The Journey to Loving My Hair

My hair story is definitely part of who I am as a person. It’s what also drives my belief that no one should have the right to tell you what to do with YOUR hair. As a TV journalist, it’s something I’ve encountered often: people trying to tell me I shouldn’t color my hair, it should be straight, I need to wear a wig… the list goes on. But I always say at the end of the day, I would rather choose to show up as my authentic self than ever be a vision of what society thinks I should be.

I grew up in the days where kiddie perms/relaxers were all the rave. And if you weren’t doing that, the only other option was sitting by the stove every Sunday afternoon to straighten your hair with a hot comb. So when I was about 8, I asked my mother to put a relaxer in my hair. And for more than 20 years, it’s a process I went through every eight weeks.

But after a while, my hair just wasn’t the same. Extremely short from all the breakage and dry! Some people might wonder why I’d even bother to straighten my hair in the first place when there was so much I could have done with my natural hair. The simple truth is at THAT time, I didn’t know that was even an option. It was either you straighten your hair or it was considered “nappy” and that wasn’t cute. And no kid wanted to feel NOT beautiful.

By the time I got to my 20s, there seemed to be a shift where more folks were embracing their natural hair. Suddenly, products were being marketed to care for our kinks and coils and there were endless videos on YouTube showing ways to style it. After a bad experience with a weave, I eventually made the decision to stop relaxing and embrace what naturally grew out of my scalp. And I haven’t looked back.

There are so many people who share similar hair journeys. My goal is to help build confidence so others feel free to authentically express themselves.