hair too. I even preach this at school. We can grow our hair we just dont know how to care for it. Im privileged to be young and learn this early. Im happy not all people that look like me share these devastating ideas of natural hair is bad/ unprofessional or not the standard. I loved my hair short took care of it and it grew long.
Childhood: 🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️
Teenage hood: 🙅🏻♀️ 🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️
Adulthood: 🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️
🙋🏾♀️ I grew up getting perms. I remember the burning 🔥 and was told that's how you know it's working. I now have locs, and I haven't relaxed my hair in 15 years.
Childhood: 🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️na🙅🏽♀️(3 yes, 4 no, 1 non applicable)
Teen: na 🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️ na 🙅🏽♀️ (1 yes, 4 no, 1 non applicable)
Adult: 🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️🙅🏽♀️ (2 yes, 9 no)
I am a guy (yes thats me in my pfp). I wanted to participate as well because I thought it would be an interesting thing to see how my answers compared to your female participants.
My relationship with my hair has always been positive. I would say I didnt really give any thought to hair until I was 14. I always wanted long flowy hair, but that really was just a style choice. I was more or less forced to have short natural hair (or little to no hair) due to my parents "rules": girls (my sisters) can have long hair, but men's hair (and nails) should be short, neat, and clean. I hated that rule and wanted to grow my hair out since 14.
Furthermore, I have done tons with my hair over the years post 2014 : locs, big afro, s-curl, dye (honey blonde). I always loved my hair which is primarily 4b. I do truly feel that type 4 hair is really beautiful and versatile. Since I loved my hair, learned it, cultivated it, etc., it grew beautifully and after I cut my locs back in Sept. 2019 (at 19 years old), I grew my loose virgin natural hair until Feb. 2020 and made the decision to permanently straighten my hair.
The reason I did that is because I have always wanted straight hair in the back of my mind, I just forgot about that and just loved and grew my natural hair. Then one day I was like...wait I always wanted straight hair, so why not do it. I had never had it before so I made an appointment for Japanese Hair Straightening and have been having straight hair since then.
It was the best decision I made for my hair and I love it. It's long, silky straight, dark colored and looks unreal.
If you truly love your hair, it shows, and you can grow it regardless of if it's natural or not.
However, I am a man and was a young Black boy. I fully acknowledge that boys' attractiveness, value, or overall social status is not partially contingent upon having beautiful, long, luscious hair. That saved me from a lot of pressure, redicule, or even possible self hate or self loathing.
That's so interesting hearing the perspective of a guy and seeing how you answered your questions. Yes, the difference between how males are brought up to view their hair or physical appearance in general is so different from females. Thank you for sharing your story. Glad you're enjoying your hair.
@actuallyjuliee thanks for your response, and your hair is gorg btw!!
JULIE…. they not ready for this one chile!!! Those videos make me sick to my stomach, I’m happy to hear you analyze the phenomenon of laughing at our children’s pain.
Agreed! This makes me think of how often I would see adult black people laughing and watching a child be spanked very hard. I observed this as a small child and it disturbed me. They would also laugh at us children when we hurt ourselves in pretty much any physical or emotional way. When I had my first heartbreak, my mother joked about it to the whole family and I lost over 15 pounds from that depression. Why are we, as a collective, so prone to neglect pain? 😔
Keep going sis! I appreciate you for exposing this. ❤
Thank you so much for this video.
I remember when I went natural as a 14 year old because i was tired of relaxing, and my mother stopped taking me to community events with her out of shame. That left a big impression on me
12:20 this part abt naija is so true. I was shocked last year that the stylists could not handle my natural 4c. They made comments abt needing relaxer and gathered around touching my hair in shock. I had to wash and blow dry my own hair so they could make braids
These poor babies:(:( couldn’t even get past 30 seconds of this shit
Childhood: 🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️
Teenagehood: 🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️
Adulthood: 🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙋🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️🙅🏾♀️
The hate our negative hair stereotypes 🤬🤬😞💔
I was born, raised, and still live in Mississippi. I was raised in the 2000s and I’ve had ALOT of good experiences with my hair. I was natural from 0-6 with having my first perm at 6 years old. I used to want to looks like the girls on the perm boxes.
