“We all kind of share the same story,” said panelist Ava Pearl. On the live taping of Pearl’s Between Us Curls podcast at this year’s ESSENCE Festival, “there wasn’t a lot of representation growing up,” she told panel host and ESSENCE Senior Beauty Editor Akili King.
Like Pearl, co-panelist and content creator Hermela Lamps realized early on her hair was different, especially growing up in predominately white spaces. “I come from Ethiopian roots where a lot of women didn’t embrace their natural hair,” she said about the culture of silk presses in her community. Since then, her relationship with her hair has evolved, advocating for doing what’s right for your hair. “Now I’ve learned to create routines that work for this chapter of my life,” Lamps said.
From hair damage to a big chop, it’s been a similar process for Peal to learn how to care for her curls. “Doing my hair isn’t something that’s a task,” she said. As the founder of CurlyCon and the Between Us Curls podcast, having spaces for Black women to feel their hair is seen, represented, and understood is finally being prioritized in the beauty industry. “We did not have that growing up.”
But, with dramatic hair transformations weaved into our hair culture, there’s no one way to do Black hair. With both panelists being new mothers, at first “I looked a hot mess,” Lamps admitted. So, “I make a huge point to do protective styles.”
For Pearl, motherhood ironically made time management easier. “It’s not just our hair it’s our identity,” she said, balancing self-care with her eight month old. As our life grows from stage to stage, so does our relationship with our hair. “You have the permission to wear your hair in whatever form that may be,” Lamps said. “Just show up and take care of yourself.”
