Hairdom and I, Hairdom and Us

HAIRDOM HAIRDOM AND I, AND US

WORDS Nada Alturki VISUALS Jake Cabreza

My hair has seen more colors than the rainbow and more textures than an old tree trunk. My best feature? My hair. My worst feature? My hair. What makes me “different?” You guessed it. Some know me merely through a glance at the back of my head, and it makes me uncomfortable. The thought of my presence and personality being attached to anything that does not exist simply within my mind is like wearing an itchy sweater. Yet, I spend hours perfecting the coconut oil to hibiscus pomade ratio that will give me the result of turning heads. The same result I have spent 78 good words complaining about. Is my hair a simulation of everything I have been? Is it everything I will ever be? Is my hair a motivator? Is it a shield? Even in the country that birthed me, my hair is unlike any other. What has my hair done for me? Turned heads my way, for one, I suppose. It has taught me the struggle of being different from a very young age. When one goes into fırst grade with hair so untame and lively, unforgiving to any hairbrush that dares to tackle its freedom, people notice. My hair could not stand a ponytail. Could not stand pigtails. My hair was meaner to me than any school bully was, provoking the unanswerable question of why part of myself came in wild curls, while my peers swam in kind ocean waves that shaped their “Arab” hair. And so I took matters

into my own hands and slicked the curl out of it. Granted, I saw damage, but it didn’t matter. Hot tools equaled control and that is all I had been seeking from a fate I had not chosen for my looks. My hair is big. It takes up space, relieving me from trying to get people to notice me: a task I never learned how to perform without my massive curls. I remember walking around in Harvard Square, wearing my natural head of curls for the fırst time in weeks unstraightened, and I am swimming in a fıshbowl. I walk into a building and through the color of my hair, the coil of if its curl, I am deemed an outsider to the world around me. My hair has always been the biggest and most prominent factor that played into my appearance to people. It dictated how nice I looked that day, how put together, how much time I had that morning to dedicate to it, and what social status I had. I couldn’t take it anymore. I took bleach to my hair and soon enough I was sporting scarlet red ombre hairdo that widened my mother’s eyes to the rims. From there my hair has seen a sea of colors, every one of them assuring me that I still have the strength to decide what I look like to the world. I am not my hair. My hair is everything. S o m e w h e r e out there is a girl sitting in front of her bathroom mirror, a furrowed brow framing her eyes, hesitantly holding a section of her hair in one hand, and a bottle of ketchup in the other. Cheryl Wischhover, Fashionista’s Beauty Editor, is one of those girls. After a hair mishap that lead to the oxidation of her blonde

h a i r into a pastel shade of green, she read online that one way to easily get rid of a green tinge, without breaking bank on a 150-dollar professional stylist, is to indulge your hair in its opposite hue on the color wheel. With a hard squeeze, the thick liquid comes splashing out on her shaky hand, and she massages it into her ends and scalp. It is diffıcult to imagine the tangy, pungent, red substance all over your head, but the fact is, Wischhover is not the fırst to do it. She was in the woods when her hair changed color on her, but even then, in solitude, accompanied only by her husband and daughter and some faraway neighbors, she felt the need to correct the discoloration. The demand for physical perfection is that urgent. Such urgency can be summarized by a scene in the show Fleabag where the main character storms into a hair salon where her sister’s hair was severely butchered, and sings her heart out to the hair stylist after he proclaims that hair is just hair: “Hair is everything. We wish it wasn’t so we can actually think about something else occasionally, but it is. It’s the difference between a good day and a bad day. We’re meant to think it is a symbol of power, a symbol of fertility. Some people are exploited for it and it pays your f**king bills!” Beatriz Andrade, a VMA student at Emerson College, exemplifıes that view. She started dying her hair when she was 11, and has continued to dye it since. Recently, she has been using it as a coping mechanism, as many women do with impulsive hair changes. “If I go through something, I decide to cut my own hair and dye my own hair and I like it because I know it’s gonna grow back,” she says, viewing hair regrowth as a second chance. She explains that the ability to (and act of) changing your hair, styling it to suit your own personality and symbolize growth and change, gives her a “sense of control.” Hair has become a power symbol in most societies today. What is thought of as “good or nice hair” is determined though a male gaze. Women today are fınding that impulsively changing up your hair, no matter how drastic or subtle, is one of the only ways to have full control over their hair choices and move away from the traditional notions of contemporary beauty. Hair has proven to be more than just an accessory; it is used today as a form of self-expression, self-identifıcation, and control, embodying one’s individuality and selfdom.