A Love Letter to My Crown
Notes on my 29-year hair journey
I recently started taking a creative nonfiction writing course, and when asked to submit my first manuscript, I felt compelled to share a piece about my hair journey. I’ve never written about my hair, so this process felt intimidating, but the journey came together as I wrote. When I finished writing and noticed how my evolution mirrors my hair’s evolution, I truly felt seen and deeply appreciative.
Happy reading.
<3
Black hair is more than just hair; it's a crown.
As early as 3000 B.C., West Africans used braids to communicate identity. Braids' style, pattern, and adornments could convey information about a person's age, marital status, social status, and tribal affiliation. In the 15th century, when the Trans-Atlantic slave trade began, European colonists referenced the texture of Black hair as being “wool-like” and “dreadful” and in many cases, enslaved Africans were forced to shave their heads or remove their hairstyles, stripping cultural and personal identity. African American hair textures and styles were stigmatized and used as a way to dehumanize for centuries to follow. In the late 1800s, Black people started using various methods to straighten their hair to reduce the stigma they would otherwise experience. Of the many techniques used over centuries, chemical relaxers, also known as chemical straighteners (which I’ll add: created on accident), were introduced to Black hair in the 1950s.
Over the decades, new hairstyles such as Cicely Tyson’s corn rows, Angela Davis’s afro, Janet Jackson’s box braids, and Lauryn Hill’s locs emerged to symbolize Black pride and resistance. Despite hair movements that pushed back against hair stigmas, it was still more socially acceptable for Black women to straighten their hair and in the late 1990s and early 2000s, straightened hair was resurgent in pop culture. This is where my hair journey comes in—a mixed Black girl born in 1994 in Colorado, raised in the late 1990s and early 2000s, impacted greatly by acceptability politics and Black hair trends.
It’s 2004, I’m 10 years old, and my head is in the kitchen sink of my aunt’s house. In Black households, the kitchen was the salon, and I was in the middle of getting my relaxer washed out. Rule of thumb, once your scalp starts burning, it’s time to take the relaxer out and for one reason or another, mine got left in a little too long and I was left with a relaxed head of hair and burn scabs on my scalp. This alone is enough reason to never get a relaxer again but it’s the mid-2000s, natural hair wasn’t trending, and my beloved white Mother did not know how to care for my curls and kinks. My hair was in the hands of my Aunties and Paige.
I grew up going to the same hairstylist until I was 22. Paige always wore tight-fitted black clothes accentuating her curves, her hair perfectly laid, her nails almost always painted cherry red, Black skin glistening, with the whitest smile I had ever seen. I loved sitting in her chair. She knew everything about me. I’d be in her salon for hours, gossiping about my latest middle school and high school drama, recent heartbreak, and plans for my future. Paige was my girl, my chosen auntie– one of the only people I trusted to touch my hair.
Until I was 18, my hair was always straightened or in braids. Similar to other Black girls swallowed whole by Eurocentric standards of beauty, I’d damaged my natural curl pattern getting relaxers. Like clockwork, I was in the salon every 2-weeks getting my hair washed and fried. But I didn’t know any different. Every Black girl I knew had her hair straightened and for the most part, the Black women I saw on TV wore their hair just the same. I remember a new hair trend surfacing while I was in high school called crimping. I’d stand in the mirror every morning before school, hold the piping hot crimp on my hair for 5-10 seconds, breathe in that wonderful burnt hair aroma, and watch in awe as my straight hair turned into an ocean wave. My baby, toddler, and elementary school photos were my reminders that I once had a head full of curls.
It’s 2013, I’m 18 years old, headed off to college 63 miles away from home, and making my first fresh-out-of-my-mothers-house decision—going natural. Enduring the wash, condition, blow dry, and straighten process myself was not an option, the city I went to college in was not lined up block to block with Black hairstylists, and I didn’t have the time, money, or energy to drive 63 miles back home every 2 weeks to get my hair done by Paige. Natural was the easiest and only option in my mind and I honestly looked like a hot mess for the first year of my natural hair journey. I was rocking a severely dry-coarse-straight-wavy hairstyle that desperately needed the best kind of moisturizing and care. But, I couldn’t even find the hair care products I needed at the university I went to or in the surrounding area until Black women on campus started a petition asking for the products we should have already been provided (struggles of going to a predominately white institution in a predominately white city as a non-white person). I also didn’t know anything about my hair, its curl pattern, or what I needed to help it flourish naturally. It was trial and error for months. Back then, YouTube tutorials about a curly hair care routine weren’t yet prominent and my friends were trying their best to figure it out too. We all grew up getting relaxers and we were all undoing years of damage to our hair.
