Eleven stranger things how to#

She also informed me that our college’s bookstore was bringing in an entire section that was dedicated to people with hair like ours. She directed me toward the brands I’ve discussed above. After her outburst of giggles subsided she explained to me how Suave takes out moisture and our hair needs to keep it in. She asked me what products I used, and at the time I was using Suave. One of the first things we talked about - as is normal for most black and mulatto women - was our hair. Amber eventually discovered such products as Shea Moisture and the ORS Olive Oil lines that are marketed for black and mulatto individuals to maintain our hairstyles, whether that be afro, weave, or any other hairstyle black men and women choose to rock.Īmber and I met in January 2016. While products such as Suave and Garnier are usually intended to get rid of moisture, which is a common problem I hear my white friends discussing, people with afros are supposed to lock in moisture because our hair naturally lacks it. But somewhere along the way, she learned that she had been doing all the wrong things to her hair. Growing up, Amber endured the same struggle I did.

Eleven stranger things how to#

And because her mother is white, she knew about as much about how to take care of Amber’s hair as my mother knew how to take care of mine. She grew up relying on her mother to teach her how to take care of her hair. Amber is half-black and half-white like myself, although her parents are the reverse race to mine, so her mother is white and her father is black. And she grew up with parents that also didn’t know how to take care of their hair. Though she had grown up in a different generation, my mom’s media influences were the same as mine. While my hair had come a long way from the tabletop style of my elementary days, my hair was still crunchy, short and falling out because she didn’t know how to take care of her own afro.

I’ve lived with my mother - who is black - since I was 13. From what I remember, the people in the media that did have afros were black but were usually shown as destitute, ratchet antagonists to the protagonist with flowing, magnificent locks.īut whether or not people of my race - mulatto - had afros in the few times they were shown in the media, I learned everything I once knew about taking care of my hair from my mother. Whether it was blonde, black, brown or red, all of my media influences had silky hair that most often flowed to a long, breezy length, a length that my hair has never achieved without extensions. There are more white people represented in the media than black people, especially black people with afros. While there were not many people around me with afros outside of my family, there were even less people with afros in the television shows and movies I turned to for entertainment.