When I was in the university, I was popularly known for helping my friends dress up with what they had in their closets. Anytime my friends needed an outfit for an event, they would call me to sort it out for them. But at a point, I realized that there was one consistent problem; hair. While I was excelling at minimalist dress-ups in terms of clothes and even impacting others, you’d always see me in a complicated hairstyle.
Over here in Africa, most of us have 4b hair type and didn’t grow up with our hair falling over our necks which meant sometimes, wigs make us very uncomfortable. But here I was suffocating myself with all kinds of wig trends. There were even days my neck would itch because of these wigs and hairstyles.
I couldn’t also comb out my natural hair all the time because it’s difficult and painful to deal with 4b hair so l used to mostly have them in protective styles and throw on wigs or sit for hours every month to braid. All those complicated hairstyles were also causing hair loss. But I thought that was the only way to look beautiful.
Somewhere around level 300, I wanted my natural hair to breathe so I resorted to wearing caps but I couldn’t be going to certain places with them. I remember jokingly trying to scarf my hair to an event one particular day, and it turned out that joke was the biggest breakthrough of my hair life. It was doing the job one hundred percent. I looked very simple yet elegant. I was very confident and didnt have to be checking if my scarf had shifted. I also found out scarfing could never go wrong no matter the event or location. And that was how scarfing completed my fashion sense as a minimalist.
Now, I scarf my hair most of the time. It’s been saving me all the time I would have spent trying to let my 4b hair obey me. It’s been saving me so much money because I no more buy any expensive wig which can’t even be on my head for more than an hour without me scratching my neck. If I’m not mistaken, the times I get a lot of compliments are when I’ve scarved my hair. The silver lining is, this comfortability and elegance cost me only $1.
When I remember those days I used to dress so simple and still look overdressed because of my hair statements, I cringe. And all the hair stress and loss I went through just get me annoyed any time they come to mind. The good thing is, I have lived that life and learned all there is to know on that opposite side. And you know what that means? Nothing will willingly make me go back.
Images are mine