Comments on: Question of the Day: Your very first relaxer

By: Racial Rachel

Racial Rachel — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:09:52 +0000

I got a relaxer to ease my transition into a private middle school. Until I was 11, my hair was always in 7-10 of those big puffy two strand twists that little girls wear. Hot combs weren’t going to cut it and my mom was getting a lot of pressure from family members. I remember the discomfort, the smell, and the burn but I felt like a right of passage at the time. I’m glad I did it because I’m a grown women now who’s been there, done that and no one can make me question whether I want to go back. By the time I was 15, I stop relaxing and got my hair heat straightened. At 18, I was fully natural rocking a fro to class.
File: OldSkooling_2.pdf

By: NikkiWest

NikkiWest — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:22:16 +0000

Same here.

By: NikkiWest

NikkiWest — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:19:07 +0000

OH YES!!! I was 8 years old. I had hair down to my bottom. It was too thick however to fit into those stupid “i love genie” cones. it was 1988. My mother was dead set against it. She wanted me to wait until I was 16 but I begged her. My father side were more into weaves. She obliged and to this day I wish I never relaxed my hair EVER. I wish I would have waited until 16 b/c I’m quite sure I would have enjoyed my natural hair and it would probably be down to my knees once blown out. When I have a daughter I will never apply relaxer to her hair. If she wants to when she is a teenager she can. I just hope by then our society will be more accepting of natural styles and there will be less of the “stink eye”.

By: Giovanna

Giovanna — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:41:34 +0000

I agree, my daughter started my knowledge in regards to hair care. She has 3a/3b curls and I had NO IDEA how to manage curly hair, her hair is gorgeous but my grandmother kept talking about blowing her hair out, etc and how her hair looked ‘unkempt’ curly (mind you like I said she has 3A/3B curls). So I went online and researched how to maintain curly hair, two years later she said ‘mommy what’s that?” when I was @ the salon with her getting my hair done. That’s when it started to hit me, I didn’t want my daughter seeing me constantly relaxing my hair because I was scared of its natural texture. I thought of the type of message I would be sending her, especially since there aren’t many curlies in the main stream media.

By: Giovanna

Giovanna — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:35:32 +0000

I’m very late with this response but I was 5 or 6 when I got my first relaxer.My grandmother was doing it at first then she found a horrible stylist. By 4th grade I had to go to the doctor and get medication because my scalp was severely burned. My grandmother gave me 2 years off and by 6th grade I was getting them again from a different stylist, my hair grew with her to APL but I always felt very stigmatized going to that salon like I was an outsider so I stopped going to her at the age of 18. From 18-24 I was going to several different people getting relaxers etc and my hair never grew past shoulder length, I stopped relaxing my hair because I actually started paying attention to what I was putting in it. My grandmother is from the Dominican Republic (my mother passed away) and there curly hair is VERY frowned upon, mulatto/black Dominicans are raised into self-hatred; I’m not bashing Dominicans but sadly it’s reality. Not ALL Dominicans are the same but it’s common, when I told her I was going natural she was very accepting but telling her how it made me feel throughout my childhood is futile, it’s like I’m speaking Chinese; she doesn’t understand the negative aspects of the experiences I had so I just let it be.