For quite some time, I genuinely believed my hair was damaged.
Not “dry” or “needs moisture” damaged—ruined damaged. The kind of damaged you assume can only be fixed by starting over. I went to numerous hairdressers over the years, and every visit started to sound the same: you need to cut it. And if you’re a millennial Black woman, you already know that sentence doesn’t just land as advice—it lands as a quiet accusation. Because many of us grew up in an era where Black hair, especially 4C hair, was treated like a problem to solve. The tighter the curl, the harsher the judgment. Not because our hair was unhealthy, but because the world lacked education… and we paid the emotional price for it. I carried that feeling for years—the familiar experience of sitting in a salon chair, waiting for someone to point out what was “wrong” with me.
Then, on January 2nd, in the middle of winter, I traveled to Ethiopia. I decided to get a simple avocado treatment, not expecting anything beyond a wash and style. But for the first time in my life, no one looked at my hair with frustration. No one suggested I cut it. No one treated it like it was too much. Instead, my hair was handled with patience, softness, and understanding—as if it had always deserved that. A small detangling brush glided through my curls like it belonged there, and when the final look was finished, my hair had a healthy glow I had never witnessed before. I left that salon realizing something that felt almost unbelievable: maybe my hair was never damaged at all—maybe it was simply waiting to be in the hands of someone who knew how to love it.