The natural hair movement is NOT over. My response to an "article" by Black Media Scoop

So in the midst of celebrating my birthday (October 16th), an article written by the staff of Black Media Scoop was brought to my attention. This article entitled 'The Natural Hair Movement is Over! Sistahs Going Back to Creamy Crack' basically concludes that the supposed movement is over with and that women are going back to relaxers. First off I found it interesting that the article is shown as written by BMS Staff (maybe no one had the 'cojones' to take credit for the article). Anyway, in the intro they throw some figures about relaxer sales declining and how companies who traditionally catered to relaxed hair clientèle introduced products with the intent of getting in on the booming natural hair market. But then the article digresses to the writer claiming hair stylists are observing that their clients are going back to relaxers, citing the following reasons: 

Snapshot of the article's "reasons"

Let's breakdown the reasons:

1. High Maintenance? I honestly beg to differ. To me, natural hair is a lot more low maintenance than relaxed hair because you don't have to run to the salon every weak to relax, steam and all these other treatments that are needed to keep natural hair healthy looking. I can do my own treatments at home. Also, regarding the issue of time, I will admit that yes it can take a long time to style natural hair depending on your hair type, thickness etc HOWEVER, When styling natural hair, the styles that we do put in tend to last us a while, so time is not all in vain.

2. Bringing sexy back? YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!! Since when straight hair is the ideology of sexy? (Dang it!! in jumps those Eurocentric ideologies of what beautiful/sexy is). In my own experiences, I have felt sexiest (yes, I have my sexy moments lol), with my own natural hair, open and in a kinky curly afro mess lol Why? because it's all me, all natural and if I cant love the all natural me and feel sexy do I really think I'd feel genuinely sexy in anything else? Think about it, happiness should come from within, well in this case sexiness should come from within, not from something external that can my manipulated or taken away. So basing your sexiness on something such as your hair (or any other external component as a matter of fact) is a recipe for self esteem disaster. ALSO, they say that natural hairstyles don't give you versatility... COME ON!!!! Natural kinky/curly is the most versatile hair possible!!!! We can easily do things with our hair that relaxed hair cannot do. So they completely lost me with that one. 

3. Breaking the bank? Ah yes, they say that, "The price of natural hair care products can add up…especially when you’re trying to figure out which products work best for your hair type." I actually agree with this somewhat. The trial and error process of finding out what products can work for your hair can be a daunting and often costly task, simply because there are so many products that can do different things to suit the versatility of natural hair. HOWEVER once you find products that work for your hair then you're good to go and that cost goes down drastically, unless you become a product junkie lol (FYI, being a product junkie is a choice, I will admit I was one, but I put my foot down and I only buy what I really need). Plus we are not committed to monthly salon visits. And!!! I can mix up stuff for my hair at home, and even using stuff found in my kitchen (I'm dying to try an avocado mask for my hair, but i don't think my dad would be too happy if he saw me putting it in my hair and not eating it lol).

Now before I conclude, let me say that I am not anti-relaxer, at the end of the day your hair your choice. I'm not trying to make it seem as if natural hair is far superior to its relaxed counterparts either. I have no issue with a person who chooses to relax their hair. Its just hair folks, it's not that serious. But what I will say is that whoever wrote this poor offering of an article is either trying to be somewhat satiric (if so, they failed miserably) or they simply were too lazy to get some actual data. Or they were trying be a bit controversial in their topic to rile up naturals to get some traffic to their website, because before this article I'd never heard of Black Media Scoop. Either way, the simple truth is this: the natural hair "movement" is here to stay, the only moving its doing is growing; and if you don't like dat, yuh cud put dat in yuh pipe and smoke it.

Natural hair is here to stay..aren't these ladies fierce?
Photo courtesy Natura Magazine

UPDATE: Since then the article no longer seems to be on the site, and the link to the article is now redirects to some spam site so I removed the link from my article.


Best regards,

Tshenelle aka Nelly B.