In Pursuit of Nappyness… Introducing Kinky Nikz 2.0

Hi Bloggesphere,

I heard about this website a few weeks ago and thought it was a great idea. What a great opportunity to showcase my fabulous writing skills (J) and say a lot about… well, stuff! But then I was actually given the opportunity to write my first blog and I was stumped; what was I going to say? What would I call myself? I mean, would anyone give a flying Kcuf? Answer: probably not. But hey, does it really matter? I decided to approach the blog like most other things in my life, head on, without fear and with positive karma or as my boyfriend say’s, ‘enter any action with boldness!’. 

So, here goes. I thought it only right to begin with letting you know who I am and what gives me the right to evade your mind space.

I am the kind of person who likes change…often. So when I was thinking about a new hairstyle for probably the third time in 2008, my colleague suggested I grow an afro so they can hide things in it. You may well laugh but, to be honest, it wasn’t a bad idea (the growing part). So I spoke to the very few natural haired ladies that I know to help make my decision. I mean, I have only dealt with short relaxed her for my whole adult life, what was I about to do with a ‘fro?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I cut my hair for fun on the worst days but this time it was different. This time I would let it grow back naturally.

Now, when you think about it, this should have no bearing on my decision. The aim is to grow my hair naturally (okay, I know you got that much), the way God intended it to come out of the follicles on my epidermis but yet I had to research and ask questions about what to expect. These days that just doesn’t sit right with me, why is this information not already apparent? I digress…after much deliberation and in an ‘I AM my own woman’ moment after an argument with my boyfriend, I sat in a barbers chair in Willesden and told him to shave my head, shave it clean.

I remember walking out of the barber smiling hard at this new liberation, I was bald, bold and free. If I had a convertible SLK I would have driven off into the sunset down the M1. Instead, I rubbed my head and jumped on the 266 back home to Harlesden.

Okay, so I have now cut my hair, of course there has to be a collation of thoughts and opinions and a general consensus on the new ‘do’. Everyone loved it, except my mum who gave me a nonchalant “when are you going to leave your head alone” (she is now very bored of my spur of the moment style changes!). There was just one more tiny thing, I was yet to see the man in my life and thought that turning up at his upcoming club night looking like earth mother was the ONLY thing to do. Let’s just say he approved. J

So anyway, to cut a long story short, let’s fast forward 1 year and 9 months and I love my fro, it’s 6 inches, it’s fierce, it’s me. I care for it like I would my first born child, we‘ve been through learning, misguidance, pain, disappointment, love and hate. My hair has taken me on a journey, it has dictated my lifestyle, it has made me feel unattractive and yet made me beam with pride.

Now, I’m no Oprah, and i will not be handing out a free car for tuning in next week but I will be sharing what I have learnt on my pilgrimage to nappturality. The products that scientifically work for black hair and ones that worked/ work for me, hair care regimes and all things natural. Please feel free to post any questions that you may have in the future and happy reading!!!

Kinky Nikz

Calamity Jane #7 - Seventh Circle of hell (Violence)

Sunday 10^th January at a bar in Catford one quintessentially black London ‘youf’ (baggy jeans riding the crack of his buttocks, an oversized jumper, body warmer and some rather funky and expensive looking trainers) stood before me to recite a poem he had written about his mother. His eloquence and delivery were polished, the substance of his words powerful. The young Bard spoke of the perpetual beatings he received (only black’s open a poem about love of their mothers with stories of beatings - as though the two are inextricable linked. Anyhow it inspired laughs and emphatic nods from everyone in the room), the humiliation the beatings invoked, the adoration and respect it derived, the love and protection that grew and finally the man it inspired him to become. His strength, his humanity, his passion, his life choices were all inspired by his mother (who seemingly ruled with an iron fist).

There is a new guard of child rearing theory, often espoused by the well educated, well paid, Guardian reading liberals (none of whom reside in Catford). The sorts of people whose children have names like Hermoine or Tabitha (and they have the cheek to look down on Shaniqua, Laquisha or Ray Ray). Their children refer to them by their first names and discipline at home and in public is supplanted by ‘healthy debate’ - recall the looks which could summon death that your mother would give you if you ever showed her up in public - as blacks we recognise the significance of public displays of bad behaviour.

