“There are no hard-and-fast rules for how to take care of black hair. What works for one black woman may not work for another. It takes a lot of trial and error to create your own user manual, and when you have a full-time job, it’s hard to find the time”
Photo: Getty Images Getting laid off in 2017 was a terrible experience, but it did have one upside: I finally got to wear my hair in a full Afro for the first time in 20 years.
Before then, I hadn’t spent much quality time with my hair. Maintaining natural hair takes a lot of work — wash-and-go is not really an option, especially with tight coils like mine. I’d stopped chemically straightening my hair in 2013 and gotten braids in 2014. I rarely took them out except to wash my hair before getting my next set. Working on a team that was almost entirely composed of white people didn’t just mean code-switching my personality, but code-switching my hair as well.
Going natural means paying more in either time or money, if you can afford regular visits to a stylist who understands black hair. Plus you need to try a ton of products to troubleshoot what works for you. I tried different kinds of twist outs, learned how to do French braids, turned a gigantic scarf I bought in Israel into a perfect head wrap, and learned how to give myself some rudimentary braids. I hit up beauty-supply shops on Fulton Street in Brooklyn on a biweekly basis to buy hair products and different tools, like flexi-rods and big metal clips.
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