I have to share the goodness that is the wash-day visor. Why didn’t anyone tell me about these before? Essentially they are plastic visors that sit at the front of your wriggly child’s head and prevents water from falling into their face or eye. I need one of these. NOW!
Washing the little madam’s hair is a real struggle. We attempted a salon style sink wash, with her lying on the kitchen counter. That resulted in my kitchen looking a bit like a wading pool. I moved on to shower her hair and having her tell me when to stop. I ended up more wet than her. Now we’ve come to an amicable agreement where she will allow me to through a basin full of water over her hair, because she thinks it’s hilarious, but I can’t wash her hair as thoroughly as I’d like doing this. So this visor is looking pretty good.
YouTube black hair tutorials have really become my hobby. One of the sad legacies of slavery and colonialism is that we (black people) have forgotten how to care for our hair. We’ve retained some of our wonderful traditional styles, like twists or cornrows, but we’ve forgotten how to really care for our hair. In the last 10 years or so, there’s been a rediscovery of natural black hair and a push for black people to use natural products and re-learn how to take care of our hair.
My mother swears she would never have permed my hair so early, but I distinctly remember getting my first perm (as in permanent press/burn your scalp-hair straightener, not the 80s crazy curl) at 7 years old. So, like a lot of young girls, I never really learned how to take care of my natural hair and the chemicals, meant it didn’t grow properly, was super brittle and unhealthy. Looking back I can’t believe I spent so many years and so much money, literally frying my scalp so that my hair would conform to a socially acceptable standard of straightness. It’s just insane. Even today, when we know better, I still see little kids running around with obviously permed hair. I want to cry when I see this and I want to shake their mother.
That said, my hair might be natural, but I’m still working my way up to taking the twist extensions out. As the little madam and the boy child get older, I want them both to see me loving and wearing my natural hair, the same way I am teaching them to love and wear their natural hair.
That means I have to embrace my hair, shed the negativity and the fear and wear it proud!
