My sister is GROWING her hair. Now people might be able to tell us apart. I'm going shorter, she's aiming at afro puffs. RIDIC. I think my mother might have gotten through to her--she's worried we cut our hair so short because we are embarrassed of it and don't like our nappy kinky hair.

I wouldn't even know what hairstyle to aim at that would be better than this or bald! If you guys could give me hair, what hairstyle would you recommend as an improvement. Chemical alteration to texture or curl of the follicles on any permanent level is out of the picture. I've done those, and I could come out looking like Iman and it wouldn't be worth it for me. Dye is the most I can tolerate, and I don't love it.

So.

Do me.

I had to go look up afro puffs. How long does it take to grow out your hair that long? That seems pretty long to me. As for advice, I don't know that there's any style that would look *better* than your short cut, just other styles that would also look good. Like short dreads or braids always look nice, or an afro. But I can't picture you with long hair AT ALL. Isn't that odd?

Isn't that odd?

I barely picture ita ! not blonde.

Despite the evidence and actual facts.

I think short twists can be a really cute look, although I don't know that I'd say it's better than ita's current style. I had a colleague whose hair was (naturally) a texture that made adorable little curls that looked like twists even when very short, and I just loved it.

I say buy a variety of wigs and try a bunch out.

signed, someone whose hair is long because she can't get up the gumption to find a hairdresser.

I don't know what to do with my own hair, much less ita's.

I remember now why I don't often wear these shoes to work. Shmeck-shmeck-shmeck.

I just read an article about "activist cartographers". How cool would it be to have that on a business card?

See, if there's no knee jerk "OMG, you should have had your hair like this all along..." I'm not even that curious. Testing theories is an interesting concept--digitally. I've had short dreads. They were--enh. As far as flattering goes, the short blonde I think looked the best on me, and then nothing else is going to look enough better on me to make sizable moves away from stubble/bald.

For afro puffs my sister will need shoulder length hair. That's how we used to wear ours up through age 14 or so. That was also epically boring for me, and I didn't even have to do the heavy lifting. Sometimes there was a whole Angela Davis fro, sometimes there were braids with or without beads, sometimes there were different sorts of twists. But nothing I was in love with and...oh, god, it's so comfortable having no hair, never mind quick.

So I'm really surprised she's doing this. It's a big change in a lot of ways. At the length I have now, we don't tend to our hair--we tend to our scalps.

It came up because I saw this video on natural hair maintenance [link] I thought it was interesting the different ways you can make it look, and the options for wearing it "out", but...good lord the prep time was out of this world. For me, I mean.

Gnargh. I forgot to make porridge last night. Ah, well. Most of the recipe time is unattended. Let me toast some oats.

Thinking about black women's hair reminds me of the day my black coworker came in with really long twists/dreads/braids/I forget and another white coworker asked her if it was her real hair. Her hair was shoulder length on Friday! WTF do you think???