When we think about what we are taught constitutes beautiful hair, the characteristics of Afro hair are notable only for their absence. Straight, shiny, glossy, smooth, flowing . . . that’s certainly not my hair. What’s my hair like again? Oh yes, of course. Coarse. Dry. Tough. Hard. Nappy. Frizzy. Wild. The English language has bequeathed us this list of pejoratives, which are perceived as adequate to describe Afro-textured hair in its entirety. Now don’t get me wrong, I know Caucasian hair can be described as greasy, lank, or thin, but it is not routinely described thus—and can you imagine the horror if I casually referred to a white woman’s hair in this way, to her face!
The words we use to describe Afro hair do not relate to its texture and, judged by another’s metric, it will always come up lacking. But we do not possess a list of words that reflect the qualities of Afro hair, words that demonstrate its strengths, beauty, and versatility.
Even the labels on our bloody natural hair products can’t seem to shift out of this mode of thinking. We are assaulted by words like “defiant,” “wild,” “unruly,” “unmanageable,” and “coarse.” We might manage to squeeze out a “cool” or a “funky,” but our hair is never just “normal.” Beauty is, as ever, imagined through the characteristics of a standard not designed to include us. The only way Afro hair can seemingly fulfill the criteria for beauty is if we make it look like European hair—if we make ourselves look like something we are not.
The world around us fuels a powerful narrative about hair and femininity. From fairy tales to advertisements, movies and music videos, our icons tend to be lusciously locked. For girls and women, femininity is intricately bound up in hair. For a long time, long, flowing hair remained one of the most powerful markers of being a woman. But that is not how Afro hair grows; generally, it grows upward. Of course, femininity—like beauty—remains a culturally specific project, and certainly not one designed with the physicality of black women in mind. Nonetheless, we are expected to conform to these standards, and woe betide us if we cannot.