Childhood: Memories of Natural Hair Care

Note to reader

After a Twitter exchange where I commented on the plaiting of natural African-American hair, I was invited to write about the childhood memories I shared, memories from about 40 years ago where somehow I might have confused names and descriptions of the styles.

I penned a piece for the Natural Ever After site where the full blog with pictures appears, and you are free to post your comments there too.

The main article at Natural Ever After - Childhood Memories of Natural Hair Care

I know what Afro is

Walking down a street in Antwerp, I was happened upon a large shop front sign – Afro Hair Centre – the shop window was pasted with pictures of beautiful African American ladies but I was at pains to notice any that anything remotely natural for hair.

The pictures regaled me with relaxed curls of fanciful design and the amazing reality of globalisation where rural Indian and Brazilian women had travelled the world by reason of their long hair cut to serve an industry of hair extensions – I have felt like I have entered a haunted house each time disembodied lots of hair formed the merchandise of any outfit.

Many evolutions of hair design

It reminded me of when as a young boy hair was natural and the embodiment of amazing beauty, long before combing irons were heated on kerosene stoves and the hair laden with Vaseline was singed to straighten it for a new kind of look.

My aunt after secondary school became a hairdresser and with that came relaxers and all sorts of chemicals and sprays that the African woman punished her hair with to give it an unnaturally synthetic look, but that had become the new look.

Cornrows a plenty

As big brother when we lived in Jos, I had two sisters much younger than I and every fortnight I knew my play time will be usurped for a new kind of duty.

My mother sat on a chair with my sisters on a footstool just between her legs had their hair washed, combed, parted and designed for braided cornrows or plaits.

The cornrows had names, Shuku (bunched up in the middle), Ipako elede (A pig’s nape – with the ends to the nape of the neck), koroba (bucket, designed as a whirl from edges to the centre), kolese (Without legs – with the ends to the front just above the forehead) amongst other designs that did not particularly have names but provided artistic licence, in some cases the cornrows ended up in plaits, it was left to what was fancied at that time.

Threading the clumps

In the case of plaits, my job was to string the black thread from finger to big toe probably about 20 times and then cut the loop at one end to produce lengths of thread.

3 lengths of thread were then knotted at one end, the hair was parted into sectors and then manageable polygonal shapes, each section of hair was then plaited with thread from the base until the hair ends, the threads were then knotted to prevent the threads and hair from coming loose.

Sometimes each plait was left alone kinked into an L-shape a third way up the length, in other cases they were joined up in wigwam fashion or linked together with one popular design being called Eko Bridge – this was named after the new bridges linking the Lagos mainland to Lagos Island over the lagoon. Onile gogoro suggested a tall house, the plaits were bent to different sides of the head to give a different look, the options limitless depending on taste and aesthetics.

Changes to hair fashion

The plaits could also be coiled on a pencil to look like twirls, this was all natural and beautiful. After a while cotton threads were abandoned for synthetic tubular threads called colloquially called rubber but those plaits were fire hazards even if for a while they were fashionable.

As we moved into the 80s, plaits became unfashionable and most what you would find in rural settings as relaxers became the stock in trade of hairdressers, much as it seemed to make hair more manageable the cost of maintenance was high and where unprofessional services were used lots of women suffered 1^st, 2^nd or even 3^rd degree burns to their scalp.

The relaxers themselves have the most revolving and pungent odours, in some cases people were prone to emesis but after this foray into the unnatural and synthetic, some ladies are returning to appreciating the beauty of low-cuts or naturally braided or plaited hair without extensions or chemicals, and I think that is a good thing.

That hair on eBay

This news story is still developing and since I wrote this blog there has been additional information at the bottom under Developing News Story.

Unpalatable use of eBay

Sometimes the quest for filthy lucre is contemptible and appalling, nowhere is this helped more than on eBay where one's chattels and sometimes ill-gotten wares can be peddled for a nickel or two, even some would deign to offer stuff at outrageous prices.

So, reading that Britney Spears' shorn hair is now available on eBay plumbs the depths of absolute depravity in human beings, there is a possibility that what is offered is not certified as belonging to Britney Spears, however, does one then acquire DNA from the principal to prove this fact.