It isn’t that black children are loved any less by their parents; they just have a different way of delivering the same message. It all boils down to vernacular. For example in an effort to encourage her daughter to lose some weight a middle class English woman may say to her daughter ‘darling, lets start going for walkies in the Heath together, we could both do with the exercise. We haven’t ridden Jezebel (the black stallion) in some time, why don’t we pop to the stables for ride this weekend? Remind me to send Bee (the maid) to the organic shop to pick up some bean sprouts for dinner’. Over the same topic Keesha for example would simply say (as I have witnessed with my own eyes) ‘Fat giaarl stop eating that crap. That’s why you cian’t lose weight!’ Behind the hardened veneer of Keesha shouting fat giarlll, I knew there was love.

This is not the forum to debate child rearing techniques, but as I ponder my own childhood, the tales of discipline are embedded in my psyche… Amongst the black community, tales of discipline have bonded and united generations of people, who, although brought up all over the country were all reared in the same way. Go to any black comedy night, party, outdooring (naming ceremony) or gathering and the tales of childhood discipline (brutality tailored to audience) will be told.

God Bless hair salon is no exception. I had become accustomed to a degree of shouting at the badly behaved children when called for, but the ferocity of it sometimes knocked me off guard. I knew what was coming when I’d hear Keesha calmly tell the kids to stop running, quietly but firmly under her breath (I was always dumbfounded that the kids didn’t read the signs) giving them a chance to redeem themselves with her warnings. They didn’t, they carried on obliviously; Slamming into customers, who were already perplexed by their own gaggle of bored, cooped up children, who’d spent their Saturday following them round the market looking for the cheapest yam, ripest plantain (accepting nothing less that 5 for a pound) and freshest chicken and were now about to face the abyss that is the salon. I didn’t blame them for wanting to play. I just wished it were outside and away from me. Then BAMN! before I could blink Keesha’s turned and with one hand wrestled the screaming kids down to the ground (two at once) whilst giving the lucky third who got away the ‘so help me God if I wasn’t carrying this hot comb, you’d be in my hands right now’ look.

As the stiff upper lip British resolve hadn’t yet penetrated the borders of Peckham, I knew her emotions from her recent outburst would come to bear on my head. Those were the moments I prayed to God (staring down at me from the lone crucifix on the wall next to the poster of the scantily dressed woman cupping her breasts advertising the month of January) I wasn’t next in line for Keesha chair. Inevitably I always was...

CJ

Calamity Jane #6 - Sixth Circle of Hell (Sacrilege)

Sometime around 1988 Public Enemy roared ‘Don’t believe the hype’ down the microphone amidst police sirens, fierce looking dogs, burnt out cars, a boy on a bike with one side of his t-shirt draped loosely over one shoulder with his hair uncombed under an enlarged baseball cap, and the usual rigmarole that marks a hip hop video!

How true Public Enemy’s words ring as I recall the stories my friends (almost smug in their delivery), have told me of their wonderfully punctual hairdressers, who called if they were running late, offered them tea or coffee when they arrived, attended to them and only them throughout the duration of their appointment and advised them how to look after their hair and the best products to use in between visits to the salon.  Ha!!! Well I didn’t believe them then and I don’t believe them now. I know our fate and no amount of self deception can lull me in to a false sense of security.

One such perpetrator of this delusional ‘delightful hairdresser’ syndrome as I call it, was my best buddy, Yinka, whose soul aim in life was to condemn my choice in hairdresser; despite the fact that she always praised my hair, but believed the sacrifice in attaining the style was simply too great. In Yinka’s defence, she was always the one I called in floods of tears, in a rage, on the verge of murder and the all the other aggressive emotions, Keesha had managed to bring out in me. So she had a slightly compromised view of her.

Now I am not one to revel in the misfortunes of others, but I recall a tale or two about Yinka’s misfortunes at hairdressers, that make my tales pale in to insignificance. Of course these had been consigned to the dustbin of history (as far as Yinka is concerned) but for today I have reclaimed them to disprove the ‘delightful hairdresser’ syndrome once and forever.

