This will be a touchy topic, as this is more of an ethno-cultural topic rather than goth.

Recently in the general discussion board, I made a resolution that I would be "going natural." Now, as most of you should know by now, I'm a person of (primarily) African-descent. I'm not going to sugar-coat it: I ain't got straight, glossy hair. My hair, in it's natural state, might not be as coarse as some other black people (since there is a lot of variety) but it's still a big fluffy poof and there's no changing that. But I am coming to terms with that and I'm going to be reverting back to my natural hair. Luckily, I have never had a perm (and I know the terminology is confusing to people with straight hair, as a perm in that context means to chemically curl the hair; to those with curly hair, a perm refers to the process of chemically straightening the hair, otherwise known as a "relaxer") so the transition won't be as stressful.

I admit that I've made this pact before, and I caved in each time: I just wanted manageable and further more, ACCEPTABLE hair, and so I continued to flat-iron my hair, even though I knew that the process was damaging my hair in the long run. But now that I hate social norms more than ever - and have grasped that I though I may have to suck up to certain people at certain times, I was NOT put here to please people all the time with my appearence - I am going to look in the mirror and say, "you look better with your natural hair. Go you - fuck everyone else and all the 19-year-old girls going through male-pattern baldness who say what I ought to do with my hair."

Being the near-wonderful subculture that is, I'm happy that goth is more accepting of "wild hair" so my natural hair should fit in perfectly so.

Enough about me. The actual topic is the phrase "good hair." It's a debate - Good Hair vs. Bad Hair - that especially plagues people of African-descent, but also people who don't have straighter-than-straight hair (to add right now, I know that people with straight hair will argue that not all people of, in most cases, European descent have super straight hair, which is very true. For the sake of the argument - and I'm not trying to dismiss it - let's just say that the hair of people of African-descent don't have the type that will even reach the minimum status quo when they get out their head out of the shower every morning). To those who believe in the term, "good hair" means one who has straight, smooth, lusterous, and manageable hair (also, the longer the hair, the better), at least in the mainstream sense. "Bad hair" is almost exclusively aimed toward people with negroid hair, usually characterized as being nappy, frizzy, coarse, super curly, and short.

The debate doesn't even have anything to do with the general "health" of the hair. Remember people: we make such a huge fuss about biomaterial that's essentially DEAD.

It seems like an argument aimed completely at black people, but I noticed other threads in this board about tips on how to straighten hair, coming from people that I presume to have straight hair. So the question today is: do you believe in the term, "good hair"? If you do, what is "good hair" to you? "Bad hair"?

My part: Since I've already spoken enough, I'll warp up my take in a brief anecdote. Two people went to the hospital to visit their friend who was going through chemo. One had straight hair while the other had curly. They got to her room and the girl with the straight hair asked, "which one of us has the better hair? My hair is better because it's long and luxorious" while the girl with the curly hair said, "my hair is better because it's short and doesn't get in the way." Their friend shook her head and replied by saying, "you both have hair; having hair is 'good hair'."

Of course, this isn't meant to exclude people who choose to be bald. ^_^

I don't believe in the terms "good hair" or "bad hair".

Who decides which is which? Mainstream society? Since when did we give a fuck what they think?

I did get my hair permed when I was 13 and I loved having really curly hair. My hair is a bit wavy already. I actually try to discourage people from always styling their hair everyday. Constantly styling it, blow drying and heating it is what causes the most damage. I do encourage people to dye, though. What? No one should be forced to walk around with silver hair.

Amongst people of African descent, the debate about "good" vs "bad" hair seems to go around "making my hair straight" or "going natural". Personally, I have never entirely understood why straightening or relaxing the hair is "good", and not doing so is "bad". I hope that it has nothing to do with European or Asian straight hair. If so, you'd be surprised how many European women would love to have curls like African women or be able to braid their hair like them. (Or sun bathe as much as possible to be as tanned as possible, but that's another story.) Since I'm not from African descent, I cannot really understand that debate. I do want to stress that I think "going natural" is just as good to me as "relaxing", and that it should be entirely up to the person what to choose. Both can look amazing. I think it's far more important to have a haircut that suits you then that it falls into a dictated style.

