At age 7, I was in this mainly white Catholic school where we had something called ‘wacky hair day’.
That day, I woke up with my afro and decided to go to school like that. I don’t know what made me think at such a young age that my hair could be associated with something ‘wacky’, but I did.
Most importantly, teachers and classmates couldn’t stop asking how I made my hair look like that. They couldn’t get their heads around the fact that I literally woke up like this!
Today I can say that having such a versatile hair type is very nice, I can do whatever I want with it but unfortunately only realised it in my twenties. Since age 12, I was chemically straightening it.
Not knowing how to take care of it, I needed to find a way to do my hair myself, find a way that would make it more manageable.
The first time I decided to go out with my natural hair I just felt so self-conscious, with the impression that everyone was looking at me. I just wanted to run back home… Despite this memory, I didn’t go back to relaxers since.
Social media had a big impact on my decision to start the journey! We can’t help but notice all this energy around hashtags such as #naturalhair or #nappy, the emergence of a real natural hair community, this explosion of tips and tutorials taking over the internet! All of this encouraged me more than anything else. No doubt that seeing other girls out there experiencing the same thing as me made me feel supported and encouraged to keep going.