Up at the crack of dawn, (I’m spotting a theme here of us waking up earlier than the light, just to make it to the salon – only to wait some more) Yinka makes her way to Camberwell for ‘appointment’ at the hair salon. At £25 for a weave it’s more of a conveyor belt than a salon. Camberwell is a typical cosmopolitan south London suburb yet to experience regeneration. Pockets have been gentrified, usually where the white people live, but the high street where the black folks dwell, resembles any sprawling African market. Therefore seeing Yinka and her kin folk, sat queuing from 8am outside a hair salon which is yet to open (on a stool she has brought from home), on the sidewalk of the busy high street was as common a sight as plantain in Peckham. 

Women came prepared, some having brought porridge, flasks of hot tea, carnation milk, books and magazines for entertainment (the black girl scouts). Whilst others (the inexperienced first timers) stood shivering, mouths parched, afraid to run to the shop across the road for fear of losing their spot in the queue. No bond of female solidarity was going to make a sister hold another sisters place in the line. In this pre dawn battle of the will, being prepared counts, as it’s every woman for herself.  The doors finally opened and the bargain basement weave shop is ready for business. With only three girls on the early shift, it meant at least another 1.5 hours wait before Yinka is finally seen; at least she’s inside, having been rescued from her stool on the street corner.  

On another occasion in another hair salon across town in New Cross, where the pre-dawn queuing on a stool was a thing of the past and the service was professional (other than the lecherous husband of the salon owner who thought customer service meant inviting Yinka on a date when his wife was out of sight). The delusional ‘delightful hairdresser syndrome’ was as close to reality as Yinka had imagined. Until a bi-weekly appointment went horribly wrong and brought the delightful hairdresser dream crashing down…

Having had the same conservative hair style for many years, which suited but didn’t inspire her, Yinka decided to embrace a new look. After very specifically explaining her vision to her hairdresser, using magazine cut outs as a visual guide, Yinka was aghast to find her hairdresser proceeded to cut her hair into a style SHE saw fit and ‘hacked it bald’  (to use her words exactly). In reality it was more of a bob, so high at the back it resembled T-Boz’s (TLC) circa 1990’s cut, which back when Yinka was 12 years old was all the rage, but a bit of an anomaly in the city of London age 28 in the late noughties.

A year of perpetual hair braiding followed, until the damage was suitably repaired!

Ladies no more lies. No more pretending to one another. Rich or poor; high end salon in Knightsbridge or back street shanty in Peckham, lets embrace the inevitable humiliation, anger, rage together – why oh why do these hairdressers do this to us?.

CJ

Calamity Jane #5 - Fifth Circle of Hell (Wrath and Sloth)

There are certain universal truths. One of which is that time waits for no (wo)man. It’s a fundamental fact of life which compounds our insignificance in the macrocosm that is the universe. Or so I thought…

Recall the dread that fills you on a Saturday (approximately once every four to six weeks) when it’s time to retouch, re-sew or re-whatever is necessary for our hair. You’ve cleared your diary, organised your social events to start as late in the evening as possible (or indeed postponed them for a week as there is every possibility you will return later that evening exactly as you left – only a little more jaded by life’s cruelties) and you’ve had a hearty breakfast as goodness knows when you’ll eat again. The painful thing as you drive (or worse, sit on the bus, tube, train or tram) in the dark (the sun not having yet risen) is knowing the procedure you are about to endure shouldn’t take long, although it inevitably does.

One particular occasion filled me with a wrath I have rarely experienced in my young and relatively passive life. I arrived as scheduled one Saturday morning, having phoned Keesha on numerous occasions the night before to confirm the time of my ‘appointment’. I had been particularly anxious (which Keesha must have sensed from my wails and cries down the phone) as I had a function to attend in the evening and my hair was beyond any state of repair, and wearing a hat would have been inappropriate.

