When it comes to having sleek, "polished", and "well put together" hair black women will go for the gold every time. So many of us have struggled for years to be comfortable with our hair and our beauty. We spend billions of dollars on hair care and beauty products each and every year. There is no doubt about it that for decades product manufacturers have profited from our insecurities.
Millions of us buy products that chemically straighten our hair and cause issues with scalp burning and destroys our reproduction system. Millions of us overly wear weaves that cause traction alopecia and leave us with bald patches. Millions of us buy buckets and buckets of gel and edge control to make sure that our edges are laid. Where did this mentality come from and where did these buying habits come from?
Recently, there was a woman by the name of Tessica Brown who came out and talked about how she ran out of a hair spray and she substituted the hair spray for Guerilla Glue because she wanted to make sure that her hair stayed in place. What ended up happening was Tessica was not able to move her hair at all for over a month. In a Tik Tok video that went viral Tessica reveals that she tried to wash her hair 15 times and her hair did not move......at all!
So many people are clowning this woman about her hair. I personally do feel bad for her. She wanted to achieve the "polished" look so bad that she resorted to using damn near-commercial grade adhesive to do so. Think about it, if having laid edges was not a big deal the thought of using this adhesive may not have even crossed her mind. I must say that I could definitely see a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old doing this, but what makes this story even more strange is that Tessica is 40 years old. I am curious to know what happened in this woman's life to make her feel like it she had to do whatever she had to do to lay her edges down, even if that meant using Guerilla Glue.
Ms. Brown has been to the Emergency Room to see if they could help. They did in fact subscribe her some product to help get the glue out. Beyonce's hairstylist reached out to provide assistance and dozens of other stylists as well. It is rumored that Tessica is seeking legal action against Guerilla Glue for her troubles. We will have to see how this all turns out.
In our documentary, Natural Hair the Movie, Professor Tina Opie talks about how she would get in trouble if her edges started to stick out after she got her hair pressed. This was due to the fact that she was outside playing and sweating thus causing her hair to revert back to its natural state. That was money that was spent on a style that was deemed wasted. Also, her hair then was seen as "unpolished" and less put together.
This Tessica Brown situation is an extreme case of going overboard with trying to achieve a European standard of beauty.
Our hair is strong, our hair defies gravity, our hair is connected to our intuition, and it is a part of our nervous system yet for centuries we have fought against our own hair and our own image, the defying trait that defines Blackness.....Why? Because the people around us said that it was unacceptable?
This is getting crazy, it is really time that some of us start to really look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves do we feel like we are beautiful...do we feel like we are worthy... because our actions are saying otherwise and we are continuing to harm ourselves to look like something that we are not. To try to be something that we will never be.
I had a white man leave a comment on my post about Tessica say that this was perfect for Black history month and that she should be called Guerilla Girl. That is exactly what I would expect from a southern white man. However, I expect for us to know better and to do better.
It is my prayer and hope that we stop the cycle of hair trauma. It is my prayer that we tell our daughters and nieces that they are beautiful and that their hair is beautiful, and that they are still pretty even if their edges are not laid. It is our job to teach our daughters to treat themselves well.
It is time for us to stop damaging our minds, our bodies, and our hair because of some stupid standard that was not even set by us. It is time that we start loving ourselves starting from the top of our heads.
