Disclaimer: WildChild is frustrated. No, it is not Izzy that has me frustrated. It’s people. People who think that certain beliefs go hand in hand with being natural, or think that wearing your hair natural is “going against the grain.” Or, people who lump all holy grails together for everyone. Or, people who don’t want to take the time to look up hair porosity and texture and figure out what kind of hair they have. So yes, WildChild is frustrated. Still love you though.

I’d like to think that I’m not a Natural Nazi, or Natural Bully, as I like to say to be a little more PC. I truly do not care what other people do to their hair, and often I am reluctant to tell someone what to use on their hair because I know that what may work for me may not work for another. I don’t “preach” to people about natural hair (shooooot, more products fo’ me), and I can’t stand it when women associate natural hair with self acceptance for EVERYONE (if that is their journey, cool).

At the same time, I often find myself giving the smirk n’ side eye to comments about my hair, or natural hair in general. Here are some examples:

“Oooh, if I had hair like yours I’d grow mine out too, you’re lucky.”

“When my hair grows I want it to look like yours, but I think mine is nappier.”

“You can’t ignore the fact that some hair textures are preferred over others.”

“How did you get your hair like that?” When I reply with, “Conditioner and gel,” I often get a “Oh excuse me miss” look or a look of disbelief.

“You’re not going to straighten your hair? Wow, good for you!”

“Well your hair isn’t really an afro…mine is just brittle; I can’t go natural, I need to be cute.”

“You can’t tell me what product to buy??? I thought you were the guru of natural hair!”

Ummm…for real? Funny thing is, you will not hear me making the “Natural Movement” argument to ANY of these people, or, in the case of the last statement, outlining a list of products. I refuse to argue with people about their hair. I don’t care if they think they need silky straight hair to be cute, or if one hair texture/type is preferred over another (maybe for them it is). But seriously, what are some of these people thinking? I need a pat on the back and a bravo because I wear my hair out the way it grows from my scalp? Are they serious? While I love my hair, one of the main reasons I went natural was to decrease the time I spent doing my hair (to me, deep treatments/henna treatments/etc don’t count because I can slap some stuff on my head and watch TV for a few hrs, or play video games, which is what I was probably going to do anyway). I am an adamant member of Team Wash n’ Go, and if I felt like I needed to do twists or braids all the time I might have ended up straightening my hair (With heat, I’m too addicted to not having a burnt up scalp anymore lol! But…probably not if I had to spend a lot of QT with my flat iron), who knows?! It’s just interesting to me that people say things like the above and find absolutely nothing wrong with these statements, which is why I say that no, going natural is NOT for everyone. If people are not going to do their own research to find out what works for them, or only think that people with a certain hair type/texture should go natural, maybe they should pick up the creamy crack. I sure as heck won’t miss them. What do you guys think?

And now…back to our regularly scheduled program…

xoxo

Hey y’all, my new article is up on The Coil Review. It’s called “The Enigma of Natural Hair.” Obviously, you guys know that I could have said much MUCH more, but we do have word limits!! 🙂 Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/yk67prn.

xoxo,
Elle