I parked up in the back streets of Peckham, cautious that not even my bumper touched a yellow line as I’ve paid £50 to Southwark council on more occasions than I cared to remember (making my hair doubly expensive). I run like the wind to the salon only to find the shutters down and nobody in sight.

After hanging on the corner looking like a hooker (in the traditional attire of south London prostitute of tracksuit and trainers – very glamorous!) I go next door to God Bless Caribbean restaurant and ask for Keesha. After rambling something inaudible making no attempt at eye contact (with the restaurant being the base for the notorious Peckham Boys gang, there is no wonder she is accustomed to averting her gaze) I'm handed the keys to the salon. It seems Keesha had called her but not bothered letting me know she’d be late and I begrudgingly make my way next door watching time disappear before my very eyes.

I lift the shutters; open the doors let myself in and scream in fury. An hour passes and after turning on the radio (automatically tuned into Vibes FM) Mavado’s ‘So Special’ blaring out of the speakers, I take to the floor, headscarf flailing (yes I wore it in public), and dance the running man, with a hint of MC Hammer unashamedly for the world to see. I introduce a strange Beyonce-esq circular motion of the arms around my head, which does me no favours with my poor balance and I stumble back on to the sofa. Still no sign of Keesha and I’ve bored of calling her only for her to say “I’m round the corner” – What corner of London is a hour and a half away from Peckham? After a nap, I find a Clementine buried at the bottom of my bag and hope the sustenance will distract me from my ever growing rage. I consider going elsewhere but being 11.30am, I’d only end up queuing for an eternity for some hairdresser I don’t know or trust who will inevitably burn me, even more than my body has been conditioned to take.

Finally Keesha arrives with four loud children in toe. Expecting a profuse apology I perk up (having been asleep on the sofa), stone faced and rigid from the uncomfortable couch. ‘What is that smell?’ she almost spits at me. ‘Have you been eating oranges in ere? I hate the smell of orange, it makes me sick’. And with that she goes about settling the children and preparing her breakfast. Not one word uttered in apology for being over two hours late. I swore from that day on I would never return...

Of course four weeks passed, I was too lazy to go in search of someone new and so the cycle of my life continued.

Do not confuse what you have just read with something as trite as Black People Time. BPT doesn’t describe the magnitude of Keesha’s disregard for punctuality. She takes lateness and stamps out the considerate, leaving a hollow feeling where courtesy used to live!  

CJ

Calamity Jane #4 - Fourth Circle of Hell (Greed)

As an African, my fancy dress attempts at school (a fetish we blacks neither dare nor care to understand) were never up to par and the concept of it still leaves me mystified. As my friends exerted energy (their mothers up, all night sewing and stitching and sweating until the dawn) creating a teenage mutant ninja turtle outfit from scratch; my mother would simply blot some black powder on my face, draw dots with her eye liner, and with the rest of my body adorned in my usual get up, send me off to school as Anansi, the folk character (spider) only blacks had heard of. And there were to total of four of us in my school. Two of whom were related to me.

Non school uniform day, by comparison, was the social event of my year. Weeks were spent planning meticulously, discounting every outfit in my wardrobe and justifying to my mother the benefit of a trip to view the latest collection at Tammy Girl.  The hair, (remembering it is pre relaxer as I wasn’t old enough for the chemicals), raw and rock hard. Being surrounded by little girls with spindly legs (even as a child I had strong thighs, or athletic as my sports coach would refer to my physique) and long flowing blond locks that whispered menacingly in the wind, I knew I had to impress….

The braids were removed, washed, blow dried (breaking the forks of more than one comb as it fought its way through my wild roots to freedom) and combed ‘down’ to my delight. Move over Shingai (Noisettes), I was rocking my hard core fro, loud and proud, way back in the day! There was the obvious ‘can I touch it?’, but I was impervious to any mocking about the height as opposed to length of my hair. My greed for the bigness outweighed my childish desire to blend in with my (melanin deprived) peers.

  

My big hair wasn’t limited to my childish fro of yesteryear, but spawned a desire (even if it meant a return to the ‘can I touch it’?) for the big, the bad and the most brazen hair I could muster. The bigger the better, except of course when referring to the size of my thighs, arms or butt…

The only problem with my desire for big hair is that my head is relatively small by most standards. Imagine the wig Erykah Badu is rocking on her new album and you have some concept of the scale of my hair.