Hair is an important subject for a lot of people. It seems almost universal that they to want to have other hair than they naturally have. Girls with curly hair want it straightened, girls with straight hair want curls, blondes want to be red head or brunettes, etc.

In short, go natural if you think it looks best on you and you like it that way, and do whatever you want with your hair (dye, perm, straight, braids,...) if you think you look absolutely great like that. Regardless of whether you are from African descent or not.

I think the concept of 'good hair' there is just a disguised concept of 'white hair' -
So fuck it. Ignore the racist standard that puts down natural hair, and have your hair how you want it.

Seriously, I'm not of African descent, but I have heard of how men would 'conk' their hair with hot scalp irritating lye to make it into a chemically relaxed quiff. I've heard that those tiny intricate braids are so tight that they hurt and make girls hair fall out. (Traction alopecia.) I've heard insults for the hair that doesn't conform to that unrealistic standard.

Bad stuff. Just do what makes you happy, without all the pain and contortions.


I have the fine straight limp hair and no, it's not all good. I do have 'bad hair days' sometimes because it gets split so easily by brushing, damaged more easily by peroxide in dyes, goes flat or frizzy on my head, won't stay in elastics... and twice as many hairs as normal means - twice as many oil glands. Yaaay...

I do dye because I like the look of a shade darker. I don't straighten, that'd cause more damage and split ends.

Pertinent to this topic... Have you seen the recent news about the dad who's the head writer for Sesame Street, and what he did for his adopted, Ethiopian daughter? I thought it was the coolest thing:

"I Love My Hair" Video Inspired By Father's Love of Daughter

Here's the full video: "I Love My Hair"

-- Nephele

Aw man! Nephele beat me to the Sesame Street video! Anyway, every type of hair has advantages and disadvantages. The great things about African hair are that it's very versatile, it doesn't get the oily look as easily, and it's better at staying out of a person's face. I knew a black girl with this awesome emo hairstyle that I would really like for myself, but it would take too much work to do it with my limp European hair. She wore it effortlessly because her hair was better at maintaining its shape. It kind of looked like this:
And afros need to come back into style, especially on girls. I'm tired of only seeing standard straight hair styles on girls. It gets boring after a while. Some variety would be nice. Hair isn't just something to be maintained by the standards of what's popular; it's an art medium. People shouldn't be afraid to express their individuality with their hair.

I agree completely.

A person's hair and how they wear it (or precieve it) should not be dictated by society. My hair is not straight, but it is not exactly really curly either. It is in between wavy/curly and I love my hair. I could care less what society thought. I know my ex LOVES LOVES LOVES straight hair and for a while he use to straighten my hair every day because he didn't like my natural 'pretty wavy' hair. Granted it looked pretty, and was longer as a result, but I like my hair to be as natural looking as possible because I am proud of my dark locks (though I do dye it black even though I do not need to given that my hair color is naturally extremely dark).

Basically, do what you want with your hair and don't worry about what society in general likes. A once size fits all does not always fit everyone and everyone needs to find their own way according to what works best for them!

It does. It all goes back to the self-hate that is so persistent among black people, which is a long story in itself. I honestly don't think the thought of some white women wishing that they had curly hair cuts it, as if it's suppose to make myself as well as other blacks feel better about ourselves, and the same goes for the tanning that you mentioned too. I can't really word it perfectly so all I can say is - and in a response to Belzeneff - afros and dreads as well as having darker skin don't need to "come back" or be "in" - they just need to be accepted as natural traits of a certain groups of people and nothing else should be thought of that (like how Midi put it). That's another reason as to why we are not quite "over race." Comodification of certain ethnic and racial traits and possessing such traits or items doesn't make one any closer to understanding such an ethnicity or race. Making it into a fad or trend goes against the point of cultural relativism and makes any sort of cultural empathy harder to grasp.

And I saw that video. Made me a little teary-eyed.

