It’s Just Hair, right?

Ok, I left off yesterday with one of my most devastating hair stories.   Today, I’ll share another.   Stay with me folks. I’m going somewhere with these stories.

Hair is a very big deal in American culture.  It is very BIG business in the African-American culture, especially.   It is estimated that black hair care is currently a $9 billion industry.  WHOA!!!    One of the rites of passage for many young girls in the African-American community is getting a relaxer. This product is used to straighten kinky or course textured hair.

(Relaxers are a very controversial subject in the world of hair care.  This post is not to debate the issue of to relax or not to relax.    It is simply to share some of my (mis)adventures in the wonderful world of relaxed hair.)

I believe I was in junior high when I received my first relaxer. To be honest it was not my first choice. I begged my mother for a jheri curl…   Before you laugh, let me remind you I grew up during the 80s and 90s, so this would not be unusual.     Anyway, back to my story….   I begged my mother for a jheri curl.    What did she do?   She went to the store and bought a jheri curl kit and a relaxer kit.    I don’t remember how, but my younger sister got the jheri curl and I got the relaxer.   It seemed like the day after my mom put that jheri curl kit on my sister’s hair, curls went out of style.    I’m not kidding you.

I remember over twenty something years ago getting that first relaxer.    It felt like my mother had taken a match and set my hair on fire! My mother and many other mothers weren’t educated to the proper application of a relaxer. This resulted in many chemical burns for me over the years.

One of the worst encounters I can remember was when my mom had one of her best friends relax my hair.    She had a brilliant idea of how to keep me from having a chemical burn.   Her solution: Sea Breeze.    Pour an alcohol based product over a scalp that is basically one big open sore -  NOT one of her best ideas.   Needless, to say, I know what it’s like to have a scab crusted scalp.

One of my other top 5 worst hair days was when I was in college. One of the beautification rituals in my dorm involved doing your hair on the weekends to get ready for whatever event was happening on campus.  This particular weekend I was not able to go home for the weekend to my stylist. Therefore, like the naive (and dumb) 19 or 20 year old that I was at the time, I let my dormmate give me the relaxer.

Here’s where we went wrong.

We violated the basic rules of Relaxer 101.

Relaxer 101

• NEVER use a SUPER relaxer on your hair.   This strength relaxer should have skull and crossbones on it.
• Always use a protective coating on your scalp AND around your hairline.
• NEVER allow another naive (and dumb) 19 or 20 year old to apply your relaxer.

CAUTION, DUMMY: If you do NOT heed Relaxer 101, you will end up like me – with a huge chemical burn right on your forehead as evidence of your stupidity to the world.

I have just one more horror hair story for you tomorrow.   This story is probably one of the most revealing to me about my own personality.

These stories I’m sharing are leading up to a post I have planned about some lessons I’ve learned about my hair and my identity and I want to share them with you.   Leave me a comment about one of your horror hair stories.   If you have any pictures, we would love to see them.   We promise not to laugh (too loudly).