Why I Hate My Hair

MICHIGAN AVENUE NON-FICTION WINNER 2012

I don’t even remember when I started hating my hair. But I know why.

I hate my hair because it hangs off my head, dead. I use the term “hang” because that’s literally what it does. It hangs, limp and decayed, except when it rains. The heavens are giddy with joy when they get the opportunity to ruin my day. Clouds burst forth with water that gives me big, nappy hair. My hair frizzes up and I look exactly like the love child (or rather, spawn) of Medusa and Chewbacca.

Mostly, I hate my hair because it’s not one color. Starting at my roots down about four inches, my hair is dark brown. From there down to my shoulder blades, it is five different shades of brown, light brown, orange, blonde and red. I’ve gone against the advice of every sane person I’ve come in contact with. Back in September, I decided to bleach my hair.

A boy I met in a political science class I took in the summer of 2010 intrigued me because, like me, he sat in the back of the class and slept most of the hour while my professor lectured about why marijuana should be legalized.

“I like your Transformers messenger bag, Comic Book Girl,” he said coolly one day after class. ‘Comic Book Girl’ was what he called me. It was his little pet name for me.

“Thanks, I like your beard,” I said back.

It was true—I absolutely adored his beard, and all beards for that matter. To me, beards are symbolic for wisdom. If you see a man stroking his beard, you assume he’s in deep thought, correct? Dumbledore had a beard, and Dumbledore was wise according to Harry Potter. Beard and all, this guy was totally cool. But, like me, he was a total fool.

So after an entire semester of trying to get an ounce of wisdom out of this boy and his beard, on the last day of class I opened my compact mirror and narcissistically stared at my reflection. I pointed out every imperfection to him, hoping he would shower me with compliments. He gently rolled his hooded head over on the table to face me. Without opening his eyes he said, “You would look smokin’ hot with blonde hair. You’d look exactly like Nicki Minaj.” Before I could reply, he rolled his head back and let our professor’s voice lull him back to sleep.

I let his words sink into my brain. I figured it would be easy to turn black hair platinum blonde. With $20 in my pocket and some bad advice, I went up to Michigan Avenue and walked into the first beauty supply store I found. It was a hole in the wall named something sassy like “Foxxy Beauty Supply.” I liked the name because it reminded me of Foxy Brown (who has fabulous hair). I was still on a mission though: I didn’t want black, natural hair like Foxy Brown, I wanted a different female rapper’s platinum blonde hair, in the likes of Ms. Minaj.

I entered the store through the back. Inside the store, wigs filled the inside of a locked case, extensions were mounted on the wall, and boxes of dye were fully stocked on the shelves next to relaxers.

I had absolutely no idea what I had gotten myself into and I didn’t know how to get those luscious, golden locks I desired so badly. I turned to Foxxy herself, who stood behind the cash register, reading a gossip magazine, chomping on pink bubble gum. Her long, fake finger nails reached up behind her hair and scratched at the scalp between the big, fake braids. Without looking at me, she flipped the page in her magazine and said, “What can I help you with?” I marched up to the cash register and said, “Give me bleach or give me death!.” I was nineteen. I was an idiot.

I almost fried off all my hair with bleach.

My bleached hair requires so much care, which is another reason I hate it. A single shampoo takes upwards of 30 minutes. Conditioning takes an additional 45. Add on blow drying and my hair and I are up to 90 minutes total. Then I have to burn off whatever hope my hair has left between two charred, ceramic coated plates (heated up to no less than 400 degrees). This sacrificial ritual takes nearly 60 minutes, completing total hair-care timing to around 2.5 hours. Because, of course, afterwards I have to style my hair (if there’s anything left of it). You wouldn’t send your poodle out of the groomer’s without curling and dying her fur pink first, would you?

I hate my hair because it’s real. I pass by all the girls at school, at the grocery store, at work and in line, all with their fake, Indian-imported hair and envy seeps out of my every pore. How have they been so lucky to have beautiful hair that doesn’t frizz up in the rain? Why don’t the ends of their hair split off into two separate ways? Why don’t they have to go through 2.5 hours each day to make their hair look somewhat presentable? And how come when they get their hair wet, it doesn’t look exactly like curly fries? I, on the other hand, have been forced to sit and stew in my own hatred for the past 19 years at the straw that grows out of my head each day.

One day after I had botched my hair with bleach, I asked a girl I worked with why she had decided to get a weave, instead of letting her tresses grow out naturally. At the cash register next to me, I looked over at her hair, admiring all of the fakeness it embodied. Long, straight, slick and red, it was so beautiful. She rang up a customer and wished them a good day. As her next customer came up, I asked what it was like to have a weave.

“Expensive and itchy,” she said, patting the back of her head and greeting the next customer in line with a big, fake smile, “But so worth it. You should get one. You cut off all your hair. You save about 3 checks.” I calculated how much money I would accrue in 6 weeks at minimum wage, working 15 hours a week. Having a weave was worth $600? I started a weave fund that night.

I hate my hair because that is what society tells me to do. And like many others, I want to be a contributing member of society. Television ads show pearly-toothed, wide eyed, beautiful girls with hair 50 miles long passing by, swinging their hair back and forth outside of a van window. Their hair is always shining in the sunlight, long, straight, one colored, and healthy. Radio advertisements ask me as I drive to work every day, “Do you have dry, boring hair with split ends?” I nod in agreement as I turn the volume dial up to learn the secrets of having moisturized, healthy hair that’s full of pizzazz.

Last but not least, I hate my hair because my eight-year-old sister with her bouncing, curly, dark brown hair absolutely loves my hair. I hate my hair because my best friend with her short, wavy, blonde hair loves my hair. I hate my hair because my mother with her long, bone-straight, brown hair loves my hair. I hate my hair because years ago, my ancestors would have looked at my hair and loved every inch of it, because their masters had told them that they had bad hair.