Truth about Natural Hair Discrimination
Posted by HMH Blogger By Patience Muia If you are a bi-racial or black woman who has made the decision to return to being natural, then you belong to the natural hair community. Everyone defines the term “natural” in a different way.
1. Devout Naturals
These are women who pass on all chemicals from relaxers and colour treatments to certain product ingredients. 2. Technical Naturals
These women no longer wear relaxers, but rock blowouts and weaves happily on a regular basis. Apart from the two, there are those who don’t mess with weaves but rock colour. There are also those who live with protective lifestyles with box braids, crochet braids and other trendy styles. But the truth is that some naturals are being eliminated or discriminated in the natural hair community. Initially, going natural was a way of breaking free from European beauty standards and starting a journey to embrace one’s natural hair. But a lot has changed recently, and now some natural hair sponsors ignore certain types of natural hairstyle while at the same time praising a certain type. Women with the type 4, kinky textured hair seems to be experiencing texture discrimination in and outside their workplace. If you haven’t realised it, the wavy and curly girls dominate the branding in products marketed to natural hair. Look across the beauty industry and you will find that kinky and coily hair naturals are being under-represented and are not being celebrated as compared to the others. From my experience of running multiple natural hair focused media accounts, I think that images of kinky textured naturals doesn’t get much shares and likes compared to the others. This might be just a new type of natural hair discrimination.
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