A few weeks ago, I wore my hair in a high bun that exposed my edges. As I sat in the computer lab at my school, I thought to myself, "my naps in the back must be rolling up right now. Can't have my hair lookin' all unkempt". I took out my brush, conveniently placed in my purse, and began to brush the back of my neck, making sure that they were as smooth as possible.
I'm still self conscious about my edges. There. I said it. I love my hair, but I feel like Angie (my hair) eats gel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Honestly, it is so annoying sometimes when I put gel on my hair the night before, tie it down real good, wake up with edges laid into submission, only for them to curl back up during the day, and ruin my sleek look! Last Christmas, I told my mom that I was going to texturize my edges because they just would not lay flat. She looked at me with a straight face, you know, the way only moms can do, and said something like this: "Girl don't be silly. Your hair don't lay flat because it was not meant to lay flat! Let it stand up! Be thankful that you have a nice, healthy head of thick beautiful hair." It was a bitter sweet moment. Bitter because I felt a tinge of guilt for allowing myself to drown in the "my edges must lay down" lake, and sweet because it was nice to hear someone, especially mother, reaffirm the beauty of my hair.
The reason I'm sharing this with my fellow naturals, whose edges give the side eye to gel and her whole family, is because I want you to know that you are not alone. I'm not going to lie and say that I wish my edges would not stay flat, but I'm not going to curse my hair either. I love my hair for the simple fact that it belongs to me. It's the same reason I love the dimple on my right thigh that I've had since I was a pre-teen. No matter how many 'fire hydrants' I do to target that area, the dimple is still going to be there the next morning. :) Just as I've come to the conclusion that that dimple will probably be on my thigh for a very long time, I've also accepted that my hair is going to be my hair for a very long time as well. I'm still on a journey to loving my hair completely despite the things that I may not like about it and I encourage other naturals to do the same.
You can find Brittany on her blog, Island Curls, “a blog dedicated to achieving and maintaining healthy hair.”
4 comments:
Great post!
I always feel like an oddball when it comes to slicking down or primping my edges because I really don't do it.
The most I will do (when I feel like it) is apply some water and a light oil (like grapessed) to them.
Thank you for reading my article! I'm still learning how to not obsess over my edges. For now its just shine n jam and ecostyler :)
Thanks so much for this post. I'm hispanic but for some reason I have very curly/coarse hair and I hate it because I can't just not do anything to it and it look fine like slick hair does. I did a texturizer to soften my curls a bit, and it's nice but I still have to always take care of it and I have a lot and long hair so if I leave it loose it just gets puffy =( Your post really made me feel a lot better about myself and glad to know that I'm not alone. I enjoyed my hair before the texturizer, but my mom would comb it, now that I live on my own, since it's so long and so much hair I had to do it in order to be able to deal with it on my own.
I prefer sleek edges also; however, I never use gel. I tame my edges with a tooth brush, water, a heavy natural sealant (such as pomade, butter, etc.), and a satin scarf. My edges lay down after a 15-min tie-down; but they look sleek after a 30-min (or more) tie-down.
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