I relax my hair for vanity. I like it super straight unless I’m going for the wash and wear/don’t hate me because I’m beautiful look which is textured and wavy.
After being laid off, I kept Jordan’s and my regular hair appointments like we were rich white women normal, everyday people with enough disposable income to spend on salon services, class or race being indeterminate in our propensity to continue such activity. Every other week, I was writing a check for either $85 or, if it was relaxer time for each of us, $120. One question you never ask a black girl is if her hair is a necessary budget item. Yes. It is. And never speak of it again.
Some time around Christmas, I caught my biennial skip the relaxer bug mainly because I’d hit a financial wall. Where was I going everyday except to the kitchen to pour myself a drink? A hundred bucks a month was a ridiculous amount to pay to look fabulous for the baby attached to my hip and no one else but me. But the thing is: my hair is used to the relaxer, it likes the relaxer, and when it doesn’t get the relaxer, it breaks off in clumpy protest. At some point it becomes unmanageable and I start to rock the constant ponytail.
Jordan’s hair is a different texture which cannot survive without being straightened, plus she has school everyday for which she insists on looking cute even after a few missed baths. I argue not with teenage logic and I do have fairly clear memories of my being the stinky kid with fabulously long hair. I digress.
Saving the monthly hundred dollars is a sacrifice I am willing to make until I get a job (lined up for mid-2017), and I am sacrificing the hair itself. There is no way I can avoid the scissors to cut the brambles and thorns growing beneath my scrunchie. Most of it will have to go even though my supernatural stylist will insist she can save what I think I have lost.
I’ve worn my hair short before. Once, it was so short, I had image-conscious, insecure men I was dating begging me to grow it out while lipsticks and butchies were falling all over me at gallery openings and cocktail parties. I won’t go that short again, not because I didn’t enjoy the attention from beautiful women—I simply have a different style in mind this time.
Keeping it brambly until a firm job offer in comments…
(sigh) My hair is super curly in the back but straight in the front. What the hell is up with THAT? I have been natural for a few months (since last summer). Look at the chicks at the teahouse and see their natural hair and it’s BEAUTIFUL while mine is a fro hybrid.
It’s just not fair.
I spend WAY too much maintaining my short haircut, but it is fun. I think you’ll like shorter hair. Sending good job hunt vibes. . .
Only rich white women keep hair appointments. “The More You Know”
I have to say I’m utterly amazed and inspired by your resolve and ability to manage all that you do while hunting for the steady gig.
I used to enjoy the utter luxury of getting my hair done. Honestly think there’s almost nothing better than the feel of someone’s hands washing your hair. I so wanted to let myself fall asleep and would have were it not for the fact that I snore normally but it’s at least ten times worse with my head pitched backwards (think the latest set of Nyquil commercials). In the end kept thinking about how much I’d save in both time and dollars doing it myself.
So now I maintain my own dreds but oddly enough have no idea where the $80 I’m supposedly saving keeps going.
Oh well.
–Orion
Okay, rich white women and black people one step away from homelessness. Better?
I’m rich? I had no idea.
Light-hearted, sarcastic classism lost to the editorial process. Correction issued.