Even though I will be posting this again when I do post about the results of the henna experiment here is a copy of the recipe that I will be using when I do Henna:

* 100g of BAQ henna
* 1/4 c of greek yogurt
* 1/4 c of honey
* juice of half of a large lemon

this is a recipe that I received from a friend who’s parent’s are from India where henna is widely used for hair, skin, and nail care. She says that henna use is the reason that Indian women can grow their hair to be knee and ankle length. It moisturizes and conditions the hair and also helps to prevent breakage according to her. This beautiful lady’s hair extremely thick and is almost to her knees, sooo I’m gonna take her advice into account when it comes to hair.

HAIR CARE TIP OF THE DAY: always use a protective silk covering for the hair at night no matter if the hair is relaxed, transitioning, natural, braided, or locked. The covering will help to greatly reduce hair breakage thus retaining length.

                             TO WEAVE OR NOT TO WEAVE:

                               WHY IS THAT STILL AN ISSUE? 

  Just a few days ago I overheard my black neighbors downstairs (I say they are black because I live in a predominately Hispanic apartment complex to the point the management changed the name of the complex to Spanish Village from Inway Village, but I digress) commenting on my hair. The wife said, “ I know good and well that black people don’t grow hair that long. I wonder what brand of hair [weave] she uses.” then the husband says “ That is her hair. I looked and I never saw any tracks showing. She must be mixed with Mexican. That’s why she gets along with them so well. I even heard her speaking Spanish once.” Then the wife says, “why you looking at her that hard to see if she got tracks n***er! That b**ch ain’t mixed. She just as black as your black ass. She got weave!!!” then they actually came up the stairs just to ask me if I had weave. My reaction was “Dude …. Seriously?” I was about to close the door then I decided to ask” why does it even matter to you? If I don’t have weave its my hair because I grew it but, if I do have weave, its still my hair because I bought it with my money. You knowing one way or the other won’t change anything so why is it even an issue?” they just walked away with the conclusion that because I wouldn’t say “yes” or “no”, I did indeed have a weave. I still want to know the answer to my question, why is it still an issue?

I can remember as far back as 1989, when girls were wearing Vidal Sassoon products as all the rage, there was a song called “hair or weave”. Girls and women would want the look of long thick locks and would buy a weave to achieve that but deny that they did, even though their grew 6 to 10 inches overnight. This was the way it was in the greater population black, white, or Hispanic. Nowadays, the Hispanic and white population could care less if their fellow sister knows what’s going on with their hair, just as long as it looks good. We, on the other hand, attach a stigma to the weave. Once we see a sister with long beautiful hair, we assume it’s a weave because there is no way she grew that. I don’t understand it. Yes it is possible for a black woman to grow long hair, and just because she did doesn’t mean one of her parents isn’t black.

On the other hand, when we see a woman with short hair we assume she can’t grow any hair and the first thing we do once we get angry with her we call her baldheaded, no matter if she is bald or if she has ear length locs. Apparently there are those out there that think being called bald headed is the worst thing you can call a black woman. Guess what guys, being called bald headed isn’t the end of the world and most black women with short hair can grow hair, they just choose to cut it short because it’s easier to maintain. I know because I wore mine so short that you couldn’t even grasp it for 2 and a half years. Now I have hair around my shoulders. Just because a woman has short doesn’t mean that its really short because some women braid their long hair and sew in a short weave because she want’s to rock that look for a few weeks.

The answer to the nosy neighbors questions is this, I have both. My real hair grows so fast that when I did wear it short I would have to get it cut every three days in order to keep it so short. Now my real hair is on top of my shoulders but I do braid my hair and have a few tracks that extend past my shoulders a few inches sewn on top. This leaves less damage to my own hair, when I want long hair I can have it , when I want short hair I can sew in a short weave and not cut my hair length, when I want a different color hair I can achieve that without dying my own. I don’t see the problem with it and for all of those people that does, all I have to say is this, Dude…Seriously ?

I guess it is needless to say that if you are a black woman in these united states of america, you have had at least one day a month where you have lamented over the way your hair looks. I know I have that day at least twice a week.  I sometimes have nightmares about all of the times that I was teased as a child, not because I was bald headed or had short hair like some of the other outcast girls in my elementary school, but because of the way it was styled and how thick it was.  I also have nightmares of the times that it would take my mother at least 30 minutes to “take down” my hair because it was in braids. She would then wash it in the kitchen sink several times while I hope aginst hope that I wouldn’t drown from all of the water running down my face and hope my eyes didn’t burn out and become permenantly blind from all of the soap in my eyes. Then came the really scarry part, ( dun dun dun!!!) the part where my mom towel dries my hair and decides to try to pull a comb trough my wet, kinky, non relaxed, hair so she can braid it. Not only does she decide to do this while it is wet, instead of beginning at the tips of the hair and working her way up, which would be the less painful route, she always decided to begin at the root of the hair, by the scalp and pull the comb straight down through every kink and tangle!!!  All the while, she’s demanding that I be still as a statue the entire time she is inflicting this torture on me!!!  I would have to sit through this for at least one hour until she finishes the artwork she has decided needs to go into my head. I would then have to try my best to sleep without my head touching the pillow too much so i could maintain this style without it getting too fuzzy before the torture happens all over again in about a week or two. Oh the horror!!! The worst part of this sad nightmare is this, here i am today doing the exact same torture to my oldest daughter, the only difference is this, I have one upced the torture adding the extra stress of adding 12 to 16 inch braid extentions into my daughter’s hair every week all in the name of style.  And so the saga contiues.

Stay tuned for the next post entitled “To Weave or Not To Weave”