Sunday Question: Advice For The Someone Going Natural

"2nd Day" hair from a braid out on Friday

At work on Friday, I got into a small discussion with a co-worker about hair. She compliments a lot of my styles, especially when my hair is big and loose, and often says how she wishes her hair could do that.

"My hair is a brillo pad," she always says. "You have a good grade of hair, that's why you can wear it like that."

I'm always startled whenever someone mentions "good hair" because I don't believe in it, and also never know what to say to that. If I wasn't so thrown off, I would muster up a response explaining that there's no such thing as "good hair" and that you just need to learn how to take care of it; that it's true that people have a problem with perceptions of beauty and "kinky" hair is expected to be "tamed" instead of admired or "owned" as SP wrote the other day. Alas, I'm not that eloquent on the spot and I have difficulty in talking to people who are "set in their ways of thinking" (like the notion of "good" and "bad" hair) because I find it more beneficial to show them instead. Ironically I didn't realize that I've been showing my co-worker for a long time that natural hair is awesome through the styles I wear at work and as a weave-wearer with relaxed hair, she wanted to learn how to work with her natural hair as well. I finally picked up on it when on Friday she said that she had a stylist do a twist-out that came out horribly because her hair was just too dry, and that she went back to the weave but opted not to get her hair relaxed and used a hot comb instead to blend because she really doesn't want to process it anymore. It suddenly dawned upon me that all this time she was trying to get me to help her with her with her hair! So a little later that afternoon after being on gChat with SP agonizing over the situation (would it be offensive to tell recommend products, tell her that there's no such thing as bad hair etc - I've had a bad experience with this before!) I walked over to her and chatted with her about hair, then gave her SP's info for styling. She was relieved and happy for the chat - whew!

So I guess today's question is, What is your quickie advice for someone thinking of going natural for the first time?

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