Disclaimer: I’m sharing my experience and view point in relation to my own hair journey and by no means do I intend to talk over others or belittle hair journeys that look differently to mine.
Weekends are reserved for hair wash day. Usually Saturdays or Sundays, after I’ve given myself enough rest from a treacherous week.
I’m sitting here today, in the aftermath of another successful hair wash day, my arms so sore I’ve taken to using an electric massager to untangle the pain. I’m reminded of how draining hair wash day is. It feels like there are a thousand steps, like you’re permanently glued to the shower head, like an entire generation’s worth of hair has coiled up on your detangling brush.
I stand in the shower, and I’m almost sure I’ll pass out after I’ve clarified, conditioned once, shampooed twice, detangled three times, and have finally gotten my hair ready for a mask that will simmer beneath a plastic bag for 30 minutes to an hour — If I’m feeling particularly lazy. And it doesn’t even end there, then I style it with cream, and a separate styling brush, finger gel through it gently enough to not glob it on, but forcefully enough to define the curls, and then endure neck pain for 20 minutes to diffuse it until it creates a gel cast. I can’t forget the hair oil as the last touch.
By then, two hours have gone by, my stomach is growling, and my arms have been through their own personal war.
And I love it. I would not have it any other way.
I hated my hair for the better part of a decade. And in doing so, I wound up trying keratin at the ripe age of twelve, and I could finally have straight hair for months on end. The first month was good, the second was okay, but by the third, I realized I had made a huge mistake. My curls started to grow back, but they were sickly, undefined, frizzy, and somehow thinning. Hair strands snapped like rubber bands, curl patterns resembled boiled spaghetti— it looked so fucking bad.
All because I desperately wanted to have straight hair. Because I wanted to be beautiful and fit in. I wanted the bullying to stop. I wanted the fucking world to stop being so rude to a child because of her hair pattern. I was tired of the comments, of the picking, of the mistreatment, of the fucking racism. Because, despite being fair-skinned, my hair indicated differently, that perhaps in my lineage something went ‘wrong’. I was ugly and therefore unworthy of respect.
When people comment on how nice my hair is, how they wish they had the patience to do what I do, when I tell them of my routine, and their jaws fall, I am reminded how deeply rooted racism and ignorance are.
Now everyone wants to have wavy hair, they sleep with socks in their hair, they hairspray their roots to the point that the ozone layer might be in danger again. They get Dysons, they get Revlon brushes, they get blowouts and perms.
And I don’t think people realize how deeply this goes, because to them it’s just another trend and styling technique, but to me? This is a lifestyle. I do this day in and day out. I sleep with bonnets and a silk pillow. I have curl refreshers, silk hair ties, towels specifically for hair wash day, this shit is everything to me. Taking care of my hair is very much a ritual. Borderline a spiritual one.
To many women, it very much is. I obviously can not talk about my curly hair without talking about black women, of all walks of life. From Afro-latinas that share tips and tricks, to the African-American women I watched on youtube, to the Congolese women that brushed and braided my hair when my mother couldn’t. Everything I know I know because of them. I remember the moment it clicked for me that if I wanted to learn to take care of my hair, I needed to start listening to people who had hair like mine to begin with.
I consumed a plethora of YouTube videos; I laid them out along my bed like magazines and consumed them in sequence. I researched products, I learnt about curl pattern and hair porosity, about cuts for curly hair, protective hairstyles, and silk bonnets. I discovered a black-owned salon down the street from my house and asked to get my hair cut, for tips and tricks. The lady was lovely, by the way.
There is so much history within just a hair wash day.
It’s so interesting to me. On the one hand, there wouldn’t be this much history and significance behind it if hair type weren’t used as a tool to propel racism forward, a tag that lets you know who that person is, where they might come from, what their ancestry looks like. How closely related are they to that ancestry. How deserving of human decency they are.
In the end, it really is just all blatant racism, isn’t it? The hours of work poured over the bathtub edge, the keratin or relaxer you start getting at 12, or 8, or younger. The back and neck pain after hair wash day ever enduring. The dismissive comments about wishing they had your hair without even understanding what it means.
But, there’s also a really beautiful side to it. I love my hair wash day, yeah, it’s painful, and it is long, but it’s also my safe space, it’s become part of my routine — my ritual.
I’m not a religious person at all, but I clearly remember thinking to myself one day that if God thought I would look beautiful with straight hair, then god damn it, he would have given me straight hair. But he didn’t.
That thought really soothes me.
I take my hair wash day as a privilege in its own, at least for someone like me. My hair is a 3C, so it isn’t particularly rowdy.
I was able to learn to love my hair and myself in spite of what the world tried to tell me. People were always so unkind to me because of what my hair looked like, even my family. I remember my dad constantly asking if I was going to go out like that or are you gonna brush your hair?’
I was on day 4, so my hair didn’t look super defined. I think it was racist of him to insinuate that my hair didn’t look presentable unless it was glossy with oil and every ringlet defined.
I’ve let things like that slide off of me because I love my hair; it makes me feel beautiful, it makes me feel like I belong to a community much larger than myself. A lot of women don’t have that self-confidence.
A lot of women don’t have support from their mothers, who browsed Walmart for an hour just so you could find the right shampoo. A mother who lets them know their hair looks beautiful, who dives into routines with you, who holds your hand while you find yourself.
A lot of women don’t have the money I do. Hair wash day is fucking expensive. My hair mask is thirty-two dollars, and that’s still on the ‘cheaper’ side. There are women who don’t have the financial backing to take care of their hair the way I do, so maybe it doesn’t look as defined as mine, but it doesn’t make them less.
A lot of women caught up too late, a lot of women suffer from internalized racism, a lot of trans women don’t have the community or guidance because maybe they transitioned late, a lot of women are financially burdened, a lot of women are one, two, three, hell, all of these things. A lot of women don’t have the privilege that I do.
So it’s an interesting dance we do when we talk about hair wash day, the implications it has, the security it can carry, the way it’s a reflection of our racist, transphobic, capitalistic, patriarchy riddled society.
I love my hair, I love hair wash day, but most importantly I love the women who taught me to carry such nuance within my curls.