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"    Photo: Courtesy of Joslyn Blair For those living under a rock, hair is a big deal to African American women and black women all over the world. We spend hours on it, whether it&amp;#039;s in the salon getting it straightened, braiding it up, applying extensions\u2014the list goes on. We sleep in satin scarves or on silk pillowcases and stereotypically run from the rain in fear of frizz, all in attempt to make sure our hair is on point at all times. Why don&amp;#039;t we just let it run wild? Many will say it&amp;#039;s their personal preference, but I believe it is to avoid the scrutiny of others, and many times it&amp;#039;s from other black women (Note the media backlash Beyonce gets for &amp;quot;not brushing&amp;quot; baby Blue&amp;#039;s curly mane). An editor at HarpersBazaar.com recently wrote a piece, defending her decision to relax her hair. I thought I would put in my two cents on why I don&amp;#039;t. After polling my friends for their hair stories, I noticed that we all had the same beginning. We started getting relaxers around the age of eight (one friend at the age of four\u2026yikes!). I will admit that it was an exciting day for me. Once my grandmother rinsed the chemicals out in her kitchen sink, I ran to the mirror to see my once kinky strands loosely hanging in waves around my face. I felt like Michael Jackson during his jerri curl phase. Growing up in an all-Caucasian school, I was tired of my hair poofing during recess and someone always asking to touch my thick, wild locks. I remember putting a T-shirt on my head at home and pretending it was long and straight. Related: Relaxed Hair, Don&amp;#039;t Care. It Looks Better This Way Once our hair reached a certain amount of thickness and volume, our mothers no longer knew what to do with it. They and generations before were made to understand that their texture was something to be tamed, put away or straightened. And so, we set out to touch it up every six to eight weeks for the rest of our lives. Now that&amp;#039;s commitment. By the summer of 2009, I had been relaxing for 16 years. I was weighing my career options and was considering teaching overseas in Japan. There were many factors why I decided not to. I was in a relationship. I was afraid I&amp;#039;d be homesick; but I also remember thinking: &amp;quot;How would I get my hair done?&amp;quot; I didn&amp;#039;t like that my hair was holding me back from making life choices. Not only that, but I started to question why my hair never grew beyond a certain point. Why it seemed thinner than it did five years ago. And WHY was I traveling two hours from Brooklyn to the Bronx to get my hair done at the only salon I liked in this city. So, I cut my hair to my ears and started growing it out. This process has been coined as &amp;quot;transitioning&amp;quot; and it&amp;#039;s the only stage I will admit is hard to manage. As I grew more of my real texture, my relaxed ends looked so sad and thin in comparison. I discovered a huge number of YouTube  videos  and blogs with natural hair gurus who recorded their journeys to natural. I learned what my hair likes, what makes it grow, what causes breakage and what products work best for me. Now my hair is longer than it&amp;#039;s ever been. Admittedly, long hair gets a lot gets a lot of attention because there is a myth that women of color can&amp;#039;t grow hair far past their shoulders. Related: How I Embraced My Roots and Went Shampoo Free I don&amp;#039;t knock women for relaxing, but I don&amp;#039;t agree with the idea that getting relaxers is easier than wearing your hair the way it grows naturally. Here was a typical Saturday for me back in the day every other month: I was back at the salon, going through a process of relaxing, my scalp burning from the chemicals (and sometimes I would leave with weird, translucent scabs), washing, and conditioning. Then I would sit under the dryer for an hour, before my rollers were taken out, followed by my stylist blow drying it the rest of the way, then came the flat ironing, and finally a trim. The whole process took up at least 5 hours of my precious weekend. Since it took so long, I would stretch out that session over the span of two weeks or so. I&amp;#039;d get a flaky, itchy scalp with tons of product buildup. There is a stigma that natural hair is hard to maintain, takes a lot of time, or is unruly, but for me, keeping up the relaxer was more taxing. The word &amp;quot;relaxer&amp;quot; itself implies that kinky hair is something that needs taming. Even with all the new information and products out there, there is a pool of people who still do not understand how easy it can be to take care of your texture. I spend about 20 minutes at night on mine if I care, zero minutes if I throw it all into a bun. I have also discovered that my hair can still be stick straight with a good blow dryer and flat iron. I wish women could be comfortable either way. But some women worry that whether they relax their hair or not will affect them socially, and it might. I had one friend tell me a staffing agent said she wasn&amp;#039;t getting hired because of her hair, even though her &amp;#039;fro was pulled back in a neat bun. Or, even romantically: will men still find them attractive? Related: Get a Stella McCartney Runway-Approved Bun I encourage women to dig deep and really admit to themselves why they still relax. I think we look amazing with straight or natural hair. I do agree there are some very pushy naturals out there. But I pose questions such as these: Do you think straight hair is more manageable because that is what you have been taught and it&amp;#039;s all you know? Do you think it looks better on you because that is how you have always seen yourself? If these questions don&amp;#039;t spark thought, then perhaps it really is just a matter of preference. I have friends who are natural now and say there&amp;#039;s no promise that they wouldn&amp;#039;t slap some &amp;quot;creamy crack&amp;quot; on their heads again tomorrow to switch up their look. More power to those that have risen above the deep insecurities that still plague many women of color in America and around the world. I have reached a point where most times I forget I&amp;#039;m &amp;quot;natural.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s just the hair I was given and it works for me. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/beauty/hair/news/a15315/why-i-dont-relax-my-hair/>