…check this ad:
I haven’t done a side-eye of the week in a few weeks. This morning, I was going through a newsletter that I get and I saw this ad. I shook my head with disgust.
“Enjoy the natural look with Lace Front Wigs!”
“Enhancing Your Natural Beauty”
Tell me, how can glueing hair to my head can help me enjoy any kind of natural look? The hair is not yours. How is that enhancing my natural beauty?
I’m not one to get on people about whether or not they relax their hair. I think that’s a personal decision, but I do have an issue with Black women relying heavily on wigs, weaves and fake hair. I’m not talking about protective styling and wearing a wig in the winter or something like that. There are too many women who think that wearing someone else’s hair is enhancing or giving them beauty.
It’s not.
Since the advent of cheap lace front wigs, I’ve seen so many women rocking them and looking a mess — pretty much detracting from their natural beauty. We’ve become so dependent on changing ourselves and our hair to fit into a particular beauty expectation, that we will spend hundreds of dollars on wigs, half-wigs, weaves and anything else that will give us that ‘swang’.
On other blogs, when someone says that, a number of women jump up and say, ‘well, women of other races wear fake hair!’
That’s a load of crap. Yes, women of other ethnicities wear extensions and wigs, we know this. I don’t know about you, but my white and Asian friends know what their own hair looks like and can take care of it. I know a couple of Black women who haven’t seen their own hair since the ’90s.
That, folks, is stupidity — and a bad argument.
Considering how much Black women spend on hair (supposedly $9 billion in the U.S.), we should have the lushest, most beautiful hair on the planet. But many of us struggle just to get it to grow past our shoulders, so when we see ads like the one above that talk about enhancing your natural beauty by wearing your someone else’s hair, we believe it.
We buy into it and we try to live it.
And we screw ourselves every time.
The Accidental Natural 
*clapping*
Great post couldn’t agree with you more ! take care.
zainab1
AuNaturale007.blogspot.com
Well put!
“I don’t know about you, but my white and Asian friends know what their own hair looks like and can take care of it. I know a couple of Black women who haven’t seen their own hair since the ’90s.”
I think the statement above is key It’s everyone’s prerogative to do whatever they want with their hair, body, what have you – but I don’t think it’s valid, if you are STARTING from a place of IGNORANCE. Black woman are SO ignorant, that without having even tried or looked for the knowledge, they say THEY can’t manage/grow their own natural hair and use excuses like, “well, YOU must have ‘good’ hair.” AT LEAST just TRY, before dismissing caring for your natural hair, out of turn.
I agree that something that claims to make you look naturally beautiful yet causes you to look like something other than that is not worth the money. Healthy hair should be everyone’s goal. I’m not against weaves, wigs, relaxers, etc. I’m only against that clearly work against your hair’s best interest.