A Bad Hair Day Inspiration to Alyanna

a beauty tip to my daughter Alyanna, when she was having one of her bad hair days...

Alyanna,

You have just turned 14 and as expected, have now gotten quite conscious about how you look. You like everything about yourself, except...well your hair.

While most of your sisters have fine, straight hair, you are blessed to be different, therefore you stand out. But you believe otherwise. You hate your coarse, thick, wiry, stubborn hair and so I buy you hair shining serums, treatments, conditioners and even a hair iron to at least straighten it temporarily. In time, I may take you to the salon to have a rebond, but then, we know that rebond is makes your hair sleek and straight only for a few days, if you are lucky weeks. It only makes your hair brittle and or rubbery as chemicals alter the natural bonds in your hair.

Well most of us are being brainwashed that if we just get the right shampoo, conditioner and treatment products, our hair will finally behave like that of the women in those tv commercials, black, straight and shiny and therefore makes us acceptable, attractive to other people. Let me tell you this: advertising = brainwashing. Do not believe in everything these advertisers say.

We often think that beauty is what you do to yourself; how straight is you hair, what you wear, makeup, clothes, or expensive jewelry. Again it is so easy to get caught up in "things". Reality is not about what we wear but who we are.

I am lucky to have really nice shiny hair when I was at your age. But after all the pregnancies, work-related stress, household problems, I guess my hair lost its luster. I too have had waged battles with fly-aways, split ends, unruly locks too. I gave up fighting. I wash it, maybe mousse it, let it dry and that's it. Some days it looks okay, other days it looks woebegone. and yet the process is virtually the same. Hair humbles us, and we need to make peace with it.

We have to accept our hair and acknowledge its personality. So whether it's thick or thin, coarse or fine, straight or curly; the way it breaks when permed, is getting gray or insists on parting down the middle. Learning to accept your hair is part of the process of learning to love yourself. The poet Marianne Moore believed that "Your thorns are the best part of you," and she was right.



Love,

Your glam mother


PS So now you know why I chose to stay simple. I dress simply, do not wear too much makeup, wear my hair as it is. For I believe that I am naturally beautiful...Well, aren't we all?

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