“Why do you wear weave?”
It’s the number one question I get when people realize I have A LOT of this hair under my 10 plus inches of Remi Outre Velvet weave. It’s thick, soft and very long. And here’s the kicker: my natural hair is longer than my weave.
So why do I wear it? I blame it on my television career coupled with my love for sweating hard in the gym. It’s convenient, and quite frankly, I like it. But on the flip side, I get bored looking at the same style every day. I’ve worn my hair in the same style for about 5 years now. No added color, no variation in the cut.
During the first year of my television career, I experienced a reporter’s worst nightmare in the small town where I worked. Shortly after a routine relaxer, my hair started breaking and shedding. It was a situation where my hair was two different textures. So at the point where bone straight meets slightly frizzy, the hair was breaking. As the weeks passed, the shedding continued. I was fed up with relaxing my hair. It was damaged and I was tired of putting heat on it every day, curling it to create my “TV look.” I knew I had to find a quick fix with a permanent solution.
So, on a trip home to visit my family four hours away, I took my older sister’s advice and stopped by an African hair braiding salon to get a sew-in weave. My sister promised me the shop owner was one of the best when it comes to sew-ins. She wasn’t lying. (A big shout out to my girl Kristy Beke at Bignon’s African Hair Braiding and Weaving for SAVING my hair. Yes, weave CAN be good for your hair.)
I left work for vacation with short hair like Hale Berry and returned that next week looking like Beyoncé. I now had 12 plus inches of hair down my back. It was obvious I changed my appearance.
My boss was furious. Not because I wasn’t fabulous (after she chewed me out, she confessed she loved it.) She reminded me that as an on-air talent, I needed to run all appearance changes by her. She was right. That’s pretty standard in most reporter/anchor contracts. But, the weave was a hit. My hair got a break from the heat, relaxers and bad stylists and it started to grow.
Over the next 10 years, I’ve developed a love affair with hair weave. I was even forced to admit to wearing weave during a casual conversation gone wrong on live TV (so, apparently you’re not supposed to call out your co-anchor’s weave on air). Yes, I’ve taken it out and gone back to relaxers for a short time. I’ve done full sew-ins, partial sew-ins, relaxed the edges and had the rest sewn in, you get my point if you know about weave. I’ve learned about braid patterns that work and don’t work, how to protect the delicate hair along the edges of your head, what type of braiding hair to use when I get my natural hair braided (human hair only), what weave brands don’t shed. It’s a full lesson in hair weaves. I’ve also learned to love my hair.
There’s a lot of work that goes into growing healthy hair. Wearing a weave does not give you a pass to neglect your natural hair. You must still wash, condition and give treatments to your natural hair under the weave. But, I see an end to this hair weave love story, or maybe it’s a temporary separation.
The goal now is to find a consistent natural hair style that I can recreate every day for work. I don’t want to put heat on it, I don’t want to cut my natural hair and I don’t want it to be an arduous process each day. I have friends in the television business who are natural. They remind me you can’t go natural until you are fully ready to embrace that look for yourself and put in the work. Natural hair does not mean easy hair. And on top of that, you will get emails, calls, tweets and Facebook messages from people who love your hair and those who absolutely hate it. And there’s always a chance I won’t like the new look either.
The good thing about me is I’ve developed some tough skin in the business. I don’t mean that literally because I do moisturize my skin daily. So, am I ready to wear my natural, chemical-free hair on the news? Stay tuned.