I was greedy for more, and what started off as a modest afro, spawned into a manifestation of my rejection of the straight, glossy, relaxed, homogenous hair of the masses. Keesha happily slapped on the hair (she’s like that with weave – there’s no holding back), using pack after pack, weaving and gluing to produce the lolly pop effect.  Like all things taken to excess at some point you can’t take anymore. I bored of the look (having revolutionised hair care, black women are in the enviable position of being able to radically change their hair from one look to another) and constructed a new image, premised on natural and boyishly short hair, to which Keesha simply said...NO!

It was then that the natural hair prejudice was revealed. You see it was acceptable for me to sew a mass of hair on to my head, but to cut it off to its natural state and this woman who once veered away from enforcing her opinion about my hair choices, was quick to speak with authority and certainty. She felt it necessary to save me from myself and after so bullishly endeavouring on this plight, like a child in a corner (in God Bless of all places) I backed down, afraid of the result that would ensue (Keesha had the scissors and I was scared of what she’d do) and haplessly resigned myself to a fate of wigs and weaves.

CJ.

Calamity Jane #3 - Third circle of hell (Gluttony)

I am in pain as the relaxer takes its toll on my scalp. Precious sees me whimper and sprays oil sheen on my tender scalp, which apparently alleviates all head pain as well as bringing shine to dull hair :-|
I stare bemused, tearful, frustrated with her unwillingness to relive me of my pain. She is in on the ‘conspiracy’. Indeed it is people like Precious (planted strategically in salons up and down the country) who safeguard this ancient ‘conspiracy’, tasked with passing it on from generation to generation.

A memory (many of you will share) was preparing for school on Sunday evening; sitting stone faced, body rigid, fists clenched, in between my mother’s thighs (strong and firm) pinning me down as she pulled, parted and plaited the bushy, unrelaxed, raw, as God ordained it, hair. Dad avoided eye contact; I often screamed and occasionally (pride permitting) cried, my sister sniggered, as mum did what was necessary to tame the wild beast…. I can smell the hair pomade now. I always marvelled (that’s not true - I was enraged with jealousy) at how effortlessly my mum went to work on my sisters hair.  Soft and silky, mum whizzed through it without even the faintest yelp.

Then my day finally came (much older than the other girls, who were doing it from as young as seven or eight, along with wearing stilettos and red lipstick – need I say more?), and I went to the salon to tame the beast forever. Now this is Milton Keynes in the 1990s (when my dad would say hello to every black person who passed us in town because he knew them) and every black woman (irrespective of age) went to the same salon, where the stylist knew only one style – the bob, but I wasn’t upset; the individual in me was yet to be born (like most teenagers I was happy to be a clone).

My coarse hair required additional coaxing and it seemed for all eternity my scalp was to bear the brunt of this. I recall my mum laughing with one of my aunties as I complained about the discomfort, who chimed in agreement, that ‘in order for a woman to achieve beauty, first there must be pain’. BANG! There it was… the ‘conspiracy’ that has come to plague my existence. It was one of the first lessons of life I recall my mother teaching me, and for her unreserved pearls of wisdom I am grateful. In some subtle guise we were all taught the same lesson which I have no doubt will without conscience be passed on to our daughters and their daughters after them.

As an adult I see the tell tell signs…Or I it tale tale?.. Hmmm, I’m never sure when it comes to traditional British sayings whether I’ve got it right, or I’m reciting the ‘Africanisation’ of the phrase, that I’ve picked up from my parents (it’s the plight of the second generation immigrant)....

Anyway back to the ‘signs’… We’ve all seen the girl who took the ‘conspiracy’ too far and let the relaxer do some serious damage to more than just their hair, all for the sake of a misguided sense of beauty. You can spot them on the tube, on the bus, in their cars, sunglasses adorned Jackie O style, scarves wrapped surreptitiously around their necks, (even in the summer) because they are ashamed….

