It Looks Just Like the Ones in the Store

A couple of weeks ago, I got dupped into doing my niece’s hair. It was soooo cute.

Anyhoo, the following weekend, she spent the night with her cousins both of whom are permed and considerably older than her. She’s 12, the next oldest is 16 and the next one is 19. Why these teenage girls  love hanging around my niece is really beyond me. But they’re both raised right, and they take good care of her so everyone is very comfortable with it.

Well, the next time I see her is the following Monday. She always wants to be my shadow so I let her ride with me while I ran an errand. That’s when she tells me, “My cousins really liked my hair. They kept playing with my puff, and they said it was really soft.”

I’m like “Really?” Although I think that’s kinda cute, I’m also thinking, geeze that would have driven me batty.

I took my hair down cause I didn’t want it to be jacked up…

I swear talking to my niece is like pulling hen’s teeth sometimes because she never gives you the full story, and even when you ask the right questions, you still don’t get all the answers. Are all teens and preteens like this? I swear it’s like she’s in training to be a politician. But I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself; let me start at the beginning.

Yesterday, I walk into the kitchen at my mom’s house and my niece is sitting at the counter watching most likely some garbage on Black Exploitation Television (BET) or maybe even Disney. She turns around, sees me, looks up and says, “Hi Auntie, I took my hair down at Girls Scouts today cause I didn’t want my hair to be jacked up. I’m going out of town tomorrow.”

I Am So Feeling My Hair!

That wasn’t the case about a month ago. More than a year-and-a- half after abandoning thermal styling methods, the remainder of my heat damaged hair finally decided to break off.

Back when I was abusing my hair with heat, one of my staple hair styles was a press and curl. And because I sweat so badly in the scalp expecially at night, I’d touch it up with a hot comb nearly every day and then proceed to hot curl it as well.

Then after I got tired of doing that, I’d pull my hair back into a ponytail, nap it up and wear it in a puff. To maintain this do, I’d smooth my top, edges and sides every morning with the barrel of a curling iron…after all, I couldn’t have any nappy edges showing. I’d do this for weeks on end and unbeknowst to me, I was setting myself up for a lot of grief, which finally caught up to me. Since it took so long to break off, I never knew my hair was so badly damaged. Apparently all that heat early on created a different, weaker texture, much like relaxed hair, that was butting up against my stronger virgin, heat-free hair. And just like when someone transitions from chemicals to natural hair, that weaker hair is extremely prone to breakage. In that state, something usually has to give — and in my case, that old hair, which caught the brunt of so much heat, finally just snapped right off  leaving me with about eight inches of hair about an inch in, from ear-to-ear, right across my front hair line.

Seven-year-old with severe traction alopecia

Yesterday, I was at a Sonic drive up restaurant and noticed the cutest little family. Looked like the grandparents were on a little outing with all of their grandchildren ranging in age from maybe 3 -10. One of the little girls with them had quite a severe case of what looked to be traction alopecia. Her hair was pulled into a puff sitting on top of her hair and appeared to be “floating” cause her hairline, for about 1.5 inches in, was practically nonexistent.

I wrestled with my conscious. “Should I say something, or should I mind my own business?” Ok, so my conscious won. Plus grandma looked friendly and approachable. So I got out of my car and in my friendliest voice I say to grandma, “Hi, if you tell me to mind my own business, I will and I’ll certainly understand. But her hair is soooo pretty and then I noticed her hair line. It looks like traction alopecia.”