Being Black; How I Learned to Do My Hair When No One Else Could:

The loud sighs continued to get more intense behind me. I was in so much pain I was crying at this point.

“I need a break,” my stylist left the salon, and I could see her outside smoking a cigarette and cursing under her breath. I was getting my hair done for my grade eight graduation, and I requested long straight hair and bangs. I had began growing my hair out a couple of months prior and was brought to the only salon my mom went to. The stylist came back in smelling like cigarettes and continued trying her best to comb out and flat iron my hair. She cut bangs, which looked absolutely horrible. My hair did not look like the picture I brought. She then told my mom that she couldn’t continue to do my hair, and that we needed to find a new hairdresser.


When a lot of children grow up, they have someone to show them how to take care of their natural hair (family or friends). This wasn’t the case for us, we didn’t even know certain salons catered to “afro hair”. My parents adopted me when I was a baby. My mother is white, my father is South Asian, and they never had seen or understood the hair texture of a mixed child prior to me entering their lives. It was a huge learning curve that took decades for us. Throughout my childhood I would just get my hair shaved down to a ‘boy cut’.

It didn’t help that I went to a school where I was the only mixed kid. My classmates constantly asked me, “What’s wrong with your hair? You should just flat iron it.” But whenever I attempted to grow it out, the knots were unbearable, and I would just end up cutting it off, or I would iron it to a crisp and get confused why it didn’t look silky smooth.

Everything changed in high school when my father began working with an African lady with “silky” hair. He asked her, “What do you do? We’ve tried everything.” And that is how I was introduced to relaxing.

I relaxed my hair continuously until a year ago. I loved having it so light, knot-free and not having people make comments about it or get ugly “looks” in the mall. However, I began noticing issues with my hair in college. I would brush through it, and I could hear my strands snapping. My split ends were very bad, and I would lose so much hair in my brush that in the many years of relaxing, my hair did not grow an inch. I took it upon myself to begin researching how to save my hair. I stopped going to the hair salon recommended to me, as they were big “relaxer advocates” and I wanted to stop this relaxation addiction.

I began deep conditioning like never before, got introduced to the magic of coconut oil and over time was able to begin learning to braid. To my disbelief and amazement, in five months my hair grew!

I’ve never had hair that has felt this healthy.

Growing up I hated bringing attention to my hair, but now I enjoy trying new bold styles and constantly get complimented, even by people I don’t know. Though I still sometimes get those looks I dreaded as child, I honestly could not care less. I’ve never had hair that has felt this healthy, and I don’t understand why I ever liked the stringy damaged style I was rocking before now.

It was a long process. My parents always helped when they could, and my mom became my hair’s biggest fan. She used to be horrified when I was young, when I asked her to comb it out. Now if you ask her anything about hair, she will be able to help!

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