BlackListed! Magazine

She remembers exactly how she felt that night. She looked in the mirror and wanted to cry. It was November of 2006, and Laquisha Jones had just cut off all her hair. But that’s how it had to work since she’d decided to go natural.

Jones stopped getting chemical hair-straightening treatments, known as relaxers in March 2006. 

Jones, 20, said going natural is “to be free” and “to be what God created you to be.” She said it involves being able to “walk in your uniqueness.”

Even though her immediate reaction to her new look was fear and regret, soon enough she started to get excited about its implications.

“I took pictures and celebrated,” she said. “I never did something huge like that.”

This is becoming a trend in the black community in Gainesville and globally as a way of embracing natural black beauty

By her mother’s choice, Jones relaxed her hair when she was 6 years old. She said she supported the decision because she’d look at others and think their hair looked “nappy,” which she described as coarse and hard to manage, almost a “black rug.”

Once relaxed, she had to continued treating her hair about every three months. She said she would get sores on her scalp, and her hair would fall out.

She started considering going natural during her senior year of high school when she realized her hair was no longer growing, but since there was no one to give her information about it, she didn’t go through with it.

She felt extremely insecure about herself, mostly because of her hair and the patch that was missing due to the harshness of the relaxer.

“I’m gonna be bald-headed soon,” she thought to herself.

So in times of prayer to God, she felt like it kept coming up that she needed to try being natural in order to embrace her natural beauty and who she was as a person.

Jones, who is currently wearing her natural hair in a medium-length afro, is very pleased with the decision she made with her hair. She also took on a whole new wardrobe of modest and professional clothing.

“I do think I’m beautiful now,” she said. “[Going natural] challenged me to be a lady.”

After considering the change since her eighth-grade year, Lauren Passard, 21, finally stopped going to the salon for her hair treatments in May 2007, and she suspects that she won’t be able to cut off all the relaxed ends until the end of 2009.
               
Passard said she has multiple reasons for making the change. It’s expensive to continually get her hair straightened, about $50 to $70, the chemicals are harsh and she’s accepting who she is.

“I think if God wanted me to have straight hair, I would’ve been born with straight hair,” she said. “I’m at the point where I’m learning who God intended me to be, and this is a huge part of the process of me embracing this.”

Passard said this is a personal conviction for her, and she views it as empowering and embracing of true beauty.

“I’m trying to find my true beauty and who I am, instead of imposing other standards of beauty on myself,” she said.

Madame C. J. Walker is credited with inventing the hair relaxer in the early 1900s as a way of allowing black women to take care of their hair and promote its growth. As a result, she was also the first black woman to become a millionaire.

Passard said many black women opt for the process because their hair is often difficult to maintain. She first had her hair relaxed in fifth grade because it was extremely hard to comb.

“I can’t think of any one person who’s never gotten their hair chemically straightened,” Passard said. “I guess that’s the norm.”

Blossom Roland, 20, said for her, the decision to go natural took a lot of self-questioning, asking herself why her hair really needed to be straight.

“We were trained that our natural hair wasn’t pretty,” she said. “But I’d rather believe what God said about me, which is I was fearfully and wonderfully made. Natural hair is beautiful.”   

Roland received her last relaxation treatment in June 2007 when she realized she wanted her own hair back.

“It’s something I always wanted to do, but I didn’t have the boldness and courage,” she said. “It’s something I really had to do soul-searching for.”

She said she’s begun to see an equal number of people with natural and straight hair, which did not used to be the case. After going natural, she said she’d never relax her hair again.

“Going natural helped me realize that my beauty is inward,” she said. “Most people I know don’t go back.”

“Happi” magazine, a monthly publication aimed at those interested in personal and household care, reported in an online article that by 2006, there were about 10 million African American, Hispanic and Asian adults using hair relaxers or home permanents. African Americans have accounted for a decline of about 700,000 users. This data was from Simmons Market Research Bureau, which records American consumer behavior.

Alana Rollock views going natural as a growing trend and estimates that it began about four years ago. Although she doesn’t think high schoolers will ever be a part of the trend, she believes it will continue to catch on for those in college and older.

“Women are realizing that their beauty isn’t just in their hair,” she said.

Rollock, 22, made the decision to go natural at the beginning of last spring. She asked her mom to discontinue her hair treatments, and as the new hair began to grow in she tried different styles such as weave and braids.

“And then one day I just made the decision to cut it,” she said. “One day, I just got fed up, cut it and I’ve been natural ever since.”

This stemmed from thoughts about the health of her hair. She had been getting relaxation treatments since age 11.         

“I knew for a fact that I was killing my hair by perming it,” she said. “My hair would break just combing it.”           

She described the new hair growth as weaker because the hair bonds would break.           

“Once you chemically straighten your hair, you have to keep up with it or else your hair will break off,” she said.           

Rollock said most people were really shocked at her new hair, but friends who had already gone natural were proud of her.           

“When you have long hair, you kind of feel like that’s part of that femininity,” she said. “You have to have a new appreciation for your look.”           

Rollock’s grandma and great aunt have also gone natural, and she said everyone has their own reasons for doing it. But she has a hard time believing that women who experience hair breakage will continue to relax it.           

“I know that natural hair is stronger,” she said. “I don’t want to be that woman with two strands of hair on my head when I’m 80.”           

A saleswoman from Archer Beauty Supply said she has seen more and more customers looking for natural products right now.

Between 2002 and 2006, retail sales for natural and organic health and beauty care brands reached $6 billion, according to Packaged Facts, a leading publisher of market research in consumer behavior and demographics. By 2012, that figure could be $8 billion.          

Ashley Auplant is one of four hair stylists working at A Nu Twist Salon who specializes in natural hair because of the high number of natural clients. She thinks going natural has been a trend for about the past three years.           

Auplant went natural a few years ago and said most of her clients have too.           

The number of natural hair clients in the salon ranges from seven to 15 per week, she said.           

Double strand twists are the most common way to wear natural hair especially around UF, she said. Comb twists, which are the first step to acquiring dread locks, are also common.           

Lorellys Ramirez, the hair stylist at Cutting Edge in Gainesville, said there are about 10 clients with natural hair who come to the salon regularly.           

“No doubt that they do have more options now,” she said. “There’s new styles for natural hair they can get away with.”           

Afiyah Thomas agrees. This will be her third time going natural. She has gone back and forth between natural and relaxed hair because she didn’t know what to do with her hair at certain times.           

But with the development of Web sites geared toward the care of natural hair, Thomas plans to stay natural for good this time.           

“I love [my hair]. I’ve always loved it,” she said. “Now I know what to do with it.”           

Thomas, 24, recalls a time when her afro was big and she was eating lunch with co-workers. She felt something in her hair and caught a little boy playing with her afro.           

“I thought it was hilarious that a little kid was intrigued enough to touch my hair,” she said. “I want people to know your hair does not have to be straight to be beautiful.”           

Thomas said she thinks of India Arie, a soulful black musical artist who released a song called “I Am Not My Hair” after she went natural herself. The central message is that any hair is beautiful because it’s not what defines a person.

 

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