The other day I Tweeted ” A bad hair day…even for me. No time for taming of the ‘do. This is when a wig comes in handy.” My Tweets go directly to Facebook and one of FB my buddies wrote “Don’t do it, Kel. Wear your hair like it is.” Of course it was a man.
So easy for him to say. I sometimes think men are absolutely clueless when it comes to a woman and her hair. Maybe he thought I was going to wear plop something outrageous, like an Elvira or Tina Turner wig, atop my head. Not hardly. My Beverly Johnson wig is short and, I think, so cute. It’s not wiggy (as you can see from the photo above) and even has natural bounce when I walk. How could I not wear it when my own hair was so out of control and would only be tamed by a shampoo and conditioner, which I didn’t have time to do because I was on my way to the radio studio? Most days I wear my hair natural so we’re talking at least three hours of air dry time before I even untwist it after shampooing because I try to control its wildness.
I subscribe to the Tyra Banks school of thought and am not ashamed to say I own a wig or two (okay, girlfriend probably has 100). When I wore a weave and folks complimented me on my coif, in a New York minute I’d respond, “You can have this hair too because it’s a weave.” I remember being in Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic on a press trip. The humidity wreaked havoc on a hairdo, but not mine . By day two, the other female journalists (none of whom was Black) asked me which hair products I used because they wanted them. Please! It’s my Indian weave that is not affected by the humidity, I said.
Some women are embarrassed at the thought of such a confession. Get over it. To me, hair is an extension of one’s style, which for me changes from day to day. Just like I stand in my closet and decide if I want to wear skinny leg jeans, bell bottoms, a wrap dress or a mini-skirt, I should be able to stand in the mirror and decide do I want to straighten my hair with a hot comb, use a relaxer, rock a natural style, wear a wig, add in pieces or have a weave sewn in, which is the best thing for a travel writer who is constantly on the go and can’t bog down luggage with hair products.
For most women, changing one’s hairstyle takes a bit more time than selecting an outfit to wear. And this is when a wig is most appreciated. I don’t imagine I’d wear a wig if I expected to get busy. I can just imagine being all good to go and saying, “Wait.” I slip off my wig to reveal a stocking cap covering my 12 twists. Talk about spoiling a mood. Maybe my male FB friend had this happen to him so now he’s against women and wigs. I have to ask him. One thing he should know is that more women wear wigs than he thinks. Check out Nia Long on the November cover of Essence. When promoting the movie Good Hair, Nia said this wasn’t her hair. Did any man have a problem with her in this photo?