This period asked me to appreciate my hair in a new way. Noticing my curl’s slow progression month after month deepened my connection to my roots. Not only was I going through a self-transformation from 18-22, I was also having a conscious awakening about my Black identity. My hair was too. We were on a journey together. I’m pretty sure every mixed child has been told “Too white for the black kids, too black for the white kids.” While this was also true for me, I always felt most comfortable with Black people. Even with my hair straight, there was an obvious difference between my life and my white peers and family members' lives. Embracing my natural hair created a distinction between how I saw myself and how the world perceived me. In many ways, I was reclaiming my natural texture and all that came with it.
When I first heard Solange Knowles's “Don’t Touch My Hair” it was the first time I could tangibly describe the utter dread I felt when people I did not know (and people I knew) touched my hair without permission. I felt like they were violating a part of me. When I was younger, I did not know how to be candid about my discomfort– I suffered through many uncomfortable moments, including predictable and unsolicited reactions to my hair. As I got older, and especially as I started to wear my natural hair, I barked back at uninvited opinions. I protected my crown at all costs from the people who knew nothing about Black hair. The only person I still struggle protecting myself against is my white grandma who loves to tell me I look different whenever she sees me. Bless her heart. Nonetheless, my hair taught me how to stand up for and protect what I believed in– my culture, my heritage, and my truth.
It’s 2017, I’m 22 years old, and my head of curls was the staple of my senior year photos and invites to my college graduation. Unapologetically me. Bold and brilliant with gorgeous curls; my crown. I was proud of myself and my hair– we had fully awakened and embraced who we were meant to be– which makes the next part of my hair chapter quite shocking. Just a year later after moving to Chicago, I met and fell in love with a woman who preferred Black women with shortcuts (picture fade). And what did my 23-year-old, people-pleasing, sucker for love and a beautiful woman self do? Schedule an appointment with a random hairstylist to chop off my hair. Imagine me, sitting in the chair, watching inch by inch of my curls fall to the ground after the years I devoted to healing and taking proper care of my hair. I remember looking in the mirror at myself thinking uh oh, what the heck did you do for love (insert “Do For Love” by Tupac Shakur), and just like that I was rocking short hair with a big ass head. My hair was gone and a few years later, my lover was gone too.
Candidly, I avoided admitting I cut my hair for my ex's approval and admiration because who wants to admit that? I told everyone it was time for a fresh start and a fresh start it was indeed. Cutting off my hair exposed me in ways I wasn’t prepared for. My curls were the attribute I felt most confident about. Things shifted for me—I felt insecure for months. It took me time to adjust to my face and body without long hair. It also forced me to examine how I loved myself– my standard of beauty shifted.
Society teaches women about their significance through appearance. We must have perfect hair and “feminine” facial features, wear “feminine” clothing, and have bodies that fit whatever male gaze is trending. For Black women, our hair must fit into a white standard of acceptability, it must be “good hair”. The undoing of centuries of Eurocentric ideologies, departing from the male gaze as my measurement of attraction, and learning how to appreciate my womanhood outside of my looks took several years. I wouldn’t say I’ve arrived at the self-love pinnacle, but my short hair era did help me undo toxic and harmful teachings of beauty standards.
When I started growing my hair back out, I was also on the brink of going through a defining breakup with the person I cut my hair for. My hair and I were on another journey together. I took a hard look in the mirror and examined my romantic relationships and dependency on my partner's approval. I was willing to cut off years of hard work to be more attractive to the person I loved (which wasn’t even close to her truth). My constant need for validation was damaging and as my hair grew back, my strength and courage to love myself better and walk away from that relationship did too.
While it was the best decision, I shattered during my heartbreak— pieces of me broke into a thousand small pieces. And when I woke up some days with the tiniest bit of energy and will, my hair needed me regardless. She couldn’t grow back healthy and voluminous without my tender love and care. At every stage, she needed and deserved appreciation. As did I. Together we grew, and together we put the pieces back together, even better than before. With time, I looked in the mirror and recognized myself again.
It’s 2024, I’m 29 years old, and my relationship with my hair is different than it was 11 years ago when I first went natural. I look forward to my wash and deep condition mornings– my hair and I sing together as we relish in the fluorescent smells of my shampoo and conditioner and jump for joy as the comb detangles every knot. We look at each other in the mirror-like damn, you look good, I see you growing, I see you thriving, you remember how much we went through to get here? We are big and bad, honey. I had no idea what I was doing 11 years ago, in my life or with my hair. Naivety and ignorance were my solid ground. So much has changed. In the truest sense, I am proud of who I am today. My decision to wear my hair naturally is not out of ease but of pride and resistance.
Saying I love my hair does not even suffice— my hair is an essential part of me. Her curls tell generational stories of my family, her texture blends two cultures into one, her volume mimics my soul, and her health is a mirror of the deep love and care I’ve grown to have for myself. In the words of Solange Knowles, this hair is mine.
You are my forever crown.
Thank you for reading.
xo,
Aleya
I love this and can relate a lot!
Such beautiful storytelling, Aleya!
Our hair holds so much energy and you did a great job depicting that!