Overprocessed

6/30/2020

Joy Lynn Clark

I have always been self-conscious about my look. Most of the time I just cover my hair. With hats at first then head wraps. Growing up I never really knew how to care for it. My hair is thick and gold.

From time to time my mom or my step mom will take me to the salon where they would take hours to process my hair and then they would swear I have color and have to chop it off. Everybody loves the color of my hair and everybody hates the texture. Overprocessed is a word that I dread. I have heard this word my entire life.

When I was in high school I would just throw my hat on and go. In college, head wraps were sort of fashionable so I would wear them. Once my boss told me to remove my head wrap but I begged because my hair was not combed underneath. I was sent home. It was a rainy Sunday and the bus closest to my job was not running yet. I had to walk a few blocks for another bus. When I neared the stop, I noticed that a young, hip stylist was inside of a salon. She was cleaning things up and on her way out.

In my soaking wet uniform I retold the story about my job and how I was sent home. The stylist felt sorry for me and decided to remain open long enough to give me a cute haircut on account of my hair’s overprocessing. I was relieved, and kept my job. Soon after, my hair starts growing again.

I begin donning my hats and wraps again. I ended up walking over to that salon near my job and the other stylist told me that she was fired. My hair has grown out a bit so I allow the guy there to over process it and then cut.

That is my cycle, I cut it, grow a fro, overprocess, and cut again.

Color—I never used to color my hair. “Your hair color is so pretty, your hair is so damaged”. After my last good stylist was fired for some reason, I decided just to live with my fro. Thank goodness my fro is fashionable now. Unfortunately for me everyone acts like I’m black and white now. Big gold fro black and white.

After all of these years, I decide that I should try color. I used a bunch of different colors that eventually wash out. It was fun to try at home. Most colors stay on account of my gold hair. On the other hand, the colors are known to wash out pretty quickly. I used bold colors like purple and blue with the type of haircolor that doesn’t require developer. I am not a professional and I’m scared to try mixing chemicals at home. Then I start to wonder, “Do I look Latin American?“.

Why does my hair always make me feel so conscious over race? People say that it’s a pretty color but then people also say that I am something that I am not. Sometimes I think that people are lying and that they really hate my hair which is why they must cut it.

So I decide to take my hair from Gold to yellow. I have some platinum highlights around my hairline that looks grey in artificial light . I looked young and hot for the redo of the “prostitute“ cover but, I hated those flaxen streaks. So I decided to bleach the streaks out. I never tried bleach before but it seemed like the best option. My hair is sort of close enough to yellow. When I finished bleaching my hair it looked pretty cool. However, it looked even worse in pictures. I found myself wearing shades a lot.

I really could not take a nice photo. I looked old in all of the pictures. I figured that maybe this color works best on straighter hair. So I decided to relax it. I am usually careful about how long to wait between colors but I figure that bleach is not a color.

Ewww my hair is so stringy and hard. I think that I may have overprocessed it for real this time. It is shedding all over the place. So I decided that a straight wig would work because that’s what I was going for anyway. I took pictures and it looked really nice. I posted them on my site and on social media. I laughed because I’ve never looked this way before. It’s cute I want to try and dress really girly now.

White woman. Are people saying that I look like a white woman? Well I can’t just let people think that I am a white woman. I am going to have to go a little darker but not too dark because I don’t want to look Latin American or black and white.

So I find a nice thick brown wig with some golden blonde highlights. Ahhh now I am native again. Too bad my guy grabs and caresses my neck and then busts me out for having fake ass hair. I told him that I overprocessed it. I am so self-conscious. I am either not the right race or I am fake. He doesn’t call me anymore either I just never look acceptable.

Follow me on IG crzy-colored-chick1 too see the hair story. I will give gallery photos after the planes pass.