A month ago, I finally took the plunge and buzzed all my hair off. As a woman with shoulder length hair for most of my life, this was a big step to say the least. However, it was liberating…
Wrestling with standards of beauty:
I had a wobble the other day where I felt ugly. Hair didn’t seem to sit right. Didn’t like what I saw in the mirror or videos I made for YouTube. I told my husband and he said, “well, tell your mind to shut up because you’re always beautiful“. And while this is a lovely sentiment, it’s not wholly helpful in a practical sense. I can’t ALWAYS be beautiful! Beauty being in the “eye of the beholder”; Eurocentric beauty standards being a social construct, and go elsewhere in the world and they have a very different idea of beauty norms; mental health or mood affecting what you see compared to what others see, and everything else aside, beauty or feeling beautiful is important at times and hard to grasp.
The thing I keep trying to remind myself is that I had MANY days of feeling ugly and like I didn’t look right with my natural hair before the cut. I will have bad and good hair days; bad and good self-esteem, regards of my hair length. It’s called being human.
My husband told me that his dad mentioned how Zimbabwean girls would often shave their hair for school. So, it is very normal in their culture for women and girls to have short hair. It just further demonstrates that I am struggling because of European conditioning which teaches us that girls should have long hair (straight or not frizzy the better, too).
Little things I’ve noticed:
- No cooking smell clinging to my hair
- Need to be careful of a neck hunch
- Massaging my scalp with oils is a luxury I didn’t know I was missing
- I can wash my hair…in minutes!!
- People will tell you that you have a nice head shape (never had that before!)
- I feel more aware of myself
- Getting ready is so easy and I have time and energy to put on a bit of mascara too
- It’s much colder than you expect with less hair!
- I still look at myself sometimes and think I look “like a boy”
- I find myself smiling and winking at myself in the mirror on days when I’m feeling good
Will I grow it out or keep it?
For now, I’m keeping it! Life is SOOOOOO much easier. I don’t want to go back to the stress I had before. Yes, I’m still getting used to how I look, but for that ease, I will take this! Plus, I still need to figure out what length I prefer. Just some curls on top? Keep buzzing it short? Something in between? That’s the next step for now.
Sincerely,
S. xx
S. R. Crawford 