What I Learned About Beauty After Straightening My Hair

Deciding to start my natural hair journey had been long overdue.

My hair had been so damaged from heat and the overuse of products not meant for it that I could hear it laughing at me every time I ran my fingers through it, contemplating to just let it be.

It was hard at first. It was in this awkward transition stage of being both dead and alive. It was kind of like that awkward stage women go through with their eyebrows when trying to grow them out.

Somehow, I managed. For months, my hair went untouched by straightening devices like flat irons, blow dryers, even serums and hair treatments that were designed to take away from its naturalness. My curls were making a come back!

Before embarking on my journey, I agreed that once every six months, I would straighten my hair to see how my growth was progressing. This week marked the sixth month. So I pulled out my flat iron, blew the dust off, and prepared to be amazed at my growth. But boy, was I disappointed. It went nowhere near as straight as it used to, and my ends were deader than I knew what to do with.

Maybe its time for a trim, I thought to myself. The very next day, I was in my hairdressers seat asking Leann to keep it as long as possible while trimming away the lifeless ends that really hadn’t looked that bad when my hair was curly.

I walked out of there feeling great. My hair was healthy and it looked good.

But before long, there were a series of unusual remarks, stares, and whistles that got me thinking about society’s standard of beauty, who fits into it, and what it means for those that don’t.

“Its like having two girlfriends,” my boyfriend said to me when he saw me that night. This was something I had heard before from men whose girlfriends alternated between straight and curly hair. I was tempted to ask him which girlfriend he liked better, but opted not to.

Before I met up with him that night, I had several clients compliment my appearance. Three of them asked for my number, and one of them told me I look “Spanish.” He seemed startled that I wasn’t grinning at his lame attempt to flatter me by essentially encouraging me to identify with something I didn’t.

It was strange. These were all clients I had served before. They had seen me on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. They hadn’t said any of these things to me when I wore my hair naturally. Where was all this attention coming from?

Walking to grab tea from Tim Horton’s, an older white man said “How you doin’ beautiful?” I note his colour only because I haven’t been hit on by a white guy since the last time my hair was straight.

Strangely, my treatment from women also underwent a shift. The female clients I had that were typically quite rude or standoffish were either extra nice or extra quiet. Why? I wondered. Be rude to me! I can handle it. But then I thought about it.

Personally, when I am face to face with a woman who fits into society’s standard of beauty better than I do, it can be intimidating. I find myself to be either extra nice or extra quiet. Hm. Was I being paranoid or was this an inferiority complex? If so, does this mean our treatment towards people depends on how they appear? How well they fit into the “skinny with white features” depiction of beauty?

For the six months that I wore my hair curly, I felt confident. I felt like I had been a one-girl revolution who walked with purpose, making a statement with every step. But when I wore my hair straight, I felt safe.

What’s the difference?

With curly hair, my sense of approval, the validation of my beauty, and my self-love came from the inside. It meant that even without the series of remarks, comments and whistles, I knew I was beautiful because damn it, I felt beautiful inside.

But with my straight hair, I felt safe. I felt like I looked racially ambiguous; maybe Spanish, maybe mixed, maybe straight white with a tan. Or maybe even full-black, but light enough to escape the dreaded implications of what that might mean in today’s society for my success in a job interview or the preferential treatment that men or women may have towards me because it was validated to me.

The truth is; natural hair represents an absence of fear. And for a lot of men, especially the men who specifically go after a woman based on her closeness to “beauty”, nothing is scarier than a woman who publicly displays an absence of fear. Natural hair represents an ability to ignore the media’s messages about what beauty is. It’s like wearing a fluorescent yellow t-shirt that says, “Yeah, I saw the commercial for that new L’oreal crap and I’m not interested.”

Last week, I had to hand in something called a privilege diary for my Women’s Studies class. We had to detail how privileged or unprivileged we were in certain cases. I noted that the fact that I am a woman of colour makes me less privileged than a white woman. But the fact that I am a lighter skinned woman of colour makes me more privileged than a dark skinned woman. The fact that my hair can transition, naturally, from kinky curly to bone straight makes me more privileged than women who have to use artificial hair, relaxing treatments and the like, to be more like what the media tells us is beautiful.

Despite all of that, here’s one thing I know to be true: I am not my hair. But society sure has a way of making us feel differently. Especially women of colour.

Why is it that when women wear their hair naturally they are complimented by being called “unique” or “brave”? When I started wearing my hair naturally, people joked that I had “tamed the beast.” I still have no idea which beast they are referring to. But when women have straight hair, or straighten their hair, they're “sexy” or “beautiful.”

