Quick hair story- When I was a teenager, I did not believe that my hair was special or pretty enough to really accomplish some styles. I was never educated on proper maintenance until I found YouTube and other sites about natural hair.
I never knew that there was so much information I was missing out on. I thought my hair was supposed to hurt when it was made “beautiful.” There were so many myths I believed about my hair and even though I believed these things about my hair, on a suggestion from my mother and sister, I decided to stay natural.
13 myths I believed when I was 13:
Natural hair cannot grow
The first myth I “learned” was natural hair cannot grow past a certain point. Even though certain black women had long hair, I had reasoned that their hair was a weave.
Because I had tried to grow my hair out and other girls had as well, but the difference was that their hair hung past their shoulders and mine, still natural, did not.
Okay, some still believe natural hair cannot grow past a certain point, but we see that that is not true. You can check out growth articles and length retention articles to see what you may be doing wrong. Black natural hair can grow to tail bone length just like Indian hair. One hint, stop combing your hair when it is dry.
If your hair gets to be long, it is because you are mixed
Your hair length, I thought, always had something to do with your ethnicity. Why? I had watched Good Hair and learned that black women spend hundreds and thousands to wear Brazilian, Indian, or Puerto Rican hair, but no one wanted our hair because it could not grow.
So, anyone who had long hair and said it was natural was mixed. That is not true either, natural hair can grow and black natural hair can grow with a little tender love and care.
If I relaxed my hair, my hair would be better
I was always taught by media and my peers that relaxed hair was better than natural hair because it is shiny and pretty. The truth is that a lot of young women have a false image of what beauty is because of media’s portrayal of it.
Commercials that portrayed black women would always bring women who had straightened hair and not women with my hair texture. These women were always seen as beautiful and happy, but just because the media likes to portray something as true doesn’t mean it is actually true.
Relaxing hair is known to cause more damage than the media lets on, and yes, you can have healthy relaxed hair but a lot of thirteen-year-olds are not taught to care for their hair so they have problems with balding.
Relaxing your hair does not make it better, there are so many ways to improve your natural hair. For example, you can take biotin*, vitamins*, and eat healthy to make your hair better. Do not think you need to chemically change/alter your hair to make it better.
Tania Banks says
I needed this article…..I’ve been natural for two years now and my hair has only gotten to a a certain length. I’ve grown frustrated because I’ve seen other women who have done the same thing and their hair has grown so much more. I believed that I needed a professional to do my hair but the times I have gone to them, they’ve slapped weave or braids or something in it. This journey has been hard but this article has given me some type of hope. Thank you.