by Candace of Kiss My Curls
I was a freshman in high school in Milwaukee, WI. My blue-eyed, blonde-haired, straight-stranded friend Becky (yes that was her real name) wanted me to curl her hair for a special occasion that was coming up. I said sure! I was a whiz with hair, even back then. I grabbed her curling iron, thinking, “this is going to be a piece of cake.”
Yeah…not so much.
Even after using the hottest setting and spraying her hair with the stiffest hair spray, I COULD NOT get Becky’s hair to curl. She ended up leaving my house with one stiff lock of hair and the rest of it just as straight as when she first came over. I remember thinking, “for straight hair being praised for being ultimately ‘easy’, that was some hard ass work.” Since then, I’ve realized that someone with more experience probably could’ve figured out how to get Becky’s hair to curl beautifully, but I didn’t know the rules, so to ME it was unmanageable. Because I was UNFAMILIAR with straight hair, straight hair was UNMANAGEABLE. Do you see where I’m going with this?
After watching the Dr. Drew special and hearing the term, “manageable” over and over in relation to the term “good hair”, I felt the need to address this. The term “manageability” is relative, just like the term “good.” Using one word to describe another does not further define it. However, the fact that there was no confusion when the definition given for “good hair” was “more manageable” shows that to many people, it’s not relative. In fact to most, it only means one thing; the straighter your hair is, the easier it is to deal with.
This belief has to change. The natural hair movement has made some great strides, but we have yet to deal with our negative language. We still envy other textures and assume that we must describe our kinky hair as “unruly”, “unmanageable” and “too thick”. Not the case. Yes, when I first went natural, my hair was VERY unmanageable. But that was MY fault, NOT my hair’s. Though my hair has gotten no closer to straight, I can now manage it very well. Give me a straight-haired person though, and it’s Becky all over again. Even curly hair is somewhat of a mystery to me.
My point is this: Learn your hair and its limitations. Learn its strengths and build on those. More importantly, know that EVERY texture has its limitations. Everyone has to have SOME kind of daily routine and EVERYONE has to ward off unmanageability. In the video below I talk (or rant, rather) about some the true roots of our beliefs, these terms and what needs to change. I think that Dr. Drew has started a good thing, and I hope that other talk shows do the same.
Candace currently lives in Chicago, IL, where she manages www.kissmycurls.com with her sister, Janna, who resides in Huntsville, AL. Started three years ago, www.kissmycurls.com strives to encapsulate the fire, ferocity, and uniqueness that is natural Black beauty, and works to empower every reader through tweets, pics, posts, and random blog blurts. 🙂 Follow Kiss My Curls on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/
43 Responses
I appreciate this. Candace took me to church. It us all relative and we need to switch the standard to what our hair is. This is not saying straight is bad but it’s saying stay in your Lane and know your ministry :p
So many quotable. Moment. Thanks for sharing
Ugh my hair is Unmanageable sometimes it has been growing alot amd everytime I wake up it’s dry , poofy , and my 4a tight curls just tangle on each other ! I have built a simple regime it is beautiful and moisturized all day but as soon as I go to sleep and then wake up it’s a mess . It takes me about 15 minutes it more to get it back to what it is suppose to be . And I have short hair too so I can’t do twists or braids and I’m not wearing weave again or getting extensions again that pulled out my edges the last time I wore it ! Now I have thin edges ! I seem to have a love hate relationship with my hair but I wouldn’t change it for the world !
I noticed some comments about the author of the article clarifying that the name of the white girl she referred to her in article was in fact actually named Becky. I looked at the video and according to when it was posted, around that time the slang term for a white girl was “Becky”. Seems like a viable reason to mention it in order to clear up any confusion.
Hair is only “unmanageable” “too thick” “unruly”, when you try to make your hair do something that is unnatural. Keep it straight, when it’s naturally coily, or in Becky’s case, attempting to make it curl when it’s naturally straight. Relaxing and straightening hair has become so ingrained in us and in our culture, that we’re taught how to manage straight/relaxed hair before we are taught how to deal with our natural hair. At least we’re having an open dialogue about it.
my hair was unmanageable this past friday. in 40 minutes my hair went through 5 different style (all ugly) before i finally stopped fighting it and wore it in a curly fro…my hair said no to the scarves, the mohawk, my old trusty pin up that i rocked faithfully all of 2012, a twisted updo with the coif in the front, and my flat twists in the front/out in the back. it said NO so i said whatever LOL
This article makes so much sense to me. My hair is 4c and it seems manageable to me because it does exacly what I want it to do and what I expect of it.
