I love my long natural hair. It is part of my heritage, my identity, and even my career as a performer. Some days, I wish I had an alternative look that might express my queerdo feels, but there’s no way I’m going to cut it all off (again). Natural hair doesn’t really lend itself to versatility, not easily at least. I rock what natural hair connoisseurs call a “wash’n’go” which sounds super simple and easy breezy but actually entails about 30 minutes of conditioning, detangling, and finger curling to smooth out the wily bits. Not to mention the approximately 20 minutes of blow-drying, which only does half the job. I spend the rest of the day with a slowly expanding afro. It is dry by maybe 4 pm. I’m really not kidding. It ain’t easy being natural, but it feels good. It feels healthy and like a part of who I am. I follow a few natural hair bloggers that make more complex natural hairdos look so easy, but I’m skeptical about the ability of the layperson who wants to achieve these looks. Given that doing my hair can be such a chore anyways, I decided to give a few of these styles a shot, and rate them based on ease, time, and queerdo suitability (1 being the easiest, quickest and milquetoast-iest, 5 being the hardest, most time consuming and gayest, respectively).
Janelle Pompadour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0pP3VHJLgA
I actually did this one for Halloween one year, and I can definitively say that it is easier the second time around. Make sure you do it with dry hair; it’s even easier because even if your curls aren’t at their perkiest, you can disguise them within the pouf, so it’s a good “day 3” hairstyle (hair that hasn’t been washed for three days). But it ain’t for the faint of heart. I’m going to need a few lessons in sass before I have the self-confidence to rock this one outside of the house. Ease: 2, Time: 1, Gayness: 5.
Janelle via Mark Abraham Photography
Fro-Hawk
This one is normally super easy if you start out with freshly washed hair, but I wanted my hawk to be more floppy, if you know what I mean. So I spent 24 hours with my hair in bantu knots (little knobby twists all over my head), disguised under a sweet head wrap. Those were fun to unravel, and then I just pinned up both sides into the center. Make sure to pin the sides as close together as possible, to achieve maximum height in the hair, otherwise it will be too wide and your head will look boxy. Ease: 5, Time: 5, Gayness: 5.
Top Knot Bun With a Twist
It’s supposed to be easy enough, but I just ended up with what looked like a fresh pile of poop on top of my head. This might be a better style for people with longer hair and tighter curls so it’s easier to achieve the volume. Anyways I’m not even gonna post a picture ’cause I looked that bad y’all. Ease: 1, Time: 1, Gayness: 1.
Next time I’m gonna lock myself in my bathroom for an entire day and do temporary yarn dreads. Stay tuned.
