Swimming with afro hair

December 03rd, 2009 Comments(0)
My daughter had swim lessons all through last winter and I promised myself that I wouldn’t punish myself like that again i.e. dragging us out of bed early on Saturday mornings to brave the ice and snow.  But as winter approaches, I find myself reconsidering my position.  While that process goes on, I thought I would share a few tips on how I take care of my daughter’s afro hair while she goes swimming.  I have to confess that seeing the other kids with straight hair in the water leaves me with a little straight-hair-envy, however, natural kinky afro hair does just fine with a few precautions.
 
Restrain hair before swimming
Unless the hair is already short and in a shrunken state, don’t let your daughter jump into the water with unrestrained hair.  It’s going to shrink up, may look unattractive and worse yet, may get badly tangled.  Plait, braid, cornrow or hold with hairbands and plait the ends.  For my daughter, cornrows work best especially when she’s swimming on a week night.  After swimming, her hair is still good to go to school the following day.  On occasions where I had her hair secured in bands with the ends plaited, her hair still looked good to go the following day, but when I take out the bands days later, I would notice excessive dryness around the bands. 
 
Always condition and rinse after the swim
If there is one rule that must always be adhered to, this is it.  No matter the state of the hair, unrestrained, cornrowed, braided etc, as soon as she’s of the water, I slather conditioner all over her hair and send her into the shower.  Depending on your normal hair routine, you may want to use shampoo.  I have even heard about special anti-chlorine shampoos but do not know much about them.  I only co-wash my daughter’s hair (co-wash means washing with a conditioner only) and so far, have found that to be adequate.  The good thing about washing while the hair is restrained is that there is no combing or detangling necessary.  I skipped this step once because we were really in a hurry and I decided we would wash her hair at home.  By the time I got around to it, her hair stank of chlorine.  I am not worried that my daugher’s hair will turn green (from black), but afro hair is already prone to dryness and you want to avoid drying it out even more.
 
Precondition
Hair is less likely to absorb the chlorine water from the pool if it is already wet.  So it is a good idea to run through the shower before leaping into the pool.  But because we often arrive at swim class with no time to spare, this shower is a luxury.  Instead, I pour some conditioner into my hands and massage into the hair.  Better still, I now plan to keep a spray bottle of diluted conditioner (some conditioner added to distilled water) in her swim bag for a pre-swim spritz.
 
Blowdry on cold days
Before stepping back out into a cold winter day, make sure the hair is dry.  But again, be careful that you are not over-drying the hair.  Also remember, use a warm (not hot) setting, hold it at least 6 inches away from the hair and move it around.  I also add some moisturizer oil like olive cream or shea butter before drying.  And make sure you have packed a nice, warm hat to cover the head before stepping out.  On warm, summer days, you can obviously skip this step and allow the hair to air-dry.
 
Use a swim cap
This is something I’m considering getting but I do not know if my daughter will want to wear it or if it will make a difference.  But I do imagine that keeping your hair covered will keep out some of the chlorine water, so it is definitely worth a try.

First bad haircut

April 13th, 2009 Comments(1)

Relaxing after a busy Saturday morning filled with kids Easter festivities, hubby lugged Baby Brother’s high chair up the stairs into the bathroom.  He also handed me his electric shaver, then took it back to demonstrate how to turn it on and off.  It’s time to cut baby brother’s hair.  And I’m going to do it.

I said I could do it.  I said I would do it.  Hubby said he could do it but would prefer a pro.  Everyone said we should do it.  By everyone, I mean our Nigerian friends in church.  Nigerians are a group of very concerned people and they have spent Sunday after Sunday attempting to diagnose the root cause of Baby Brothers uncut hair.  After all, he’s 5 months past the one year old mark.  And his head is not full of soft curly shiny hair either.  And his fro is not even evenly distributed – he’s got a big heap at the top of his head.  But I like it.  Hubby does too.  But after too many concerned expressions which yielded to dismay whenever we joked that we were keeping his hair so it could be braided, we succumed to peer pressure and decided “off with his hair”.

