Photographs by Thozama Mputa.

Jacket and Turtle Neck by Zovuyo Mputa

"I'm so jealous, I wish I could also wear my hair natural".
What is natural hair? Well I can tell you what it's not, it's not the hair you buy from the man who travels to Malaysia, India or Brazil. If women want to wear their natural hair, why do they hide it under the hair of another woman ... or man, these days you just don't know. I don't want to start the natural vs fake hair debate, will leave that for another day but what I do ask is that we stop using the term natural hair and maybe refer to the hair that we weren't born with as fake hair and the hair you were born with as your hair!



I wear my own hair and I am not going to write a whole blog post on why you should wear your own. But what I will say is that having my own non chemically treated hair is amazing. It wasn't always a great experience. Coming from nine years of dealing with relaxed hair, the only thing I knew how to do was comb straight hair. But during those nine years, the only thing I longed for were curls.

I was fifteen when I had my last relax. Nine years later and I do not regret leaving the creamy crack. Yes, I don't wear my afro in it's full glory but I can say that it is all my hair.

I have had people stare at me for the longest time then ask ...

"Is this all your own hair?"
Well of course it is? If it doesn't belong to me who else should it belong to?

"Why don't you tell other women to wear their own hair?"
I could write blogs, start a youtube page, preach to women all over the world ... as long as individuals convince themselves that putting in hair from someone else or synthetic sources is what defines beauty, I will never be able to convince women to change wear their own hair. And that's fine because we aren't all the same.

Read The Weave Protest Blog Post

Our creamy crack days

Lush South Africa

What I will say to women who want to make the change from chemically treated hair and/or extensions to natural hair, start now. Don't say you will do it in five years, or when you become a mother. Do it now because getting used to dealing with your own hair takes a long time but it is worth it.

On average I would say I spend about R200 on my hair over a five month period. Well I might be exaggerating, make it between R150 - R170 over five months. So that is between R360 and R408 a year. I only use shampoo and conditioner.

This year I started using the New shampoo bar from Lush together with the Veganese conditioner. Yes, when you washing your hair it smells like a combination of the fire balls we used to eat as children and lemon but that makes washing my hair all the better. I can't wash my hair with shampoo and conditioners that remind me of the burn from a relaxer.

Women claim to wear weaves because it is easier to maintain but let's be honest, you could use the R5 000 you spent on buying your hair on something else. You could sleep for an extra hour instead of waking up to straighten hair that doesn't even come from your roots.

Whatever you do choose, remember to do it for you and not anyone else because to be completely honest other people really don't care.

To anyone who sees me on the streets, please don't touch my hair ... Thanks.

Share your (natural) hair journey with me!