For me “managability” is the ease or difficult for hair to become untangled and in a presentable style and stay that way. For that reason I do view natural hair to be “hard to manage.”
Tyler
http://onelittleblackdress.com
The ignorance, my goodness. My natural hair isn’t “hard to manage” at all. I think manageability depends on the person. What’s manageable for me may not be manageable for someone else.
Darling, if your hair is “difficult” to style and manage, you are using the wrong shampoo and conditioners. Perhaps you need to find the right products for your hair type.
Tyler, your ignorance is disturbing. If you weren’t trying to force your hair to be sleek, hang, heavily defined, loose textured, and have that white girl flow,it would be manageable, Tyler. Those are are not characteristics of Afro-textured hair and natural hair will NEVER do that. What the f@#$ is is a presentable style, Tyler. Do you think that your hair has to sleek, flat, overly-defined and hang in loose curls to look presentable, Tyler?
Just took a look at your blog and your hair is a dead ringer for mine…and my hair is not “hard to manage”. I noticed that on your blog you mentioned that your favorite way to wear your hair is dripping wet in a loose defined curl with lot of “hang”.
Tyler, accept that your hair is “nappy”, frizzy and thick. After you do that, sweetheart, you will be able to choose a appropriate style for it…smmmmmmhhhhhh!
I hate this new ignorant crop of naturals that try to force their natural hair to be defined and sleek all the time.
Tyler if you hate you hair because it isn’t loose defined and has that “good” curl, go relax it. No one is forcing you to wear your hair in it’s “hard to manage” state of natural. SMMMMMMMHHHHHHHHH….ALL THIS IGNORANCE!
My hair is natural and to me, relaxed hair that I has to be wrapped at night, flat ironed, and can’t be touched by water is hard to manage! I can put my hair in a “presentable style” in five minutes, so it my hair is very easy to manage! Just as the article said, manageability is relative.
No one is forcing you to stay natural, if you want the wet, loose curl look like you prefer like you mentioned in your blog, get a relaxer or something.
We honestly dont need negative naturals in this movement/community.
My curly, kinky frizzy hair is VERY MANAGEABLE cause I know how to deal with it and I am not aiming for straight/loose curls white girl hair, which is clearly your standard of manageable hair.
Relax/texlax your hair, no one is forcing you to be natural. Shoo.
What some black women don’t realise is that their hair is “unmanageable” because it’s being measured up against a standard which is propagandised as superior and ideal. Of course in this context, our hair is “unmanageable.” But what if we reverse the roles? White women would be stressing themselves because their hair won’t keep in cainrows, they’d be craving tighter textures so they could have an afro, they’d be frustrated because their hair couldn’t hold a style or mould into these different shapes. In other words, their hair would be “unmanageable.”
A lot of women who call their hair unmanageable are looking at it through white tinted glasses. If we just look at out hair without these glasses, we’ll see there’s nothing unmanageable about it.
I wrote a post on my blog a few years ago on this very subject. So to this day when I hear the uninitiated talk about the unmanageability of their natural hair, I whince, cringe and fight the urge to jump up on my soapbox and preach. This notion of manageable hair has nothing to do with texture at all. It is all about mindset and reaching a level of full understanding and appreciation for one’s natural hair. There is a learning curve . . . embrace it and get on with taking care of the natural hair you have. It is certainly far better than complaining about it.
First of all why is the name Becky anything weird!!!? Shaniqua, Latoya, latravia… I rest my case. Secondly you black women need to stop discussing hair and your oppression with it and just live your life!!!! The more attention you give to it the bigger deal it becomes! It is JUST hair. Stop making it more than it needs to be. You’ve had your healthy hair revolution, great. Live it and move on!
The name ‘Becky’ wasn’t clarified as the person’s real name because it was weird, it was clarified because in certain non-White communities, it’s seen as a stereotypical White girl name. The author clarified it to ensure that her readers knew she wasn’t just making it up. It was humor, and you turned that into an opportunity to spout negatives into a positive space. I’ve just about had it with anyone and everyone who tries to tell me that ignoring race-related issues decreases their significance and impact. It doesn’t. It just makes people like you more comfortable with ignoring it.
Becky,
We need to “stop discussing our hair”? You came to a place designed for that purpose (where you clearly don’t belong) to berate a subject that doesn’t even concern you? Does it bother you that much that we as Black women are reveling in the beauty of the gifts that God has given us? Don’t be afraid; us celebrating us should not make you feel so insecure. You lose nothing by our gain. Have a seat somewhere, please.
Becky, you are so out of your league in even coming to our site, let alone speaking to that which does not involve nor concern you. And furthermore, your sense of white entitlement is not wanted nor is it appreciated here.