Back to the hair cut.  The task fell to me.  Hubby couldn’t bear to watch.  Well, he didn’t say so, but why else would he disappear after giving me a short demo on how to use the shaver?

I couldn’t control the shaver – it’s too quick.  The boy wouldn’t hold his head still.  A disastrous combination.  After creating two bald spots, I threw the shaver aside and grabbed my pair of hair scissors.  This I could control.  Instead of the rapid, vrooom, I snipped snipped snipped.  I wasn’t doing too bad, but if only the boy would hold his head still…  He wasn’t disagreeable, in fact he hummed “twinkle twinkle little star” happily as he rocked his head from side to side.  But I needed to create a smooth finish.

I rushed out to find a lollipop stick.  I found one stick.  Just one.  It did the trick.  I carefully did micro snip, micro snip, micro snips as I leveled off his hair.  But the lollilop was gone before I was finished.  And he was back to rocking his head from side to side.  Well, I guess we’re done.  Almost level  is better than not at all.

I looked into his face, and my baby was gone.  In his place was a more mature looking little boy.  “I want my baby back!” I thought.  But over the last 48 hours, I’ve gotten used to the new face.  And I can only expect the next cut to be better anyway, I’ve gotten my practice in.

Hair conversations with my daughter

December 09th, 2008 Comments(0)

I have natural hair, and so does my daughter.  Hers is soft and silky.  Mine is still trying to find itself.  It’s been an interesting journey, changing my approach to hair care, redefining my assumptions about hair.  No mineral oils and petrolatum.  And so far, I find my hair does not take to any oil, except when I put it in twists.  No oils means I need less shampooing.  Washing with a conditioner works well for me.  Glycerine products (Sta Soft Fro specifically) work like a charm for me in summer.  Winter is still a challenge for me.

As I fix my daughter’s hair (I often french braid or do a few plaits or twists), I wonder why anyone with hair like hers would ever want to ruin it.  While I struggle with dry hair in winter, hers stays soft and moisturized.  So I hurt when she says “mommy, can you make my hair straight?”  She tells me that her friend Tim (not real name) told her that her mommy needs to brush her hair a hundred times for it to be straight.  “Mommy, can you brush my hair one hundred times?”  Apparently, Tim has a sister and that’s how Tim’s mom makes his sister’s hair straight.

“Some people have straight hair and some people have very very curly hair like you and me”, I explain.  “And your hair is very pretty.  Do you know that?”

“Yes I do.  But my friend B has straight hair and her hair is pretty too”.  “I think her hair is called blond”, she added.

She continued, “mommy, I think white people have straight hair that is blond.  And brown people don’t have straight hair”.

“That’s right”, I agreed.

She immediately jumped on that.  “But mommy, some brown people have straight hair”.  She went on to list two friends who are brown with straight hair.

“I think they made their hair straight and people can do that if they want to.  But you see, your hair is so beautiful that you don’t have to make it straight.  And you can do so many things with your hair.”

“Ok. Can you make my hair straight?”

All hair must be straight. Period.

December 06th, 2008 Comments(0)

I spent Friday night blog hopping rather than sleeping (or catching up on housework) and came across this post about a mother’s love/hate relationship with her hair.  I couldn’t help laughing as I read:

Aunty come make I fix you.
Aunty come make I fix you.
I can hear them calling from Tejuosho Market

Correct Chinese
Expensive Brazilian
Virgin Indian
No one sells African hair.

Memories of Tejuosho market came flooding back.  Walking through the market, the vendors would repeat their calls, directing their wares at me.  They would look confused, wondering if I was perhaps deaf.  Afterall, my hair often looked like it needed to be fixed.

Fixing Hair Was Torture

I dreaded having my hair fixed, but fixing hair was a fact of life.  So I did it, but less frequently than I should have.  I loved the weaves - short, long, wavy, curly, brown, black, mixed.  I never did blond.  I loved the braids, but never did the ‘million braids’ despite admiring everyone who carried it.  For that, my dread of the hours of sitting exceeded my desire to look good.  When I did put in the effort, I would love the outcome of my hairdo, that is after the tension eased from my scalp.  I would love it untill the itching and scratching started some 4 or 5 days later.  But better bear the itch than endure the ‘unfixing’ and the detangling.  My permed hair was a little kinder, yet it never felt quite satisfactory.  Flat and lifeless in week one, plump and smooth in week two (if only I could freeze it in this state), frizzy in week three, undergrowth palaver in week four.  I won’t even talk about the burn of the relaxer … and why do the hairdressers have to turn the dryer heat so high?

