CNN iReport

When I was around the age of 6 or 7, my mom and I were watching Ike & tina Turner on some variety show.  They were singing, "Proud Mary."  When they got to the "rollin...rollin...rollin on the river...doo duh, doo, doo, fast part, the Ikettes joined Tina on stage with all this energy and this hair!  Straight hair that they were slinging and flinging.  I was mesmerized.  I'd never seen anything like it, black women with straight hair?  In awe, I asked my mom...

B:  Momma, how'd they get their hair like that?

M:  They're wigs.

B:  Then how can they shake their heads like that without it coming off?

M:  It's sown into their scalp.

B:  (Thinks silently)...wow that must really hurt...but to have hair like that would be worth it!

"Lord, please give me good hair."  That was my prayer as a child.  After all, both of my sisters had "good hair" thus being spared the Saturday evening ritual of the hot comb with its inherent ear holding and singed hair smell.  Life, at least as far as it related to my hair, just didn't seem fair.

How I despised my own unruly hair with its kinkiness, its thickness.  I hated even more the process I had to endure in order for it to look "good."  Or perhaps the fact that I had to go through a process at all fueled my hair displeasure.

My hair felt more like a liability - a punishment rather than something to be proud of.  Once processed, I became enslaved to it.  "No, I can't go swimming - just got my hair straightened.  No I can't run and play, it'll sweat my hair out."  I didn't want to endure my mom's wrath nor the painful wash and hot comb unnecessarily if I didn't have to.

Since God didn't seem to be listening, I fantasized about saving enough money to buy me some hair like Tina Turner or Diana Ross.  I vowed to bravely endure any pain associated with getting that straight hair "sown into my scalp."  After all, it couldn't be any worse than what I already endured with my own kinky hair.

Little did I know that the hair that graced my head was the very hair that I prayed for.  That the same thick, unruly, kinky hair I despised was indeed an asset.  I now know and understand thanks to Sisterlocks®, that I have hair that I can style, grow down my back, cut, curl, crinkle, pin up, swim and exercise in, walk-in-the-rain, ride-with-the-windows-down, wash-whenever-I-want-to, go-to-bed-looking-pretty, wake-up-looking-pretty, or do-absolutely-nothing-and-still-look-pretty-kind-of-hair!

I've learned that I have hair in it's natural state that makes me feel good about me.  Hair that I am proud of.  And, oh yeah, hair I can fling and swing just like Tina and Ikettes!

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