Do we really need Natural Hair Advocates?

Here is my confession. I am not a natural advocate! Yes, I said it. Bite me, lol. I am not saying this because I am trying to dissociate myself from the word Nazi. If you know me well, you will know that unlike many naturals, I am truly not a natural hair advocate. This means I do not advocate for people to wear their hair in its natural state. You might ask yourself why I say this, especially when my world and my entire business revolves around natural hair.

Well, I will clarify this. What I am is a Problem-solver. When I see friends with relaxed hair, whether healthy or otherwise, I don’t get into any story with them about hair. I have never ever told anyone to wear their hair in its natural state. Never! But you see, once a lady has decided she wants to wear her hair natural, and comes to me to help her, that is where I come in. Then, you see all my antennas up, and me doing what I know how to do best… easing people along in their natural hair journey.

There are many natural hair advocates (not Nazis) out there, and I think they are doing a great job, but it is not just in my personality to advocate for natural hair, not because I don’t think it is serious, cos trust me, hair issue is very serious, no matter how people try hard to pretend it isn’t, but because I believe people should have the right to decide by themselves how they want to wear their hair.

When people try to ask me any kind of question that would pull me into comparing natural hair with relaxed hair, I give them facts, not opinions, i.e. I present scientific information about the process each hair strand goes through to become relaxed, and what changes have taken place to get the hair straightened. Then I tell them what natural hair can do that relaxed hair cannot do, such as adopting various curl patterns, etc. And I leave the choice to them to make.

When I started the whole natural hair blog and later, products, my own sister, who lives in the same house with me, had long relaxed hair. I never for one day mentioned anything about going natural to her. I hardly discussed hair issues with her, and she hardly discussed hair issues with me. She reads the blog regularly, so she has info about natural hair. One day, after about two years of starting this blog, she pings me from her place of work, and says she wants to go natural, and that she had been thinking about the decision for a while. I never told her to be natural, she saw it with her eyes, observed the trend, and saw all the things I did at home.

Another surprising one is when one of my former colleagues told me at work that she did not see why ladies were now fussing all over about going natural. She said as long as she can have healthy relaxed hair that looks beautiful, that’s all that mattered. She said she can never do "all these natural hair stuff." She went on about how ladies use natural hair as an excuse to look like ruffians, look clumsy, etc. Even if I were a natural hair advocate, this friend of mine is not someone you want to enter an argument with. This year January, and she pinged me and said she is going natural, and asked for my advice. I didn’t bother reminding her of her statement. I just gave her the info she needed. Loads of people have gone natural because of me. I can give many more examples, but I believe my point has been made.

I see the process of someone making a decision to be natural as similar to when one religion wants to gain new converts. There are the pastors/imams/rabbis who do the work of preaching, those are the advocates. Then there are people who just use their lifestyle to gain new converts without uttering a word, which is the category I fall under. I personally believe that this second category is always the most effective.

The reason I started this blog is to help people who are already natural or have made up their mind to go natural, though people with relaxed hair benefit a lot from this blog. The process of getting people to make the decision to go natural is what I leave to the natural hair advocates. Let me just focus on the hair care aspect.

P.S: African Naturalistas is looking to partner with Events Planners on a business idea we have. If you are an Events Planner and interested, or you know anyone that might be interested, please let the person contact us on 07061141501 or info@africanaturalistas.com

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