It was a warm and uncomfortably sticky summer day in 2007. Usually, I loathe any outdoor activity when the weather is disagreeable but on this particular day I didn’t mind it at all. I was going to see a handsome, charismatic and uber intelligent man speak at The Mississippi University for Women. You know him as President Obama, but then he was a top candidate for the 2008 Presidential Election. I was 8 months into my transitioning game so I pin-curled my hair the night before so it would look fairly descent.
While there I heard a voice say, “Hey, weren’t you Miss Rust College? I recognized you from behind because of your hair.” I forced a smile and replied, “Hey, yeah that was me”. We engaged in a little small talk and returned our attention back to the stage although my mind was no longer on the hopeful candidate. I asked myself, ”How did someone recognize me from my hair from behind?” Did my hair really look that different from everyone else’s? Then I remembered what my mom told me a few months back, “Your hair looks like a bird’s nest from behind!” Even though I thought she was exaggerating, I tried to block this from my memory because there was nothing I could do about it. My roots were frizzy and appeared a little matted while my ends were straight. The rest of the evening I felt incredibly self-conscious; I wanted to tuck my head in between my knees as if we were having a tornado drill.
Having heat damage is very similar to managing the two textures of transitioning hair. If you don’t blend all of the hair and make it appear to be one texture it will basically look…a mess. But, there are solutions. Here’s how I dealt with it.
Chime Edwards is an extremely popular YouTube vlogger with over 145,000 subscribers. Chime was also featured in Nikki Walton’s (Curly Nikki) book, ‘Better Than Good Hair.’