It has been eight years since I exorcised my hair demons.  I no longer struggle with my hair, I don't fear the elements and I finally have the hair I have always wanted.  What did I want?  I wanted hair that didn't hurt to comb.  I wanted hair that looked the same no matter what the weather forecast.  I wanted hair that was versatile.  I wanted hair I could style myself.  I wanted hair that would grow long.

MY HAIRSTORY

I have always had thick, hard to manage hair.  I did not have long hair.  My hair was very tightly coiled N4 hair.  (nap-o-meter) When I was a child I cried whenever my mother combed my hair.  I was very tender headed.  Getting my hair done was always a traumatic experience.  Thank God my mother was a hairdresser because she had to take little sections and hold on to the hair near my scalp and gently pull the wide tooth comb through my hair or my screams would make the neighbors think she was torturing me.  It took what seemed like hours.  My mother put my hair in these short, fat braids.  I never had the kind of braids that were long and bounced when you skipped along. 

One of my first hair episodes that left me scarred was in the first grade.  I lived in New York and I had to take the subway to school.  As if that wasn't bad enough, my braids came loose on the way.  When I got to school my hair was a big wild bush.  Now, you have to understand that this was BEFORE Afros, BEFORE Huey Newton, Jimi Hendrix, Angela Davis...This was BEFORE "Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud."  So, here I am about 6 years old arriving to my first grade class with wild and woolly hair.  The teacher who was Caucasian, was visibly shocked.  She had never seen hair like this before.  All the little black girls had small, tight braids.  No one EVER had loose hair.  So, she took me to the principal's office.  Imagine, being taken to the principal's office because your hair was too big.  She told the principal, a Caucasian male, that my mother hadn't had time to comb my hair that day, which wasn't true.  She had combed my hair, it just came loose.  But, I was too scared to say anything.  I was just a little girl and they made me feel as if something was wrong with me because my braids came loose!  They made it clear I was NEVER to come to school like that again.
 

I don't remember the first time I had my hair pressed.  I just remember it was in the kitchen and it was horrific.  First my hair was combed then my hair was parted and the blue Ultra Sheen hair grease was applied to my scalp while a heavy metal pressing comb was heated on the stove.  When smoke started to come off the comb it was rubbed on a cloth leaving burn marks then pulled through a thin section of hair flattening out the kink and leaving my hair straight.  If you moved you got burned.  In order to get my hair pressed  along the hairline I had to hold my breath.  Many times I got a burn on my ear, neck or forehead.  And the kitchen smelled like burning hair and skin.  That was child abuse!  And the worse part is that it was only temporary and any exposure to moisture would reverse the whole process!

After sitting through the torture of having my hair pressed I couldn't play or I might sweat it out.  I didn't dare go outside on  a rainy day without wearing an old lady plastic hair covering.  If it started to drizzle I had to run home.  If it was misty I had to tuck all my hair under a hat.  To take a bath I had to wear two hair bonnets.  Basically, if my hair reverted to its natural state there was hell to pay!

When we migrated to California, my mother moved us to a multi-ethnic neighborhood on the east side of Hollywood. Living on my block were Japanese, Mexican and Caucasian kids.  We went to a public swimming pool because (although I didn't know it) we were poor.  All the kids could jump in the pool and swim without thinking about their hair.  I had to make sure and tuck my hair under my swim cap.  And guess what?  My hair got wet any way.  Walking home from the pool the summer heat would dry our hair.  Well, everyone's hair dried and looked exactly the way it looked before we went swimming, except mine.  My hair got bigger and bigger and everyone thought it was really funny!  I did NOT think it was funny and stopped going swimming with them.

THE BIG LYE

Well, a miracle happened.  Johnson Products, the people that had brought us the blue hair grease, made a permanent hair straightener.  They put it under the Ultra Sheen brand and called it a "hair relaxer."  My mother was one of the first hairdressers to take an advanced course in hair relaxing.  I was her model.  At the still delicate age of twelve, sodium hydroxide (lye) was applied to my hair. This toxic white cream was applied to my hair.  It smelled awful.  It would start to burn.  But, you had to try and take the burning as long as possible because it meant your hair was getting straight.  If it was rinsed out too soon your hair would not be straight. After the cream a special neutralizer was applied to stop the straightening process.  Now instead of getting my hair pressed I got my hair wet set.  I still had thick hair.  So it took an hour to put my hair on rollers then I had to sit under a hot hair dryer for two hours.  If I tried to come out I got yelled at because if my hair wasn't dry and it would kink back up if it didn't dry properly.  The worst part is that it really wasn't "permanent."  My hair had to be relaxed every 6 weeks when the "new growth" came in.  If I waited too long between "touch ups" my hair would start to break off.

Adj Before and After Naturalaxer Kit-In-A-Jar