Oh, well yeah. They definitely should be accepted as natural traits. I was just trying to communicate that they shouldn't only be accepted, but celebrated as well. I think that everyone should not only be able to feel normal and satisfied with the way they look, but also proud.

Understood (though I personally don't believe in racial pride - I just happened to be born this way, but I understand that I wasn't born "unlucky" or anything like that. But to each their own on that topic. ).

I am so glad the 'chicken ass' is going out of style. I hate the way it looks. Although it did used to provide me lots of entertainment when it first became popular and you couldn't throw a cat without it landing on someone with that hair do. I think it's one of the funniest things people have ever done to their hair.

One of the funniest? O rly? I see your chicken butt and raise you this lil number.

And I can totally say that, because goths always have impeccable taste in hairstyles. Amirite?



Of course, I find some of those hairdon'ts adorable - no prizes for guessing which - so I guess Good and Bad hair is pretty subjective.

I just bought two cans of hairspray. I'm not planning to go the Bob... I'm... holding them for a friend!
<_<
>_>
<_<

I was afraid it would be like this. All I can say that, to me, there is no reason why any group of people is 'below' or 'above' another, or should try and look like others. Just be who you are. It was not supposed to be comforting (sorry if you were looking for comforting words), it is just that I noticed that not only people of African descent see other groups of people as a beauty icon. So, it was supposed to be an illustration of how white women (well, a significant group of them over here) also try to change how they naturally look, to maybe broaden the subject. Another example could have been Asian girls who "correct" their eyelids. I used this example for two reasons: 1) I'm more familiar with it, and 2) surgical procedures are not hair and worse, not reversible. The example had a lot more to with many people trying to look like something they are not naturally then to give comforting words to just one group. Something I also hoped to clarify later in my post. Are you still talking to me here? Because if so, I don't know where I suggested that the next fashionable hairstyle should be the afro. I said that people should be free to choose however they would like to do their hair. If you are happy doing all kinds of things to your hair, be my guest. If you prefer to just cut it, and not dye, perm, relax, whatever, equally fine to me.

True words, but unfortunately we'll never get to that seeing that the West is largely eurocentric.



I get what you mean, about white women broadening their looks and not looking how they look naturally, but, now that I've had time to think it over, one of the things that really bugs me about this is that some looks and actions - skin tanning specifically - are found to be more attractive or acceptable on white women than on the people who where born with darker skin. I'm not going to go so far to assume that all white women (and in certain subcultural case, Japanese women) get tans in order to look like a certain group of people, but I have seen an uprise with this "erotic exotic" trend. And I've also unfortunately seen cases in which women with darker skin are still not entirely accepted with their natural skin tone.

In the end, there is a very awkward pardigram change: white women get cosmetic surgeries to look more "ethnic" (it's interesting that you mentioned the corrective eyelid surgery among Asian women, because I've heard of cases of the reverse in white women) while non-white women get cosmetic surgeries and do things to themselves in order to appear more white.



No. It was not directed specifically at you.

The example of Asian women getting eyelid surgery is another example of upholding some weird ideal of 'white beauty' in a culture where that kind of thing just doesn't exist. It's really weird, to me.

ETA~ How the hell are Scarlett Johansen & Christina Hendricks examples of 'ethnic beauty'?? What, white women don't have curves? Or if they do they're copping it from 'ethnic' girls? I don't understand?

-- Sat Oct 30, 2010 2:16 pm --

I just got finished watching "Good Hair" and Chris Rock brings his normal Intelligence and humor to this enormous issue. Something that was a huge revelation to me was the part where he's talking to men and some of them admit that they go for white woman because they don't wear expensive wigs or weaves. It's not that the white girls are 'better' or 'prettier' than black women, the guys can just run their fingers through their hair without worrying about pulling out tracks. Some black men are actually turned off by the thought of their girlfriends or wives wearing fake hair or spending thousands of dollars to wear someone else's real hair.

There is, indeed, a bit of intimacy lost if you are forbidden certain areas of your lover's body in the throes of passion. Black men don't have the same 'don't touch my hair/head' thing, thankfully.