Good hair

I am enjoying Thanksgiving and watching a movie with the aforementioned title.

I had a weave in my hair once - it cost me several hundred dollars. Granted, I was earning a decent wage at the time, but it was still an obscene amount to pay. I sat there for hours and hours, having my own hair braided tightly and I mean tightly into corn rows. I then proceeded to have tracks of hair sewn onto the braids. The end result was hair down past my shoulders which looked Oprah-esque. I was not thrilled. It was, after all, not the look I was going for. I wanted to go to work the next day and have people wonder what I had done, not be aghast that I had grown my hair overnight. I opted to have my hair shortened to a couple of inches longer than my own - all this for several hundreds of dollars. After a week of a serious headache, I went back to the store and had the extra hair removed - it was too much for me - the price of beauty was too high to pay and I opted out.

I was blessed to have a great hairstylist in Utah - Charlotte Johnson kept my hair looking beautiful for the 5+ years I spent under her care - the wives of the Utah Jazz basketball team went there to get their hair done - TLC Elegante was the name of the salon - I spent many happy and interesting hours there. I felt blessed to be able to afford getting my hair done at such an exclusive place, and looked beautiful.

When I came to New York, I was certain that I would find another Charlotte and a place - if not several - from which to choose to keep my hair looking "good". Without fail, when I asked the women with beautiful hair, they would confide in me that it was a weave, not their own hair.

I am watching this movie, and am frankly appalled with how much monies change hands to help black people look white and "pass" for beautiful or getting their hair to look "good". Why can't we be happy with what God has blessed us with?

My mum and I are seriously considering forgoing our straightened hair in favor of twists - wish us luck!