Was My Big Chop a Mistake?

Picture it: the downtown strip of an otherwise homogenous northeastern town. A strip with the hallmarks of a mini cultural center: the monolithic beauty supply store, African grocery store, and beauty shops. My big brown, teenage eyes are set on one beauty shop, where I booked the very important appointment to get my big chop and go natural. The appointment turned out to be a triumphant, beautiful disaster.

Less than four years prior to this very important appointment, I managed to get my first relaxer. It was not easy to convince my mom. In fact, it took well over a year and a hand-written letter. My love for hair was full-blown. The only doll that was safe was my Addy American Girl doll. Her hair was just too precious to tamper with my novice skills. Every other doll, including the life-sized doll of my actual human sister, was practice for me. But, I felt limited with my own hair.

I was so tired of braids. Every Congolese girl around the world knows the hours we’ve spent getting our hair braided as little girls. We were adorable and stylish, just like our beautiful mommies. I adore braids now. Back then, I was over it. I was almost a teenager, and I wanted something new. When I finally got a relaxed silky head of hair, I sashayed out of the salon with pure elation. I spent the next few years indulging in my hair.

Things were going great, and then they weren’t. I attribute it to changing stylists to get a bone-straight look. Major fail. Major breakage. By 16, we were trying to restore my tufts of cottony glory. I was back to braids. A few weeks at a summer math and science program for high school students changed my world. There were girls there with natural hair, and I was amazed. I found my solution.

Armed with three months relaxer-free and an appointment, I marched into the salon ready to go natural.

I would start my senior year of high school with natural hair. I sat down before the stylist, humbled. It was hard to remove my hat. You see this stylist was the one who refused to give me a stronger relaxer earlier. She actually cared about hair care; I left for greener pastures that destroyed my hair. Now, I was back. In no uncertain terms, she let me have it. She bitterly berated me for letting my hair get this way. So, I started crying those silent tears that you wipe away quickly, so they will go unnoticed.

A glimpse in the salon mirror revealed that my hair was significantly shorter than I had expected. What would I do with this? I didn’t exactly feel beautiful. There were no smiles or exclamations of liberation. I just felt solid and sure. At this point, one might ask, “Where is the disaster?” The disaster is after the berating, crying, and realization of hair length, the stylist said ten words that have stuck with me for years:

“Do you want me to put your hat back on?”

I was not old enough to fully comprehend the complexity of beauty biases towards Eurocentric characteristics. However, I had taken enough spins in a salon chair to know that stylists never want to conceal their work. Her question stung me right in my teenage insecurity and burgeoning womanly wisdom. It high-fived the insecurities that I had about my beauty, and infuriated my dignity.

Did it look that bad? Did I look that bad? Why would she ask me that? The book-end to this “going natural” experience was a stylist offering to cover my new look? Maybe she sensed my insecurity and she was attempting to help me?

It seems I will never know. What I do know, is how I felt at 16.

I defiantly walked out of the salon with no hat.

What happened next, I could not script. The next week, I went to the monolithic beauty supply store next to the salon. The stylist saw me get out of the car. She walked out of the salon smiling pointing at her newly natural head exclaiming, “I did it, too!”

I was speechless. My appointment with her paled in comparison to the experience I hopefully envisioned in my mind. It wasn’t catastrophic, but it was decidedly not good. As she smiled with her newly natural hair I thought: perhaps my mini act of defiance, to my insecurity, empowered a woman to take her own leap.

That is a triumphant, beautiful disaster.

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