My sister and the Brown Gel... 80's Baby

If you are a black woman reading this, then you know just by reading to title what this brown gel I am speaking of is:

This brown concoction has destroyed many women’s hair line, included my very own… here is my story…lol.


THEN:

Growing up in the 80’s the gelled down baby hair was the “IT” thing. You would try the gelled down snake pattern, and lets not forget the finger waves... now that I think about it finger waves keep trying to come back on the scene...lol.

My mother was one of those women who as a workaholic, so this left my older sister in charge of me and my hair. My sister and my hair hated each other. My sister would braid my hair so tight I couldn’t blink. The only thing my sister wasn’t allowed to do was press my hair “THANK YOU GOD!”

You know with that pressing comb you couldn’t really get close enough to your hair line without burning your face, so you did the best you could...lol.

I remember being with my sister at her friends house (Jody Watley’s cousin) and her mother was going on and on about how she couldn’t walk around with her hair line looking nappy, and she pulled out this jar out brown stuff and proceeded to put it and around like hairline and brush it down. I remember thinking to myself “wow, her ponytail looks like a white woman’s!” I guess my sister thought the same thing, because as soon as we left there we headed straight to the beauty supply store…lol.

It was about a week later when my sister started using the brown gel to my hair. My hair was so hard, then those nasty brown flakes were everywhere! As the brown flakes would fall so did the hair from me hair line L …sigh.

It took my mother about two months to notice my hair line was slowly fading away. She asked my sister what she had been doing to my hair, and my sister showed her the brown gel… my mother was LIVIDED! My mother told her to stop using that mess in my hair, but you couldn’t tell my sister anything back then….lol.

By the time I was old enough to start doing my own hair, that brown gel was still apart of my life. I was trying to do the whole gelling my baby hair down. I must admit I have never had my hair done in finger waves, and just didn't seem like it would be ... I guess it word I should use is comfortable. My friends that wore finger waves, where always picking a scratching trying to get to their scalp and brown flakes were everywhere... I felt bad for them...lol.

NOW:

When I started going natural, I wore wigs, and I shaved my hairline completely off. I needed to see if the hair line would grow back "better", or even grow back at all...lol. Was it drastic? Yes! Had I lost my mind? Maybe ... lol. I just had to know the outcome. When I saw my freshly shaven hairline, I was shocked, I mean I looked crazy, I felt soooo ugly!!! I applied Vitamin E to my scalp everyday. I made sure when I slept I had my stain scarf on my head (a habit I still do). Each week I notice my hair texture was coming in very curly. Two months later my hair line was back, and brought two new gray hairs with it...lol. My left temple area is still very thin, the right temple area came in very nice, as did the front of my hair line.

Ladies we really have to protect our hairline, that area is very sensitive. You should never let that area of the head go without being moisturized. Even when getting braids in our hair causes a lot of damage to that area of the head.

Hair Line Care Article

I hope this helps, and gave you a good laugh...