"Love your natural hair, brother". I know it is easier said than done, but just love it. Come on, try it.
Your hair shape and texture is genetic, so it means that your naturally kinky and afro textured hair has been passed from generation to generation; you are with your hair representing your family tree and dynasty, so it's senseless, in my humble opinion, to spend your life hating your hair.
I used to see all this "hair hate" all the time with my sister, right until she completely changed her mind and one day went for the "big chop" and cut all of her relaxed straight hair, leaving only a short layer of kinks around her scalp into what is informally known as a teenie weenie afro or TWA. Her hair had meant everything to her before the big chop, so seeing her without her long straight hair was incredibly blunt, not to mention unexpected. I could barely recognize my own sister without her relaxed hair. and when I dared to ask why she had decided to make such a drastic change, she told me: "because I love myself."
It wasn't until some two months later that I finally got to understand what she had meant by loving herself and cutting her artificially straightened hair. My sister changed inside out right after the big chop and she started exercising, lost weight, stopped smoking and had become a much more positive and vibrant person. Through later talks with her, I got to know that she had had enough with the self-rejection that had been imposed to her since she was little. My mother, unintentionally, had instigated the hate that my sister was developing towards herself as my mother would straighten my sister's hair every day and pay for expensive salon visits to get her hair relaxed and lustrous. For some 20 years, my sister had been hating her hair until she turned the tables.
After some further talks with my sister, she convinced me too and I began to appreciate my own afro textured and curly hair. And that's why I am here today :-)
So love your hair brother!
Hendrick
