Virgin Hair
By Robin Newburn, D.O. ('93)
“Ooh! She’s got virgin hair, come see!”
What were they talking about?? I suddenly realized they were talking about me…gawking and squawking about the beauty of it, how long and thick it was, and how they couldn’t remember the last time they’d seen anything quite like it. The “it” being my hair. At 15, I was pretty sure I knew what a virgin was, but ‘virgin hair’? - now this was throwing me for a serious loop, and the fact that I was being consumed by the nervousness of my first trip to a hair salon made me realize that I didn’t even want to expend the mental energy trying to figure it out. Being an introvert with a natural disdain and discomfort regarding anything that called attention to myself, I just wanted these beauty shop ladies to stop making such a big deal over it, whatever it was.
I felt the pang and sharpness of the comb carving a part through the center of my shoulder length tresses, followed by the jarring of my neck muscles as the comb tugged through the tangles.
Why were these women so excited about my virgin hair? I finally mustered the courage to ask Linda, the stylist working to tame my mane, what virgin hair was. When she told me that it meant my hair was in its natural state and had never been touched by chemicals, I was awakened to a truth that sent shockwaves through my soul. Millions of Black women on the planet were applying chemicals to transform beautiful naturally textured hair to straightness. But why was this straightness valued over what was natural? For me – my parents had fought this transformation for many years, while I watched every single one of my friends go through it, believing it to be modern and normal, and incorrectly assuming my parents were old fashioned and out of touch. Hindsight really is 20/20.
Linda made sure I understood that she had been given permission by my mother to apply chemicals, aka a “relaxer” to my natural hair that would forever change it by making it straight, and that the wavy texture I’d always known would be no more…there was no turning back. And that if I didn’t commit to getting a “touch up” every 6-8 weeks, my hair would surely suffer serious damage and “break off.”
Linda’s tone was reassuring when she reminded me that she had been doing hair for longer than I had been alive, and that a few of her loyal and satisfied clients included my mother, aunt, and cousins. Dropping in a few “honey”s and “baby”s while she spoke helped to calm my nerves and soothe me like my favorite childhood blanket.
While she talked, I tried to imagine myself running through a meadow of tall breezy grass on a sunny day, just like in the movies – with the wind blowing through my bouncy, shiny, flowing locks. I looked happy and glamorous in the vision, assured that when the kids at school saw me like this, they would no longer have the satisfaction of laughing and calling me “Chaka Khan,” when my waves poofed up and frizzed on rainy or humid days.
Not typically one to shrink away from a challenge, I felt that I was admitting defeat by seeking professional help for the unruly thick mane I had been forced to wrestle with on my own since age 10. A mark of independence according to my mother – much like the milestone of being able to tie your own shoes by the start of kindergarten. Maybe she had just become weary from waging a daily war with wavy tangles while striving to make them look stylish, and decided to throw in the towel. And maybe that is the sentiment that would lead me to subject my own daughters to this same barbaric ritual in my future.
At any rate, one thing was certain – managing hair was taking up too much of my teenage time and freedom. I had other things to do. So, what would it hurt to have my hair made more manageable by being made chemically “bone straight”?
In truth, I have reflected on the deeper answers to this question, and what they have meant to my sense of identity for many years, and from time to time, I still do – trying to understand what it really did hurt.