Thank God for natural hair

News has increasingly become a well of sombreness and gloom. There hasn’t been any good news in weeks: It started with milk prices going sky high, then before we could adjust, Westgate had gone up in flames. Mombasa followed the next week, and the politicians, plutocrats and busybodies over on the hill started yakking and pointing fingers and talking tough and sticking their feet in their mouths.

Then before you could say “makofi” one of our leaders got her arm broken – because, I guess, being slapped isn’t bad enough. And just when you were thinking, “What in the world is going on here!” just when you are thinking nothing worse could possibly happen, well nothing happens.

It was during this lull that I looked up from trawling the news websites and realised that something had been happening while I had been otherwise absorbed. Our women had started doing something different to their hair: they had started going natural!

SYMBOLS OF DECEPTION

I can’t see how this isn’t good news, especially after weaves, the bane of our social existence. The weave is a representation of how hairy things can get when imagination takes a walk. The weave is an illustration of bad things happening to good men.

It doesn’t even matter if it doesn’t look like a weave, or if it costs an arm and a leg, a weave arouses this feeling that things will never really get better. That we are doomed to a life of make-belief and that underneath this deception lies even more deception.

But there is hope. Going natural is a big deal now. There is even a Facebook group for it, albeit private because natural hair talk is a very private affair. Personally, I’m thrilled that finally the womenfolk are going back to the primal tenants of hair care by embracing natural hair.

This is not only a statement of beauty – as observers note – but also a reawakening of African pride. Weaves, they say, have always been a result of our inferiority complex fuelled by a colonial mentality that once told us that long, flowing locks are the essence of beauty.

I ran into an interview of some Nigerian ladies who were surprisingly (I say surprisingly given the sheer herd of weave you see on Nigerian movies) advocating for natural hair citing a reversal of what they almost termed as neo-colonialism.

One of them, called Afuoma, said, “they [women who want to look American or Asian] don’t seem to appreciate that the African woman is much more beautiful in her natural form and even more respected by the real men out there.” In isolation of the respect bit (your hair won’t necessarily get you disrespected, but it might get you avoided at the very most) that statement just about puts the hair talk in perspective.

There are many benefits of natural hair from a guy’s point of view. Apart from the fact that natural hair on women is a trillion times better than weaves in terms of visuals, it smells better. There is always something about weave that gives you the impression that it smells, even if it costs Sh50, 000. You never really look at a weave and go, “That weave looks fresh and clean.” But natural hair has this aura of hygiene, like it’s washed all the time and the scalp is shiny and healthy.

Generally, women with natural hair somehow look more assured, bolder and brave. I also suppose it takes a lot to chop off your hair and throw on a colour like red and be able to step out in the sun. I supposed it’s even harder to wear short hair – like a guy – no matter the shape and contour of your head.

These are small acts of bravery that should be commended. In fact, anything that doesn’t involve horse hair should be commended.

There are more benefits. I ran into this old research done in February 1994, by America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the American Cancer Society that released an epidemiology study involving 573,000 women.

LIFE-SAVER

This research found that black women who had nor used permanent hair relaxers showed decreased risk of all fatal cancers combined and urinary systems cancers. So there, natural hair might also just save your life, as it turns out.

I’m hoping that this natural hair movement is more than a trend, but an awakening to the fact that all these afro-textured hair – curly or kinky – shouldn’t be tucked away under a wig or weave. And those who are thinking of going the natural way and are a bit scared to dip their toes in the water, should be assured because very few ladies look bad in natural hair. It’s one of those things that a woman can’t easily botch up. And women can botch up almost everything.