I’ve always been my hair’s biggest fan! It’s part of my identity, I am born with it and there is no reason whatsoever for me to be ashamed of it.
I’ve always considered myself different and my hair is just a tool I can use to play with this difference even more.
Paradoxically, this didn’t prevent me from being very conscious of it and people didn’t help as they were very good at reminding me of my difference. Hairdressers more particularly, who kept pointing out how beautiful my hair was… after a blow dry!
Accepting your curls can be hard, simply because you need to first understand how to take care of it.
If you don’t experiment, you won’t learn and you will never be able to accept your curly hair as it is, in its natural state.
Seeing curly hair in the media is still quite rare and more effort needs to be done for it to be ingrained in the collective mindset.
If we look on the other side of the Atlantic, we have figures such as Beyoncé, who in my opinion shares a positive message linked to blackness. However, figures like her could do a better job when it comes to clear curly representation.
So many people still stink that their hair is theirs and end up expecting to see the same hair on the heads of black women they cross path with on a day-to-day basis.