Growing up, I dreaded getting my hair done. Every two weeks on a Sunday, my grandmother would always do my hair for the upcoming school week. She would wash it in the morning, let it air dry all day and then by evening when it was all knotted, she would comb it.

Starting to comb my ridiculously tangled kinky hair from the roots in order to detangle it hurt me to the core. I cried and try to pull away but I’d be met with a chop in my head from the comb.

I used to wish that my hair was long and straight so that I could play while she was combing it and it wouldn’t hurt because the comb would just slide right through it.

The first chance I got, when I got older, I tried to straighten my hair so it would be easier to manage but I went about it the wrong way.

I bought a relaxer and tried to semi-perm my hair with the help of a friend’s mother. I didn’t want it fully straight, I just wanted it to be less kinky. That plan didn’t work out at all. The box instruction says to let the perm sit in the hair for 20minutes but by the time she got through the first half of my head the perm was already in for over 30 minutes. I was devastated and after everything was washed and dried, I was so sad that I wanted to shave off all my hair. My hair started to fall off from lack of care so in a way, I was shaving my head by not taking care of it.

This all started because I hated the texture of my hair, I didn’t know how to manage it and no other person around me knew how or even bothered to learn.

When I moved to Japan, I was really on my own with doing my hair. The choices were,

1. Pay $150 for a weave (hair not included) or

2. Learn to do it myself

After going to a Japanese salon in order to get my ends clipped and having them stand in awe over my hair and not knowing what to do with it, I decided it was time learn.

YouTube became my best friend, how to cornrow your hair became the main thing I searched and in time I learned to take my hair from a mess to something that resembled a style.

Wigs became my new best friend they flawlessly hid my hideous first timer cornrows while I slowly got better.

I have come a long way from that little girl crying because her hair was getting done to doing crotchet braids in my own head. I’ve learned to love my hair even though I still fight with it.

This struggle is what inspired me to make the poetic video called The Notion Of Hair

I knew I wasn’t the only girl to go through the pain of learning to deal with my hair and I know there are still a lot of people who still haven’t learned how to deal with kinky hair so there is still a little girl out there crying because her hair is being combed. There are so many false beliefs about tightly coiled hair and this is my way of shattering those beliefs.

Our hair is beautiful and this is my representation of love for black hair.