So to all the men, especially the black men, who felt the need to compliment me on my “remarkable beauty”, ask for my “digits”, or tip toe around my temporary whiteness, thank you. But men like you are a huge part of the reason black women have taken so long to begin embracing their natural hair. You are a huge part of the hostility that exists between light-skinned women and dark-skinned women. You are a huge reason the media hasn’t changed the message.

And what message does that send to young women? What message did it send to me when I was growing up? Because in retrospect, the media was a big, scary adult that whispered this in my bi-racial ear, “Kid, you’re gonna wanna identify with your white side more if you really wanna make it out there.”

It wasn’t until I saw the Charmsie’s and the Halfie Truth’s and the Lipstick n’ Curls of the world that I realized that curly hair is okay, natural hair is okay.

And it certainly is beautiful. And sexy.

And brave. 

The Unexpected Lesson I Learned at My First Rave

This past weekend, I learned a very valuable lesson about perspective. And accountability.

It came at an unexpected time, in an even more unexpected place: Beach Club Fest 2015.

Thousands of Toronto’s hottest party animals descended on Muzik Nightclub Saturday afternoon for an all-day, all-night party. Women wearing bikinis and stilettos walked past muscular, shirtless men.

There I was in the midst of it all, wondering what I had been doing there. I had never been into electronic dance music, but when my two friends insisted I would have a good time, I felt compelled to accept the invite.

I lay there in my yellow bikini under a tree, taking in the sun. I realized a long time ago that I have an abnormal obsession and love for the feeling of the sun on my skin, and not for the tan. I just love feeling the warmth of the sun on me. So much so that whenever the sun got trapped in the big tree ahead of me, my smile turned upside down.

I had been laying there for about half an hour when I realized that the sun was diminishing. It was moving very gradually away from me and was almost completely hidden behind the tree.

My friends had suggested moving to the pool where there was more sun. But I insisted on staying where we were. I knew that after a short while, the sun would be back in the open sky and I would feel that warmth again.

Another half hour passed and the sun was still hiding behind the tree. While it had indeed moved, it still had a long way to go before it was out in the clear sky again. Fed up, my friends said, “Stephanie, there is sun at the pool, we just have to move there.”

The idea of getting up, gathering all my belongings, and trying to find comfort at the pool seemed daunting. But I wanted the warmth of the sun more than I wanted to stay where I was. And so I picked myself up, gathered my belongings, and walked over to the pool.

When we got to the pool, I couldn’t believe how warm it was there. The sun was directly on me! People were dancing. Heck, I was dancing. There were beach balls everywhere. But more importantly, there was sun. There wasn’t a cloud-or a tree-in sight.

I was crushed that I hadn’t moved here earlier. I could’ve been feeling the comfort of the sun all this time. Mid-dance move I asked myself what had been stopping me the whole time I was laying by the tree.

Truthfully, I just didn’t want to move. I was comfortable. I knew the sun was going to come back in due time. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to do anything. I was being lazy. I just wanted to lay there and feel the sun.

Then it hit me.

Constantly, easily, and unforgivingly do we make excuses for ourselves to stay in whatever situation we might be in at the time. We get comfortable, we tell ourselves it will happen later, or next time, when really, those are grounds for it, whatever it might be, to not happen at all.

How could I have possibly laid there under that tree for almost an hour waiting for the sun to come back when there was sun elsewhere the entire time? It’s like I was standing in a dark room complaining there was no light and there had been a switch in front of me the whole time. All I had to do was reach for it.

That tree had represented every piece of adversity I had ever faced. It represented the word no. It represented every excuse I had ever made for myself, and every excuse I made for others.

We get so familiar with the darkness that we forget what the warmth of light feels like. We forget how to remind ourselves to look elsewhere when our current circumstance isn't good enough for us. We forget what good enough is.

It is so easy to stumble across mediocrity, unhappiness, or complacency. It’s so easy to fall into a rut and decorate it and call it home. But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s okay.

This weekend I learned that in life, there is only so much sunlight before the darkness comes. And you’re going to want as much of it as you can get, not only because it feels good but because you deserve it. You have to be willing to get up and move sometimes.

As I stood there on the side of the pool, looking all around me and feeling kissed by the sun, I learned two very valuable lessons. The first is that if you want it, whatever it might be, you have to go after it. The second is that the music of life really isn't so bad once you start dancing.