While the pros and cons of relaxing hair are discussed in detail at black hair salons everywhere, at Nappturality.com, the Internet’s shrine to natural hair, chemical straighteners are not up for debate.
If you ask Patricia “Dee” Gaines, the Rhode Island-reared, Australia-dwelling founder of Nappturality, there are no pros to relaxing your hair.
“Hate is not strong enough word for how I feel about the product,” Gaines told Stereohyped. “Not only do I see what it does to women’s hair, I see what it does to their feelings about themselves. I relaxed for over 20 years. The mindset that I had when I was relaxing my hair for 20 years was that my own hair as it grew out of my head was not acceptable, and no one could tell me any different.”
It was seven years ago that Gaines decided to grow out her relaxer — a product she considers dangerous to the health of womens’ hair, scalp, and spirit — and discover her natural hair. In the process, she discovered many other women like her out there. Women who wanted to stop straightening their hair but were afraid — either because of their jobs, their husbands, or their own negative feelings about their natural locks. It was for them, and for herself, that she launched the Web site community Nappturality (a combination of the words nappy, natural, and spirituality), where members, of which there are currently 67,000, can start threads, post photos, share information, and ask questions pertaining to natural hair.
Although Gaines is based in Australia, the overwhelming majority of Nappturality members are from the United States, and her site gets hits from ever corner of the globe.
“It’s grown into more than a hair site,” she said. “Its started out as a hair site, and its got so much more in it now, and it is expanding outwards. It’s expanding into areas that i didn’t expect it to expand into.”
Several natural hair product businesses have launched in Nappturality’s forums, and Gaines makes it a point to support these businesses whenever possible. She is also currently formulating her own product line that she hopes will be available soon. The site will continue to grow and evolve, she said, but some things will always stay the same.
“I’m never going to change my stance,” she said. “I’m never going to ease my stance against pressing or hair straightening.”
Although Gaines is virulently against hair straightening, it might be more fair to describe her as almost religiously pro-natural hair. One of her goals is to get women to shed what they have always been taught about standards of beauty and see something wonderful in what naturally grows out of their heads.
“It’s playing to our inferiority complex,” she said. “Toward the European standard of beauty. We try to make ourselves as close to that ideal as possible, and the easiest thing to do is straighten our hair. As time goes on we come to believe that we straighten our hair because it’s a styling option and because our hair is difficult.”
But natural hair is not difficult, Gaines said. The problem is that most people, particularly people who are used to styling straightened hair, have no clue how to style and treat natural hair. Rest assured that there are plenty of threads on Nappturality that cover those very topics. And despite the still-very-strong contingent of women with zero interest in giving up their relaxers or hot combs or flat irons, she has witnessed a growing interest in unstraightened hair among black women the world over.
“As we see more and more women with beautiful natural hair out there,” she said, “more women are looking at their hair and thinking, ‘Well, jeez. Their hair is beautiful.’ It’s a little seed that’s planted every time you see a woman walking around with natural hair. Like, why can’t I do that too?”
If this is the cause that gets her up in the morning…more power to ya sista *raises fist up in the air*. She has put more thought into “HAIR” then I ever care to.
The truth is the truth. We all need to ask ourselves why we do what we do because if we’re willing to pay to put foreign chemicals in our hair by the age of 9 on up, we obviously are putting way more thought and effort into our hair than we care to admit.
Second Mo’Ree’s statement. I am not a fan of the site as it didn’t do much for me when I was trying to stay natural but it doesn’t mean it isn’t good for others.
I simply don’t care to think of hair more than the usual “how-am-i-going-to-not-look-HAMtastic-today?” I now have a relaxer which is toxic. Lasering off all the body hair is not natural either but I do it.
My same friends who encouraged me to go natural sans braids (with press & curls for work) are the same ones who talked about my “bad” hair after they tried unsuccessfully to make it look decent so I’m wary of the preachy people now. The insinuation is that you should only go natural if you have “good” hair. I’m still angry that I spent so much time, energy and money on my hair this past summer.
I will never understand why every super militant natural hair advocate ( and I have been natural in the past and present ) feel that because THEY may have been weakminded and filled with self hatred and disgust for their natural texture that everyone else who ever relaxed their hair was the same way. I mean, there are definitely women out there that just do it because they’ve always done it, or have been conditioned to think that their natural hair is ugly or unacceptable - but one person’s experience does not cover the gamut. If you’re happy with your hair for what is it is — either just hair that you can cut, dye, curl or tease at a whim, or an enormous political statement then more power to you. But let me be happy with my hair, regardless of how I choose to style it, in peace.
I definitely think the militant ones have self-hatred issues. My very militant friend stated that she’s only attracted to “high yellow” men. She is very confrontational to black women who don’t have fros, locks, twists or braids (minus yaki). If you’re in everyone’s face about it, my guess is that it’s self-righteous pity. It just seems like it’s a burden to her as it’s taking up so much of her mental real estate.
The majority of women with natural hair aren’t militant, self-righteous or confrontational. To me, the militants politicize hair and everyone else is just living their life.
WHY??? I sooo agree, I don’t understand why relaxing my hair has anything to do with my self-esteem. I have great self-esteem, I have a great daddy, I have had great relationships and friendships, i KNOW i’m gorgeous, and i love my relaxer. I’m black everyday of my life, I don’t need an afro or kinky hair to substantiate that any further. I can see beauty in everything from a natural twist out to a lace-front weave, do you, be happy with who ever you are.
High 5’s Daria I hate it when people equate natural hair with “being down to earth” or “holistic”…it’s just hair what’s under it is so much more important then curly or straight.
If you look carefully through these pro-natural hair websites and blogs, the most vocal supporters have hair that reflects their mixed heritage.
I think that’s true of a lot of sites, but Nappturality has this on its home page:
Well…as someone who actually works with hair. I’m a firm believer in bad vs. good hair. Bad hair is the type that upon looking at it, I’d rather cut my own hands off than have to comb it out and try to style it. Sorry.
I stopped getting relaxers about 7 or 8 years ago and I personally prefer my natural texture. I don’t see myself ever getting a relaxer again. I don’t look down on women with relaxers though and I don’t think they all have self-hate issues. I flat iron my hair every few months just to change it up, so I’m definitely not opposed to black women with straight hair. I think it’s silly for women with natural hair to pass judgment on women who wear their hair straight and I think it’s equally silly for women with straightened hair to sneer at natural hair as automatically “ugly.”
What did India.Arie say? I am not my hair….
^^good post!