Now please, move on and take your crazy ass rhetoric with you.
so…..why’re you here again? (in case i missed it somewhere in your irrelevant rant)
Who was speaking to you Becky?
Around this time the article was posted, the slang term for a white girl was “Becky”. Seems like a viable reason to mention it in order to clear up any confusion.
Ok, the thing I love the most about being natural is that I know my hair, it’s no longer a mystery to me, where before it was like an alien on my head. Even when its dry, and cruncy (sometimes) even when it does the opposite of what i want it to do, like shrink, or stretch and almost look straight after a braid out, I’m not like it’s the end of the world!! I just figure out what to do with it. Sometimes I just go with a wash and go (sometimes my tiny, really tiny, coils are defined, sometimes they are frizzy, so it looks like a tiny afro) sometimes a huge fro, and for the most part (the most pragmatic hairstyle for me) a puff. Just dont fight the hair, dont go crazy. My bff/roomate has 3a/b hair and she’s busy trying to alter it because it’s poofy (even though her ringlets are always defined) and it’s just not acceptable to her. You see the problem? Hair texture is never the problem. I’m glad that an article like this has finally been published.
Great post and it’s so true. My Indian friends marvel at how my hairstyles are so versatile and last so long because their hair has to be held with a rubber band if put in a braid or twist or it will unravel and it also has to be re-styled daily or it will get rough.
What makes hair manageable? You do! It’s up to you to find a routine that works for you and makes it easy to manage. I’ve heard over and over, women who say they go to a salon all the time because they can’t manage their own hair-if they start doing it on their own they figure out how to manage it. Some hair is more difficult than other hair, but once you figure out what works for you, it is officially manageable. Everyone’s hair is different, and a mistake people often make is wanting their hair to look or behave like someone else’s hair they have seen-as soon as they stop thinking that way, that’s when they start figuring out how to manage their own hair. Take me, for instance. I have fine thin curly hair (3b and 3c for reference). I never did start going to salons growing up, and don’t now. When I was growing up, I always wanted my hair to be straight to wavy, and for it to hang and swing. Every time I used heat to make it that way (usually a blow dryer and curling irons, sometimes a pressing comb), it would look nice when I left the house for school or work, and by the time I got where I was going, it would be a big puffy frizzy mess. Every time. Every morning I assaulted it with curling irons, with the same result. So, to me my hair was unruly because I couldn’t beat it onto straight silky submission. Now I know-my hair isn’t meant to be like that, and once I figured out what I COULD do with it, it was…MANAGEABLE!
Agreed with this it video 10000000%!!
Gotta be honest…this article AND the comments have me cheesin’ right now. And somewhere out there I’d like to think that Marcus Garvey is doing the same.
“Don’t remove the kinks from your hair. Remove them from your HEAD.”
😀
Manageability to me means what you can realistically handle day to day.
Our ability to manage and learn our own hair texture was taken away from most of us at a young age, both mentally and physically. We didn’t learn on our own that our hair was unmanageable some one TOLD us it was and we just absorbed the negativity. Our hair no matter what the texture only really needs to be detangled, cleansed, conditioned and styled. You can make this as easy or as complicated as you like. From what I see on hair boards, blogs, Youtube and real life, unmanageable stems from improper hair practices, not devoting enough time and consistency to basic hair care, and left over good hair/ bad hair none sense, and personal preferences that are unrealistic and rooted in a lot of self esteem issues and what everybody else think looks good. The time and consistency is the biggest thing I see black women complain about. We often want fabulous hair but don’t want to take the time to research about it and set time a side so that we can get it done. A lot of popular natural styles require time to do. Don’t matter if you are DIY or go to a stylist. Unless your getting your TWA trimmed up it ain’t gonna be a 15 min job. Beauty rituals take a lot of time and dedication to be “manageable”. That goes for hair, makeup, skincare and fashion. Effortless beauty is a myth!
True manageability to me is being solution oriented with your hair. I won’t front when I first went natural I thought I could do what other girls did, do what I did with relaxed hair and boy was it a rude awakening those first three years. lol
Omg, yes the negative talk is the worst to get rid of. I’m 5 years in and I’ve learned a lot yet I still do it. My recent struggle has been styling my hair as I felt sometimes it was too coarse to manipulate. So the easiest solution is to think, well my hair is just unmanageable. I’ve gone along with the conditioned belief that if you have type 4 hair you’re limited and you just have to deal with it. I refuse to take that belief anymore. It’s a frustrating process when you’ve been one way for decades but I just decided that maybe it’s not my hair, maybe it’s me. Time and time again, it turns out when I try a different product (maybe even a product that’s not “natural”) or attempt a new technique everything changes. I swore my hair was just dry naturally thus was limited style wise, but when I went from water moisturizer-oil to the LOC method, I was shocked to feel my hair stay soft all week. No one puts this on the newbie natural lists but it’s good to be ready to challenge the status quo and not just take what you see or know from the past to be definitely true.
