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Coconut Hair
It’s taken Clare Gorham 30 odd years to realise that the most integral part of the black female identity is hair care - that great goddess that most black women have paid regular homage to throughout their lives...
If, like me - you are black and have only recently been alerted to this imperative cultural significance, then you feel bereft and under-qualified when it comes to navigating your way around the black hair industry - the products, the terminology, the treatments available, the 'must-haves’, or the don’t-have- too- often-otherwise- your- hair- will- drop- outs, the best quality weaves, where to get the best pieces. It’s a whole cultural empire.
But before I carry on, there is a reason for my cultural faux pas. I am, what is known in the black community as a ‘coconut’. It’s like the English equivalent of an ‘Uncle Tom’- it means you’re black on the outside, white on the inside.
I was trans-racially adopted in the 60’s, that’s my excuse for being a coconut. Then when white people adopted a black kid they weren’t made to dance over hot coals to prove how much they knew about the black cultural identity, unlike today. They thought the most important element of adoption was consistent, unconditional love, - which is what I had.
However, what I didn’t have, was access to an Afro hairdressers. In fact I didn’t even see an Afro comb until I was 13 - which totally revolutionised my life. It meant no more sitting in snooty hairdressers in Wimbledon village, surrounded people who were slightly indignant that one of ‘my kind’ was in their hairdressers, having my knotted, bird’s nest untangled by one of those nasty fine-toothed combs. God, that was agony. As a result, I had dreadlocks throughout my 20’s, then I invested in a pair of clippers and d.i.y’d it.
But now - I’m in the ‘Black Hair Care Club’- I was initiated 2 years ago by a friend. The experience proved quite humiliating on the day - I started to resemble the embodiment of a ‘coconut’ at large in Brixton. Not a great look.
There was the accent/language barrier. I couldn’t understand them because of their thick Jamaican accents, and they couldn’t understand why I didn’t know the difference between 'texturising', relaxing and steaming, nor why I sounded like Felicity Kendall. So I told them that I was adopted, and my black cred. and viability was instantly relinquished - but it had to be done.
So now, 2 years on and trial and error has told me that you have to tell them when to take the ‘relaxing' treatment off your hair, otherwise the solution, a mixture of ammonia, chloride simply burns your scalp. It starts off with a faint prickle, then an eye-watering sting, and then you lose the will to live. And oh, how they laughed that first time, when I was a silently burning fledgling, too timid to tell anyone that my scalp was on fire.
Now, I love it, I’m quietly confident, I know the terminology, the cooking time, I know I don’t want it tongued, gelled, or steam ironed so it resembles a fibre glass wig, and if I did have Patti Boulaye style hair extensions, I’d pay extra, get real hair, not vinyl as it can be a fire hazard.
But, apart from anything else, I love to sit in there and just watch, and listen - an I end up yearning to be like them - seemingly assured, steeped in their all-prevailing culture as second and third generation Jamaicans. Theirs is another reality where cellulite showing through spray-on customised lycra flares looks positively sexy, where exquisitely bejewelled fingers clasp deep fried dumplings and where the fashion police are ignored as horizontal stripes are worn, belted on hugely undulating sexy bodies.
Being a coconut has its advantages, but every couple of months I go there and envy that cosy, supportive, culturally exclusive camaraderie that those hairdressing salons evoke, where dub reggae plays on a loop and everyone talks and laughs really loudly-except me- who talks as little as possible, for obvious reasons.
Is there a group you long to belong to?
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