Have you ever had a bad hair day?
I am talking about the I want to scream, I want to die kind of bad hair day where all you want to do is just crawl back into bed, wake up and hope the bad hair day didn’t happen? Where you hope that it was all a nightmare and that when you wake up you will laugh off that horror scene.
Yes. Then you feel me when I tell you my story.
No. I hope you never have one of those.
My bad hair day happened when I was living in the UK. I lived in Nottingham, in a small town called Mansfield where I was like an alien, very few blacks so it took time before people got used to seeing me. But that town had such friendly people I still miss it to this day. Anyway back to my story.
Since I was like the only black person I knew I couldn’t go to the salon to have my hair done because they weren’t used to dealing with my hair. So I would buy braids and chemical for my hair in London and come down to plait my hair or retouch my hair myself when I needed to.
So this one time I was going for an important meeting the next day. I had undone my braids and decided to relax my hair. I had gotten one of those gentle relaxers that doesn’t burn your scalp. I applied it and then went to watch tv. They were showing the parent trap. It was such an interesting movie that I forgot the time and that I had chemical on my hair.
So the movie ended and I went to wash my hair. Guess what, my hair fell off in clumps. I could see my hair coming off and falling into the bathtub as I rinsed my hair with the shower-head. The horror. Here I was in the middle of the African hair desert (for me as there were no salons for my type of hair) and my hair is falling off and I had a meeting in the morning. To be honest I almost cried.
I just conditioned my hair and had to decide what to do in the morning. The worst part was my hair wasn’t even. Some parts were short and others were long. The next morning I just had to put on a bandana and walk around like that. Because I couldn’t even get it cut at that point because the guys I was living with weren’t around. It was embarrassing to go for the meeting like that but I had no options. I eventually got it cut but it made me not use relaxer for the rest of my time in the UK until a good friend came over who would help me out. Now it seems so funny but at the time I was devastated. I think that is part of the reason I am so comfortable with short hair. From that time I would either braid or have my hair shaggy like the photo below.
We all have bad hair days. But we should not let that stop us from living our lives. If you are not having a good hair day you can always use a scarf or a hat to change your look. If you are working in an office and cannot do that you can always have a wig that you can use on those bad hair days or simply use hair accessories.
As I have learnt keep smiling. Your best days are still ahead.
