I remember my mum relaxing my curly hair as early as 7 years old because she couldn’t handle it.
Now she sees my natural hair and realises how beautiful it is, she is proud of me and my journey.
She has been confronted to more curly images recently and I believe it helped her warm up to the idea.
In school, I used to gel my hair back and used shoelaces to tie it very tight. I would also straighten it very frequently, aiming to have what I thought was perfect hair: no flyaways, no volume, no frizz.
In addition to my hair, all this process really damaged my self-esteem.
I am glad that within this natural hair movement we are breaking up with society’s rules and challenging beauty standards. It’s important to acknowledge the fact that western ideologies are still being pushed on everyone, and unfortunately, many of us have been affected by it or still are.
Representation is key to help each other grow and understand that we can all be beautiful whatever the way we look. Having lighter skin and straight hair is still seen as the only way to be beautiful, but you can have the darkest skin, kinky hair and still be gorgeous.
If we all come together we can definitely turn things around, make a change happen and be more influential. Social media are great tools for that.
My advice to all the ladies who struggle to embrace their natural curls would be to fake it until you make it. Look at yourself in the mirror every single day and tell yourself that you are beautiful and worthy.