“Ooh – I love your hair!” “Oh my gosh, what did you put in your hair?” “Is your hair permed?” “Can I touch it? It feels so cool!” These are just a few of the many comments young ladies hear about their hair. Ask any African-American woman about the topic of natural hair over perm or weave, and she could give you an entire essay on it.

Imagine being a young lady, waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and seeing all your hair on the floor. That’s what a smooth criminal-like “relaxer” can do to your roots. Any type of chemical doesn’t seem fit to be placed on hair, right? Well, then, one must wonder why natural sisters still do it. Women are essentially putting ingredients in their hair, which include sodium and calcium hydroxide, which can burn the scalp and cause breakage.

Garrett Augustus Morgan first introduced relaxers in the 1900’s to make African-American hair more manageable and easily straightened. Relaxers were very prominent in the African-American community at the start of 1900’s through about 2011, when the trend died down, and many African-American women started to embrace their natural hair. For African-American women in particular, a stigma came with having hair that was not considered “good” hair. If you had “good hair,” you were prettier and more desirable than other women.

Using this term – “good hair” – comedian Chris Rock took it upon himself to make a film (aptly titled Good Hair) that examines many African-American people who once had relaxer and told of their experiences with it, young kids who have had relaxer put in their hair, and interviews with celebrities who expressed how much they pay on costly weaves, alternatives to putting chemicals in the hair but still resulting in the luscious, straight hair. One of the scenes in the film shows Rock selling “black hair” which had been cut off a black person’s head. Rock tries to sell this hair, which he had simply collected and held in his hands, to different beauty-supply stores. In response, one non-African-American man comments rather inappropriately, seeing the hair as something that must have come from someplace other than the top of someone’s head.  Another non-African-American woman says, “Well, you need to take that back to wherever you got it.”  Rock uses this exchange to profile the attitude that people outside the African-American community have about “black hair.” Essentially, it is not what people want on their head and is not what people think of when they imagine hair.

Again, as portrayed in the film, most black women want to mimic the styles of white women, who often have nice, long, silky hair, unlike black women, who have short, kinky afro-like hair. During a segment of the film, Rock visits a scientist and asks him if relaxers are safe to be used on humans. The scientist does an interesting test of soaking a soda can in the compounds that make up a common relaxer. The most surprising result that comes out of this little science experiment is that the last soda can out of three totally disintegrated within the mixture.

Yesha Callahan of Clutch Mag Online says that one of her girlfriends was contemplating giving her 9-year-old daughter a relaxer. She couldn’t help but look at her like she was crazy, because she was concerned over a relaxer being on a child’s head. Callahan’s experience is similar to one told in Rock’s film when a woman says, “it’s very difficult to stop using relaxer once you start because you have to keep getting your roots touched up. High maintenance. It’s like ‘The Creamy Crack.’”

As an alternative to the use of a relaxer on hair, some black women turned to weaves and extensions. These have provided the equivalent to Asian or even Hispanic women’s long, lustrous hair. The cost for a weave typically ranges from about $50 to over $1,000, depending on the length, vendor, texture and quality of the hair. This essentially became a sort of “Plan B” option for women who did not want to damage their hair with a relaxer but wanted the end result of one.

When asked about why she wears a weave, Nanaa Mensah, a Paint Branch junior, says, “It’s a protective hairstyle, and it’s easier to deal with.” She adds that “people think she doesn’t have hair but really having a weave is easier to manage. I love my natural hair.”

A new era has, essentially, evolved; an era when women are either wearing weaves or their natural hair. You don’t hear people really talking about getting a relaxer but more about chopping off the relaxed parts.  As women begin taking control, though, some African-American men criticize them, saying that they don’t have hair under their weaves or that these women are all baldheaded when, truthfully, some people just need a quick, easy hairstyle.

Mariama Samateh, a Paint Branch senior, knows what it feels like to wake up at 6:00 AM to do her hair.  She is a natural-haired sister who feels that “natural hair is hard to take care of, but I would never get a perm. I’m also not a fan of weaves, but I do love my braids; it’s my protective style.”

Keeping your body in check reflects in your hair; quite frankly, the foods you eat reflect in your hair! Nobody can tell me I’m not beautiful or my hair is too “kinky” and not silky enough.

I’ve seen the process my sister went through, giving up the perm life. Now look at her hair. “I’ve always been fond of the creamy crack and see where that’s gotten me. With thin, uneven pieces of hair. My natural hair is my true identity and what make me, me,” states Adeola Animashaun.