If then someone does really acquire these esteemed locks of troubled celebrity having being shorn off in what might have been the parlous mental state of the principal, would chemical analysis be conducted on the hair to ascertain additional lucre spinning tales to be relayed on unconscionable tabloids?

Beyond that, those who worship at the temple of celebrity might even be able to visit a shrine to view the reliquary of Britney's locks, the whole thing beggars the progress of the evolution of the human species to things less acceptable than the original forebears of the homo sapiens sapiens.

With bids now over the $1 million mark, who craves this trash-able stuff so much and how come they still walk our streets? From a moralist perspective, eBay should remove this thing from bidding - (Which seems to have to been done), however, for the sake of free enterprise, if there are people who so desire this stuff, well, so be it.

Vocations of trust

If indeed, these locks were really from Britney Spears, then it would appear either the hairdresser who might not have been satisfied with the temporal fame of appearing on television with the free advertising of her shop has upped the ante in things unspeakable.

It is also possible that some serf in the shop gathered the hair which was shorn in a corner of the shop and bagged it ready for marketing - unfortunately, sacking such an one would not necessarily be of use if the person stands to make a million dollars that would be frittered away on frivolous stuff long before the money has arrived.

Thankfully, this is not in place where shamans and their expertise in black arts hold sway over people such that I have heard that walking barefoot is dangerous enough as detractors might collect the imprints in the sand offering those as connections to foment catastrophe on the principal or gain superstitious advantage in some other sphere of life.

However, hair contains history and long hair contains even longer history, where you want that revealed to anyone is debatable except in aspects of forensic analysis.

One should be able to trust that visiting the hairdressers makes history of any shorn hair by having the whole lot anonymously mixed with other hairs and dumped in a secure bin where it gets destroyed, if not, then we are in deep trouble.

Developing News Story

This is a developing news story, it would appear it is the hair salon that put up the hair for sale first on eBay probably to prospect the possibilities of a price range for the hair and now on a separate site called BuyBritney’sHair.com.

To Esther Tognozzi - whose enterprising skills are commendable but her ethical mien is lower than a snake’s belly - would go the spoils as she laments the fact that fake offers of the same hair are even appearing on sites in the UK and further a-field.

It would be hard to say that she is bringing the profession of hair-dressing into disrepute, since when have we really considered hair-dressers people of worthy respect or of dependable reputations?

Ushered into Milliner's Heaven - hopefully with those hats too

The symbolism of monarchy

Besides the grandeur of royalty and the semblance of power that accompanies the office of the monarch or royalty of a country. Their presentation in public drives certain circles of opinion in terms of their appearance, their poise, their affability, their interaction and their fashion.

Our monarch in the Netherlands, Queen Beatrix has a striking persona, quite easy-going and amenable to her people, be it chatting to youth rappers or exchanging one of those bizarre handshakes of a strange sub-culture.

Friendly and approachable

The Queen is hardly aloof and offers an approachable disposition, typical of the Dutch who are not given to fussiness, they, in the entire quest for egalitarian equanimity would always defer to their royalty in terms of allowance, tolerance and exception.

The Queen’s fashion is also striking, setting her well apart from her subjects, as nothing attracts you to comment more than her hair-do and her hats.

Being one who wears hats and sometimes has to visit ones hat maker in Cologne, from time to time to prospect a new design, as one is wont to; one would be utterly distraught if that service were to no longer exist for reasons beyond the control of the hat maker.

In that sense, I can understand how the Queen must feel when she would have been informed that her milliner died earlier this week.

Those hats!!! Exactly!

Our sadness can only be tinged with a ray of hope that a new designer with a more contemporary touch would help enhance the imagery from the “frying pan” look to something more regal and better than Ascot, which was an amazing stunner.

I would not advocate seeing the same happen to the hairdresser either, but that blonde bouquet look is really now passé, the point has been made, they want the appearance of the Queen to symbolise the crown – I know a tiara, when I see one, I know a diadem when I see one – but a hat, symbolising the crown – I think we are looking for a figurative representation here – because the literal just does not cut the muster.

Long live the Queen, but those who work in the head appearance department have to go.

Pictures from top to bottom are courtesy of Expatica.com (The opening of parliament) and the Queen of England's Golden Jubilee site (The Queen at Ascot 2002) respectively.