I love my hair. Like Tigger in Winnie-The-Pooh, it has its own coiled energy and bounce. It’s strong, voluminous and standout amazing. I’ve worn it in braids and cornrows and sometimes I sweep it up with colourful silk scarves. Most nights, I twist it up into small plaits, which I comb out the next day, letting it follow its natural shape and curl. As a woman of mixed race, my Afro hair is a positive part of my identity, and I want to praise it like I should. But it hasn’t always been that way.
Like a lot of older Black and mixed-race women, my relationship with my natural-born hair has been ambivalent. History hasn’t always allowed us to take a rightful pride and joy in the complex texture of our Afro hair, and the world has told us over and over how we ought to feel about it; how we should try to tame and “normalise” it. For many of us, the road to fully appreciating its extraordinary versatility and strength has been a rocky one.
The first photographs I have of me were taken in the 1950s when I was three years old and placed into foster care by Barnardo’s. I have no memories or baby pictures of a time before that. It’s as if I arrived as a fully formed tiny girl with no history. With little knowledge of my white birth mother and none of my Black father, I was suddenly part of a white foster family in a small town in the heartlands of North Yorkshire. Jack, my new foster father, included me in the family snaps. His grainy black-and-white photos show me neatly turned out in the home-sewn frocks and hand-knitted cardigans that Mary, my foster mother, made. But my hair, defying gravity and standing up in dry little tufts, is a pitiable sight.
The struggle to make my hair “behave” became Mary’s personal battleground, and she soon found out that it was resistant to the standard weaponry of brushes and combs. These simply tore into the tightly coiled nest of intractable curls and got hopelessly entangled, reducing me to tears and Mary to exasperation. Regularly, she tackled the problem with a stout pair of scissors. Every so often, I would kneel with my head in her lap to be cropped like a boy. With no experience of my kind of hair, it was the only practical solution – but it felt like a punishment.
“I learned to shrug off taunts from other kids, but remarks from adults were harder to ignore”
At school, I looked at all the other little girls in my class and felt sick with hair envy. Confidently swishing ponytails or demure, neat plaits, their hair was a thing of vanity that they adorned with pretty ribbons and hairbands. I longed for hair that moved; hair that I could easily pull a comb through.
I learned to shrug off the taunts from other kids and the rude questions they asked. Was that a brush I had on top of my head? Was it hair or wool? Did I use carpet cleaner to wash it? The offhand remarks of the adults, however, were harder to ignore. Out at the shops with Mary, I dreaded running into one of her friends who thought nothing of plunging their hands into my hair to feel this “queer stuff”. “It’s just like wire wool,” one of them laughed.
Chemical romance
In my early teens, I began my own private battle, using big, prickly rollers that I attached to my scalp with little pink daggers. Left in overnight, they temporarily unlocked the tight curls into a wavy texture that was easier to manage, but it was like sleeping on nails. It was the Swinging Sixties and while I had the miniskirts and the bell-bottom jeans, my hair, left to its own devices, was ruining my look.
That decade did bring a brief period of relief, thanks to the musical Hair and TV coverage of the civil rights movement in the US. In its pure and natural state, hair like mine was suddenly not just fashionable but a must for any self-respecting Black person. Then, at university, a South African friend began braiding my hair, showing me its incredible versatility of strength and style. It gave me a new respect for my hair’s resilience and creative possibilities, and I began to feel in sync with my kink. Finally, I was learning to love it… but it was a temporary truce.
“I hated it; I didn’t recognise myself with this soft, silky stuff that lay limp on my head”
In the 1980s, I went to live and work in America, and spent a decade working in PR for the Italian Embassy in Washington DC. I soon discovered that the Afro was dead. Natural Black hair was no longer considered fashionable or desirable. Instead, it was all about killing that kink any way you could. Hot combs, hairdryers or, more often, harsh relaxer preparations achieved those straight, sleek styles that everyone loved. With a double dose of chemical treatments, you could even get the popular ‘Jheri curl’, as worn by Michael Jackson. Black Americans were bemused by my plentiful head of unprocessed hair – and some couldn’t hold back. “It looks unprofessional,” remarked one of my co-workers, hinting that leaving it natural could jeopardise my career path. For a long time, I fought off the Black peer pressure, but I desperately wanted to fit in and be a success in America, and eventually I underwent a five-hour session in a salon to chemically relax my hair.
I hated it from the moment I left the salon. I didn’t recognise myself with this soft, silky stuff that lay limp on my head and flopped about in the slightest breeze. I hadn’t realised how much I would miss the volume and control of my Afro. My dense network of curls was like a forcefield that protected me. Without it, I felt exposed and vulnerable. It’ll grow again, I reassured myself, and, who knows, I might get used to this slick-headed stranger in the mirror.
But I never did warm to her, and it took the best part of a year before my natural growth recovered. Never again, I promised myself. Eventually, I found a Black stylist who understood my hair and I stuck with her, learning how to regularly moisturise it and make the most of its natural vitality. It’s something I’d encourage all women with Afro hair to do, as everyone’s hair needs are different.
Tina’s must-haves
Pride & glory
By the time I became a mother myself in 1983, living and loving my natural hair had become second nature, but still I worried for my baby daughter. A girl came with the inescapable matter of her hair and while I’d had my own hair braided and plaited as an adult, it was a skill I’d never learned myself.
I wanted my daughter to take pride in her hair from the start, but it wasn’t easy. Managing the volume and the tough texture of Afro hair takes patience and experience. With little of either, my attempts at manipulating her hair usually resulted in uneven, lumpy plaits and, often, I would cheat. I’d moisturise and comb her hair as best I could, then pull the bulk of it into a net secured with a hairband. It was a makeshift solution that only disguised my ineptitude, and we were both relieved when she learned to take her hair into her own hands.
“It coils, it kinks, it twists; it’s hair with attitude”
Today, as a grown woman with her own child, she’s part of a younger generation embracing their natural Afro hair – not as a passing fashion, but as an authentic part of who they are. Most young Black and mixed-race women see their natural hair as a proud expression of their identity. They’ve grown up confident in its vibrant beauty and all the amazing styles its unique texture allows them to create. Unlike many women who came before them, they haven’t had to bow to the cultural pressure of transforming it with damaging chemicals or subjecting it to constant heat treatments.
I’m proud to say that I’ve come to believe in my hair, too, and learned how to give it the care it deserves. Afro hair is incredibly thirsty, so it’s all about giving it plenty of moisture. I regularly use ORS Olive Oil Nourishing Sheen Spray and, to enhance my wild and wonderful coils, L’Oréal Elvive Non-Stop Dreamy Curls Leave-In Cream is a favourite.
From the little girl in the black-and-white pictures to a woman who’s fiercely proud of her identity, my hair and I have been on a circuitous journey together. Now I understand that Afro hair holds our history, tells our stories and speaks our truth. Its bounce and spring can sometimes be hard to harness, but that’s its feisty nature. It coils, it kinks, it twists; it’s hair with attitude. It knows its own strength and sometimes it fights back. I’ve gone from trying to live it down to doing my best to live up to this powerful and inspirational heritage that is my Afro hair.
Hair Apparent: A Voyage Around My Roots (Biteback) by Tina Shingler is out now