I was relaxed from 6-14 nearly 9 years and I went back to being natural before my 15th birthday. It’s been 12 years, 10 officially wearing an Afro or curls naturally and it’s been a ride. For both.
Like my cousin said, it doesn’t matter which way you go, it’s always a process. Growing up, I never compared my hair to little white girls or ethnic girls. Yes, I consciously knew that all girls of different races had different textures and that for black girls only way for us have long hair is if you just naturally had long hair or added extensions or tracks. For me it was just different options and knowing that we all different but possible that we can do just about anything to our hair.
I was never teased about my hair until I got to 7th grade. My mom always talked about trimming my hair or just keeping my hair short, which I hated. She always kept hers short but nice. My mom’s hair is the type to cut it one day and it grows back within 2 weeks. I used to/still am a little jealous. She never really liked long hair as she doesn’t like things touching neck. Me on the other hand, am a bit obsessed.
Looking back and now, my family is the type to have, in my words, “ancestral amnesia” or “lack of texture education”. While I myself along with my brother have the same hair texture: 4C (combined with our mothers 4a/4b texture and our fathers’ 4b/4c respectively), my familial ancestral line including relatives’ average texture is around 3a-4a. (KIM: My brother and I have different dads but the genetics are nearly similar) My mother’s mom and aunts (mom’s side) have a thin textured hair, ranging 2c-3b even when not permed. My mother’s father’s side is somewhere between 3b-4b. My father’s mother’s side is around the same and my father’s father’s side is around 3c-4c. Almost all of my aunts including great aunts, cousins, uncles, great uncles, and upward and outward all have looser textures with VERY FEW being close to mine and brother’s textures. Even my other siblings on my dad’s side ranges between 3b-4a. I didn’t notice this until a few years ago. A few sly remarks came from some relatives because, well, my hair was/is the thickest. 😢😅 It’s like, they understood it but didn’t. I used to hate it for sometime: wondering why my hair was different from everyone else’s, why my hair held so much heat, and why my hair took on so much humidity. Oh man, used to hurt my feelings, ALOT. Longing for perfect straight hair (not only because of other races of women but because of black women with long or shoulder length hair) Now, I know how to tame it and control, but sometimes I either put on a wig or just keep it twisted because I don’t want to be brothered with it. For months, I’ve been contemplating a perm cause, well, I miss my straight hair. Also, 10 years ago was when I started wearing an afro so I wanted to mark it as an anniversary. I even just recently bought a perm box. 2 actually. And I put only have of the product into my hair and, though it didn’t straighten it, it did loosen it a bit. It’s been 12 years, I completely forgot going back to natural will not be easy, as it’s been a long time. We’ll see how it goes…
Wow that's interesting. Do you have two different hair textures now with the new growth that has come in after using the perm?
I HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO SAY IT SOME BLACK PEOPLE JUST DONT KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR HAIR , LIKE WHY TF ARE YOU COMBING FROM ROOT TO END THATS WHY YO DAMN BABY CRYING IT HURTS!!! NO MOISTURE WATER CONDITIONER JUST COMBING ON DRY HAIR WITH OUT PARTING IT AND NOT USING THE RIGHT TOOLS, THATS WHY YOUR HAIR ISNT GROWING YOU RIPPING OUT ALL THE RETAINED LENGHT!!AND DONT KNOW HOW TO DETANGLE HAIR PROPERLY THERE IS NO MORE EXCUSES WE HAVE TH-cam TIKTOK AND MORE LIKE YOU CAN LOOK UP HOW TO TAKE CARE OF OUR HAIR STOP THE EXUSES YOU JUST DONT WANNA LEARN. I SAID WHAT I SAID.
Ending with alopacia..being pulled😢
I can’t watch this anymore It’s making me very angry😡