Ashamed of the ghastly bright pink mark of raw exposed flesh (as a result of over zealous use of the relaxer cream – the sign of a BAD hair dresser), often on the earlobe, forehead, back of neck and cheek (yes that’s possible and I’m not ashamed to say it was me). They are the victims of the songs sung by our mothers and their mothers before them; passed down to the droves of successful, intelligent modern women walking the streets of Anfield, Moss Side, Brixton and Peckham. The song that says beauty comes to all those willing to suffer.

                                                        


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Thank you!

Calamity Jane #2 - Second Circle of Hell (Lust)

I would not say I am particularly prudish, nor am I outlandish and flagrant about my sexual conquests, but in the house of God Bless anything goes and is for all to hear; well as much as one can hear patois in all its free flowing glory. Sadly, my subtle Ghanaian/Milton Keynes/London range does not extend to the patois dialect and I am left smiling and nodding emphatically attempting to convey understanding whilst eagerly hoping to avoid being drawn into conversation.

For all my English cynicism (a colonial heritage passed down from generation to generation) it’s strangely liberating being surrounded by people who are so sexually uninhibited and see nothing demeaning about expressing their lust and its varied manifestations free from fear of reprisal. Indeed I think they derived a sordid pleasure in recounting their tales in as public a forum as the salon offered.

My favourite tale and believe me there are many to chose from, followed the arrival of the ‘gang’ and their copious children one particular Saturday afternoon. There was:

The woman who sells the plastic jewellery, which is often pretty from a distance but up close each rhinestone has an unintentional mist and the string holding the beads together is weathered and unable to stand the duration of an evening sat in a restaurant let alone raving.

The woman who supplies stolen clothesto every salon within the south east London corridor. Occasionally the tags are ripped out, but it is clear as day that they descend from the aisles of Topshop, River Island or whichever high street store she’s just jacked.

The man selling food (£5 for a portion of rice and jerk chicken; curry goat; fried rice and some bean concoction) which I always look forward to after an eight hour stint in the salon.

The woman who is just always there, I guess the salon is a social networking hub, so why not be there?

Precious (one of the two hair dressers, working alongside Keesha) is having man troubles. There is the ‘African man’, (never specific about country) who is a bit of a bug-a-boo, but pays the bills so has his uses. There is the Jamaican man with the fancy sports car that pulls up occasionally and goes in to the very popular God Bless Caribbean restaurant next door (yes ladies, ‘God Bless’ is a bigger brand than you know), but I’m not sure if he’s giving her any play as he barely ordains us with his presence and gives a fleeting nod of the head on route to the pressing priority of food. Then there is the young English (black British) boy she’s in to. I should add, Precious is in her mid thirties, I can’t imagine any of the men she’s discussed so far have quite made it to thirty yet…. Girl likes to be in control! In and amongst all of these men there is also the baby father, who is rarely discussed and seems a distant memory whose only success was spawning the child and now brings nothing but grievance.

Publish Post

When Precious asked me if I liked English boys I was a little flummoxed. I’d never given nationality much thought, only really race. Time seemed to move at a glacial pace as I sweat thinking of a witty yet vague quip; I’m rarely asked a direct question and as I wanted to be accepted by the gang, I’m mindful that my answer needed to be good. The moment passed and I realised it was a rhetorical question and I was resigned to the role of mute observer, listening to a barrage of tales of sex IN the city, interspersed with dancing (children and mothers sharing the floor) and demonstrations of the some of their best moves in the bedroom.

Raucous does not describe the scene that ensued. As my relaxer began to fizzle and my pores screamed out in pain, Precious sprayed some oil sheen on my tender scalp, as though it were ample substitute for washing the damn thing off. I sat in God Bless, chomping on some crisps (awaiting the rice and peas which would serve as lunch and dinner) amongst virtual strangers listening to tales of lust, love and all the stuff in-between.

PS- We at blackhairstudio would like to take this opportunity to send our love and prayers to those who have been affected by the crisis in Haiti. Please show your support by donating to the following http://www.dec.org.uk/donate_now/

Thank you!