Ten years with a shit afro

Yeah I have a shit fro. My hair is thin, there are lots of greys gathered around my pathetic hairline, it doesn’t really grow and there’s no worthy curl pattern to speak of. Twist outs?  Sometimes they work but the timing is crucial. Because my hair is thin if I twist it out straight from a wash it stretches too much with the resultant twist out being a sparse mess. These types of twist outs also do a great job of highlighting how ridiculously short my hairline is in comparison to the rest of my afro. I am getting closer to getting it right. It’s best to attempt a twist out when my hair is dry but moistened with a homemade spritz of essential oils, water and a dash of conditioner. I didn’t learn this technique from the blogs. And here in lies part of the problem.

“It doesn’t really grow and there’s no worthy curl pattern to speak of”

I shaved my chemically straightened hair in late 2009 after leaving London for a one-year internship in New York City. Prior to the move, I texturised (can we all admit this is a basically a slightly weaker relaxer?) every six weeks at a place off Bond Street. My hairdresser was actually a celebrity stylist whose clients included Kelis and Cassie. Capitalism is really great at making you think that material proximity to your aspirations will help you achieve them. But, as in the case of me and my celebrity hairdresser, you tend to end up unsatisfied with a difficult mortgage to keep up. Years of cornrows and teeny tiny braids meant my hairline was destroyed. I had to clip in a yaki fringe to make my expensive texturiser work. Every Friday night, in between my six week appointments, I spent three hours washing, conditioning and straightening my texturised hair and the clip in yaki fringe.

After moving to New York I could no longer afford a celebrity stylist and was having far too much fun to spend three hours doing my hair every Friday night. One day I walked into a Jersey City mall hair salon and asked a lovely Dominican woman to shave my hair off. It was great, best decision of my life. I just didn’t realise how dry natural non chemically treated afro hair could get.

I reached out to the natural hair blogs and found out about methods and products that can help with maintaining a fro. Moisture was key, I learned that I could lock that shit in with a spritz, a dollop of conditioner sealed in with oil – my current preference is the home made spritz described above, cantu leave in conditioner and shea butter. I mastered moisturising my afro, but what about those poppin Tracee Ellis-Ross curls? My hair was moisturised, but the curls didn’t abound.

Ah the twist out! If I just followed Curly Nikki’s instructions for a two strand twist, the next morning I would unravel and look like Corinne Bailey Rae! No. Ok I’ll try the three strand twist. Nope. It must be the products? Nah. Oh wait I’m a Black African woman with 4C hair and all these celebrities, models, bloggers and women on the packaging have 3C hair and more often than not are light skinned. In the end I realised I was never going to have a fro like Yaya. I simply did not have that type of afro and was seeking advice from woman who did not have hair like me.

“One day I walked into a Jersey City mall hair salon and asked a lovely Dominican womxn to shave my hair off. It was great, best decision of my life. ”

It was initially disappointing to realise no matter what I did, or what products I bought, my afro would never look the way I thought beautiful afros should look. But I also came to understand that I have a beautiful heritage that gives me a unique unruly African fro. There’s a larger issue here – colourism, representation, consumerism. Growing up in the 90s, the 2000s – in London no less – Blackness was not celebrated the way it is now. There was no Lupita, no Viola going natural on the Oscar red carpet with short, coily afros. There was Ashlee Banks and Lisa Turtle. I didn’t see the value in a short, coily fro because no one else did. But its ten years later and I’m actually really fucking proud of myself for embracing and loving my natural hair. Of course my afro isn’t actually shit, it’s stunning.

Something beautiful has happened lately. I can truly say I love my afro the way it is. A lot of this is to do with growth. Turning 30, just getting older and older and learning and learning has done me the world of good. I care for my afro without the frantic searching of my early natural hair journey. I do weekly deep conditions, oil my hairline (which is growing btw) and take the time to twist my hair before bed when the mood strikes. I don’t splurge on expensive products like I used to. I am lucky to source shea butter from my mother’s freezer and make my own spritz. I do go big on my deep conditioner – but I’ve got awesome short hair so my shea moisture raw shea butter deep treatment masque lasts me a while.

I love my non-existent 4C curl pattern. I love the intertwined curls. The mini dreads that form. I love not combing my hair. I love putting my hands in my afro and rummaging. I am also guilty of loving Black dudes softly announcing ‘natural sister’ when I walk passed. I came across this cool Buzfeed article celebrating 4C afros. It made me really happy. My afro makes me very happy.