This is a sore point for me because I hear/see hair commercials for either a new detangling brush, or a new shampoo/conditioner, or a new device for straightening hair all the time. They are very clear with the advertising of the quality (manageability) of the hair types: the white girls’ hair is referred to as fine/soft/thin while the black girls’ hair is referred to as coarse/dry/thick (predominantly negative adjectives). According to the advertisers, the only time the black woman’s hair looks better is when her natural hair state has been altered to appear more caucasian. I’m tired of white people telling me that beauty should be based on their standards. I set my own standards. I love my hair as God loves my hair. When I take care of my hair by simply adding water and coconut oil and wearing cute protective styles my hair becomes soft and manageable. When I don’t care for my hair properly, it becomes unmanageable. I think relaxed hair is unmanageable because you can’t do anything with it….you can’t “manage” it; hair will just hang there straight and lifeless with no bounce or “character”. You couldn’t pay me to go back to corrosive chemicals in my hair. I think the truth is you need to love your hair the way God made it and when you try to force your hair into an unnatural state (straight to curly or curly to straight); you will get hair that’s unmanageable.
I define manageable as being able to wash it and go, with a minimal amount of detangling. hair that doesn’t require more than 5 hours out of my week to maintain. my hair satisfies that qualification, so to me it is manageable. it’s all in how one chooses to look at it!
Well hot dam! I’m glad someone said this because when I was in jail for driving without a license,I walk up in the county jail and there are these white meth head women trying to get ya know uh “clean” some of those chicks going down for 40 years had their hair braided up, and of course they ask ME the black girl to do their hair. I said hell no I don’t know how to do no white girls hair? Even though I have relatives with straight hair, I never figured out how to do their hair. I too find it difficult to do and I’ve been saying that for years and years about straight hair. I don’t mean it as an insult, I just don’t understand how to do their straight hair? Those white girls in t he jail house looked at me like something was wrong with me? It doesn’t seem to do much but lay there unless you are an expert with hair like that.I know they believe their hair is manageable to do, but it’s really not.I think a lot of white women believe we WANT to do their hair and actually like doing hair for some reason? I just say no and move on.
“we have yet to deal with our negative language”
This! And negative language still persist from the streets, to posts from Style Icons and articles from ‘gurus’.
Some examples:
-‘aw hell nawl, I can’t be seen with a fro’;
-OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE curlformer/twistout DISORDER;
-henna addiction because it ‘loosens the curl’;
-style icons happily going natural ONLY because they remembered ‘what pretty curls they had as a child’ (READ: 3A-4A);
-transitioning for 8 years because ‘short naps are a no-no’.
YES, I know some will never love a fro and some will always love defined curls and the apparent miracles of henna. And I know that transitioning times – are your business! But in some cases, the subconscious side-eye, that silent ‘ewww’, is still coming through in our language about our hair, and others will continue to use it against us. I know we’ve evolved and continue to evolve, but words DO hurt and history easily repeats itself if we all don’t continue to honestly examine how our thoughts and words affect us.
! !THANK YOU! !
Your on point with your examples.
Indeed, this is a movement:
A movement from a relaxed “straight” state if mind to a curl “looser” state of mind. A fro’ is not a style, it’s how your hair naturally grows! Black people do you know our hair defies the laws of physics! ! Anywhere where you can give another race a run for their money, Be it appearance, music, the arts, our resources, marketing skills (look how quick the talk of natural grew from Usa all the way to Africa! You let them sh*t all over you willingly now.
We as a people are in a very dangerous battlefield of the mind and we really beed to start taking this seriously cause this is life or death mentally! If you start thinking, talking and acting like your opressors after they’ve abused you, you become them – just ina different colour. negatively known as black. And they’ll take all youe good attributes and worldly contributions, and paint it white.
+1000 Truth!!
Truth is in all of these fab comments! Y’all making me wave my hands up high now, lol=)
I dont see anything with a puffy fro (like the one pictured in the article) aren’t we jus limiting our hair in a diff way? Thanks for pointing that out.