What’s Wrong With My Natural Hair

I came to the United States with a weave, and it became inevitable that I had to remove it someday.  Nobody called out ’aunty make I fix you’.  “Where do I fix my hair?”, I asked.  I found it and also learned how much it would cost.  “Yikes!”, I exclaim to myself.  “Is it not just hair?”  For someone who despaired over the discomfort of getting my hair fixed even when it was free, I wasn’t going to pay that much money for someone to torture me.  I quickly figure out ways of administering the torture to myself.  I experiment with relaxers, hoping to find in the United States, that magical formula for beautiful, straight, long hair.  It eluded me.  But I got by.

I gave up the self torture and resigned to outsource it.  Perhaps the formula is an attribute of technique – the golden touch of the hairstylist.  And indeed they wielded a special touch, but nothing that could stand up to week one’s ‘flat and lifeless’.  “Why don’t you come back every two weeks for maintenance?”, the stylist suggested when I shared my frustration. 

“Why don’t you get it braided?”, hubby asked.  But I had already decided “not that torture”.  Back in Nigeria, when it came time to remove the braids, there were always many hands to assist.  Not here in the US.

I started to ask myself questions about hair.  “Why do I have to braid it?  Why did I ever perm it?  Actually, I begged and cajoled.  After all, being straight was the destination of every hair.  Perming was a sign of maturity.  “When you’re 16″, my mom said, but she gave in when I was 12.  And I thanked God that she did so that I wasn’t the kid everyone whispered about in school, the kid who’s being held in the dark ages by her parents.  Why did our entire society have that view of hair?  All hair must be straight.  Period.  What’s wrong with our natural hair anyway?

First Attempt At Natural Hair

Nothing’s wrong with my natural hair, I told myself as I contemplated going natural.  Then I had a baby girl.  I looked at her pretty hair and I wondered what the future of that hair would be.  Would she burn her scalp with relaxer trying to get her hair straight?  Would she spend all her energy trying to tame her hair like it was some wild beast?  Would she think she was less than the next person because of her hair?  What example am I setting for her?  I grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped off my permed hair. 

I loved the feel of water running through my scalp as I showered.  I could feel it everyday.  It started to grow a bit, started to get more difficult to comb.  I went to a store and grabbed a curl activator kit.  I applied it but it seemed to make no difference.  “The kit is for shorter hair”, a friend suggested.  I got two kits, doubled the application.  It made my hair crisp and curly at the ends.  I really mean crisp though, and no easier to comb.

Another trip to the store to get a relaxer kit put an end to my natural hair dreams.

Second Attempt With Some Education

Three years later, I stumbled across websites on natural hair care – ourhair and nappturality.  I read about the struggles others have gone through in trying to return to their natural hair.  I read about the triumphs when they were successful.  And most importantly, I read that natural hair is not necessarily difficult to comb, difficult to manage, not a monster of a wild beast.  That struck a cord with me.  Even though three years earlier, I had dealt with the unmanageable hair, I recalled that prior to initially perming my hair at age 12, my hair was in fact, not difficult to manage.  And my daughters hair was actually rather soft.  I resolved to go natural again, and decided to stick with the plan for at least two years.  With more education about natural hair at my finger tips, I was able to stick with the plan.

It’s been two years and I’m not planning to apply a relaxer anytime soon.  In fact, I’m more motivated now than ever before to stick to my natural hair.  When my daughter starts counting off all the people with straight hair, I want her to be able to point to at least one person with natural hair.  The only way I can guarantee that is by being that person.

This post is getting longer than I intended.  Apparently I have hair vents to let go off and will require more than one post to get them out.  This will be continued.