i locked in 2002 after thinking about it for ages. i always thought they were beautiful, regal, and exquisite. they convey an embrace of one's natural black hair without pretense or fashion. it says i'm natural and i'm proud. happy and nappy!
i've had a long, fascinating journey with my hair. it's always the first thing i notice when i look at old photos. it was soft, curly, and chaotic as a little kid. by middle school in the early 80s it became more kinky and at one time i had a boyish natural. then i became fascinated with the punk and mod scenes going into 10th grade and my hair, as it was, was not going to cut what i wanted to express in my own personal style.
i used sun-in spray to bleach the top giving me a two-tone (brown and orange really before i learned the magical chemistry of toners). i used a hot iron daily to smooth it out for the day, by the end of which it was a frizz bomb. the process was tedious and damaging. then i discovered the perm. my hair although soft has a zig-zag texture; not kinky, not straight, but somewhere in between. perming tamed it, smoothed it out so that i could spike it.
this went on for years experiementing with various brands: dark & lovely, tcb, until finding african pride, which wasn't as damaging and had ingredients in it that sounded natural (not so much). eventually, in the mid-90s after having survived a few scalp burns and disastrous damaged hair that had to be cut off, i decided to go cold turkey and lay off the perm.
i went in other directions experimenting with weaves, braids, and for a good while modeling for stylists using salon-grade bleach and toner to go high lemon blonde or platinum. that looked very cool, even as my hair got longer, but the touch-up maintenance is serious and without a friend in a salon to hook me up, would have cost a fortune.
platinum out, semi permanent in. i went back to my college days experimenting with my favorite vegetable based semi-permanent dye: tish & snookie's manic panic nyc. the colors are pigment rich and super cool weather you lay them over natural color or bleached hair. one of my favorites is called nightshade, a deep red-purple. even when manic panic color fades it lifts to a more translucent version of its former self.
then i collaborated with a friend who was a stylist swirling in highlights of blonde, caramel, and gold with my natural color. i called this the different world period because cree summer's hair looked like mine. that was a nice phase and i wore it like this for several years.
all this came to an end when i made the commitment to dread. it's always an interesting point of conversation among women. some think i'm an assata-type conscious radical. others marvel at my before dread-, stay so gold-fro hair. i spent a fortune on leave in conditioners, anti-frizz, and pomades to maintain it.
dreads are not easy to maintain either. you have to wash regularly or they can smell like the armpit of a damp cat. i use only natural products, which also cost a bit more. i rinse with vinegar and sometimes lime, which deodorize them. i do hot oil treatments with olive, hemp, or coconut oils. my kitchen has at times turned into a sort of dread lab.
getting new growth tightened up is an on-going process. i'm always on the look-out for a loctician through friends and acquaintances that won't cost a gang of money. these days a student of mine will touch me up for very cheap. she has an amazing hand and twists them super tight. this lasts about a week if i'm diligent about wrapping my locks up at night or sleeping with a cap. those in-between periods i wear a snood or knitted cap when i feel they look a bit ratty and unkempt (diva meter). since my natural texture is soft, new growth hair pops and squiggles out like a cartoon. i can only take so much of that. i like my locks to look smooth and sophisticated, effortless. this is at least part of the illusion and allure of black beauty.
for now though i just think about color - tints and tones, light or dark. decisions, decisions.
star kitty
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