Preach!!! I said this on another thread. We moved from creamy crack to having looser curl texture. We have got to get to the point of self-acceptance, and embrace our individuality. We have a variety of textures, and no one texture is better/more manageable etc.,
I’ve read so many comments about women transitioning for years because they don’t want to part with their length and be seen with “short nappy hair”. It’s almost as if, having “nappy” hair is acceptable as long as it’s bra strap or waist length. And those with medium to short hair, are obsessed with keeping it as loosely curled as possible. What is wrong with rocking a tightly coiled, cotton ball soft, afro????
I couldn’t agree more. Growing up, my family would tell me stories about the thickness of my hair. “It was so thick and unmanageable! We had to put a perm in it!” I was only 2 years old, mind you, and my hair wasn’t even at a point where it had begun to “adjust” itself (for lack of a better word) to being in the world. I truly think their lack of knowledge, impatience, and my mother’s choice not to do anything with my hair (which probably made it 10x harder to handle when someone did take the time to do it) attributed to the “unmanageablility” of my hair. :-/
I have actually been thinking about this since the Stop Wishing for Long Hair article and the comments (someone made a very astute comment about women becoming natural solely for long hair and finding everything in between to be “unmanageable.”) For me, my hair was “unmanageable” when I kept trying to make it something it wasn’t. I fully intended to be a straight hair natural and only deal with the kink on wash day, if then. Except I live in a humid place so the second I walked out with my badly flatironed hair it was back to fro.
The second I stopped fighting my hair it became manageable. It’s soft and dense and coily and fine and EASY. I look back on those early days and I think, “dang, why didn’t I do twists, bantu knots, braids outs, twists outs) or any other of a dozen styles in my current repertoire? Because I didn’t know any better.
For me, “manageability” was all about a state of mind and a change of outlook.
This article is on point. All too often, I see/hear people with kinkier textures bemoaning the difficulties of their texture, and while I know it’s mostly because a lot of us still need to get educated on healthy hair care (it’s a dynamic process, I’m constantly learning new things), I feel like a good portion of it is because people haven’t learned how to love and/or manage their particular bouquet of textures. I have both curlier hair (4A/3B/3C) and kinkier hair (4B/4C). Each different texture has it’s own struggle, and I have had to learn how to manage each one differently. None of them are more unmanageable than the other.
When people start talking about maintenance, manageability, or “good hair”, I just kinda blank out. Kinda how people blank out when they ask me a hair question, and they find that it’s not a magical product that I am about to bestow upon them.
If you can care for your body, then you can care for your hair the way it naturally comes out of your body.
I don’t understand what there is to manage. Just take care of it. If you’re trying to rake a small comb through your natural hair then common sense should kick in, like yea…this ain’t happening.
You have to change your mindset and give yourself time to get used to caring for your natural hair. If you’ve had a relaxer or weave majority of your young years then understandably there’s going to be an adjustment. For some that adjustment will have to be mentally. It’s going to take patience to get there.
You know….When I was relaxed, all I did was wear ponytails or let my hair down. Sure I could comb any comb through it, but it was also shedding like crazy once it reached my shoulders lol.
I’ve been natural 3 years now. Almost waist length. The things I can do with my hair I could never do with my relaxed hair without adding extensions, or tons of product, and lots of hours, etc…talk about work lol. Work and money.
But my natural hair; 1 product and some water, and I can do anything. I wore my hair straight for the first time in 3 years, curled right back up after 2 weeks.
I know I’m rambling, but I love my hair. I’m serious I love it. I was permed my entire childhood with bad salon visits, stylist burning, off my hair, cutting my hair along with my extensions, sitting for hours just for a touch up and press, always being told I didn’t have enough hair for a style, got to buy some hair for it…I’d never go back to that. To me that’s unmanageable.
manageable – in the case of hair, it’s difficult to control hair when you are trying to alter the strands from their original state. Straight -curly Curly-straight = damage or beyond dead strands of hair.
This brings us to manageable by who’s standard? I can control my hair in its natural state. Only when we try to make the hair conform to some style that it’s to short or to long to achieve that it becomes unmanageable. Is that the hair fault? No. The hair is dead.
I completely agree. If you were to ask me “What makes hair manageable?” when I was younger, I would say the ability to wash your hair, let it air dry and you’re done (so I am not talking about the current “wash and go” hairstyle that takes 45minutes to an hour to achieve lol.) And to some extent I would say that it’s still my answer, but I know now that I CAN wash my hair and let it air dry and be done with it…I just won’t have the “perfect” springy curls that are so coveted. (And that’s another issue with “manageability”. We have a desired look and if we can’t achieve it we label our hair as unmanageable, but anywho lol).
I have learned what it takes to manage my hair and that will be different from what another person has to do to manage their hair. So manageability is indeed relative. I think when people realize that, they will have much more success in their hair care routines.