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I spent my final year of undergrad doing my best to analyze some of the reasons why black women chemically straighten their hair and the difficulty associated with breaking the habit. In my thesis I essentially defined natural as hair that is not chemically straightened. Fast forward over a decade and I am baffled to find that “natural” hair is hair that is not weaved. Tyra Banks sometime ago had a big reveal where she unveiled her “real” hair. For Tyra this was a huge moment as she spent a majority of her adult life wearing some other hair rather than her own. While I commend Tyra on her bravery in taking this bold step I wonder about the state of the Black woman’s psyche when we claim to be “real” or “natural” sporting hair that has been chemically straightened. I stand by original claim made over ten years ago that natural hair is the hair that has not been chemically or heat trained to remain straight. It is the hair that sits on top of your head immediately after it has been washed and totally void of chemical straightening agents. I know in this day and age very few things are truly natural. And for all intents and purposes if we wanted have truly natural we probably would not even comb or style our hair. However I must question: has our collective consciousness shifted so far toward a straight hair ideal that we somehow believe a relaxer is an integral part of our beauty ritual, similar to a comb or oil, or shampoo? Has our sense of what is real or true become so hazy and contrived that we willfully subject ourselves to the notion that chemically processed hair is natural?

As I attempt to reengage in the conversation on Black women’s hair and encourage dialogue I think it’s important to state that relaxed hair without a weave is simply that: relaxed hair. It sits on one end of the spectrum of hair textures while the curls, coils, waves and kinks of truly natural hair sits on the other. Chemically and artificially straightened by definition is not naturally straight. When we compare it to hair that you can buy at a store and attach to your head yes it is real, but if we compared relaxed hair to the hair that grows out of your scalp to my mind it is not only unnatural it is fake or false. Now if deciding to shed the weave if only for a moment is cause for celebration and adulation, I wonder what a conscious effort to end the addiction to the creamy crack (chemical relaxer) would bring about?