The Controversy of Permed Hair, Are Black Women Selling Out?

I was either four or five years old when I got my first perm. All I remember was it was nap time, I was at a daycare center, and somebody told me it was time to leave because I was going to get a perm. I didn't have a clue what a perm was, but I knew my paternal grandmother really wanted me to have one, and so I did. I don't even recall what the first time was like, but I knew I was not crazy about my beautician. She'd eat cookies and smoke cigarettes while she did my hair, and eventually my grandmother stopped taking me to her shop, which was fine with me because I would miss Girl Scout meetings on Saturday mornings just to get second-hand smoke.

Then I went to another beautician who was slow as molasses about doing my hair, but she was sweet and she didn't smoke. I thought she was great with my hair, but the only problem was that she didn't have enough common sense to let my grandmother know when I had a sore on my head (I was a part-time tomboy), so I got a perm burn. I burst into tears because the perm was burning my scalp like fire, and the beautician just kept saying, "Just a couple minutes. You have to let it get straight" and holding me still in the chair. I wanted to pop her in the eye, but I was raised better than that. The worst part was that that happened twice, and all she said was, "Well, I saw the sore when she came in, but I thought you knew," to my grandmother. I guess money was more important than skin burning on my neck.

From about five years old until I was about 13, I had beauty salon appointments, and after awhile, I just wanted to do my own thing. My mother wasn't into taking me to the shop or paying for it didn't push me to keep going, and my grandmother had finally calmed down on the idea, or maybe she just got tired of me ditching the beauty salon to be a teenager. But when I was 15, I decided to whack off the top half of my hair and get it stacked and feathered. And then once I realized how much I'd learned from going to beauty salons as a child, I didn't need to make beauty salon appointments unless I wanted it cut. I found a neighborhood beautician who I went to sparingly.

From the age of 13 to current day, I perm my own hair. I can also stack, style, feather, wrap, curl, and mold my hair, just from observing those two beauticians I had when I was little. Cosmetology school was in session everyday because I was little, bored, and staring at the beauticians waiting on them to finally say, "You're done."

But the ironic part is that even with the two painful perm burns, the smoking, missing Girl Scout meetings, and at least seven curling iron and flat iron burns on my arms, to this day, I still have a perm. Honestly, I just permed my hair not even six hours ago and dried it while watching Chris Rock on "The Oprah Show" talking about his upcoming film, "Good Hair." I listened to women talk about weaves, wigs, extensions and perm, and I started remembering those beauty salon days.

The strange part is that I'm quite the hypocrite when it comes to hair. You couldn't pay me to put any wig, weave, or extensions in my hair nor have I ever had any. I don't feel the need or the desire to put somebody else's hair in my own head when I know how to do my own hair. I've never even dyed my hair because I feel like if I was born with this color hair, then that's the color it needs to be until I die. So if I'm all about being natural, then why is it that anytime my hair is too wavy, I run to the nearest beauty salon to buy perm? I loved having a black-owned beauty salon three blocks from home for my entire childhood and teenage years. When I came home from college, I would still go to that shop on 87^th and Racine constantly. (By the way, it also contradicted the theory that only Asian people could have beauty supply stores and hair care businesses.)

I've said many times that I was going to dread my hair, and I always gush over sistas who do it. I think dreads and twists are beautiful, and I've never seen a woman with her natural hair that I didn't like, but I think I've just grown to accept that I am not fond of my hair without a perm.

It's almost a mind thing. I watched "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and listened to white women talk about how important blonde hair is to the white community, and it reminded me so much of the "good hair/bad hair" controversy among black women.

Black women celebrities talked about getting weaves in their hair on "Good Hair" and how men can't touch their hair. I couldn't relate, but what I could relate to was how excited Chris Rock was to run his fingers through Oprah Winfrey's hair. He joked about how black men are never allowed to do such a thing, but I have had at least three guys I've dated have the time of their lives in my head. In mid-conversation, they'd just reach out and rub my scalp and comb their fingers through my shoulder-length hair, knowing full well it's really my hair. It happened last week actually. And I take care of my hair simply because I was raised in a beauty salon, the same place that I hate to be. It's a love/hate situation.

I had a conversation with a co-worker a few months back who refuses to get a perm because she talked about the chemicals. I told her putting heat on her head every few days to press it isn't all that healthy for the hair. I don't know the scientific studies about which is worse for the head-perming or pressing-but what I do know is that I can perm my hair and then not put that kind of heat or chemical on it for three months, minus blow-drying hair. And because I have a perm, even washing my hair makes it less wavy. It takes quite a few washes before it'll go back to the wavy, natural state it is instead of a press that automatically frizzes up in a few days.

So does that make me a proudly permed woman? No, in all honesty, it means I'm brainwashed into believing straight hair is prettier on me than naturally wavy hair. But I don't quite agree with the argument that women with perms are trying to make their hair look like white women. Look at any black hairstyle magazine like "Hype Hair," "Black Beauty and Hair" or "Black Hair" and you'll see black women still doing unique things with their hair that white women's hair is just too fine to do-stacking, twisting (without a pound of mousse to keep it in place) and molding (remember those 90's high hairstyles?)

But would I go so far to say that black women are comfortable with their natural hair? Sometimes. When I picture famous celebrity black women, they usually have a weave or extensions, but it warms my heart to see women like First Lady Michelle Obama who has her own real hair styled. And when I think of my own childhood friends, co-workers I used to hang out with, and close family, they primarily went to beauty salons to get their own hair done. However, a lot of my mother's side of the family has Creole blood, so their hair is not the same texture as I inherited from my father's side. My mother's side would be classified as the "good hair" crew. It wasn't until I was employed with 104-year-old Chicago Defender newspaper that I saw more than one or two women who came to work with naturals every single day instead of maybe a day or two in between beauty salon appointments, and I dug it.

I love India Arie's song "I Am Not My Hair." I don't spend thousands of dollars at salons. I paid $7 for perm today. In three-month increments, plus random shampoo and conditioner, I'd say I spend about $100 per year total on hair. I have bills, and after over a decade of concentrating on my hair, it's just not that important to me. Healthy hair? Absolutely. Freshly styled, whipped, and washed hair? I can get that with rollers, a wrap cap, and a curling iron. And who knows? Maybe some day I'll whack it off again and this time dread it. Or, maybe I'll still be stuck in Perm Land forever. I can't make any promises.