Gillian Downes at age 8

Confessions of a Black Beauty Queen

BY: Gillian Downes

SINCE THE AGE of 10 I’ve been an amateur hairstylist, frying and dying my ‘fro until it succumbed to my declaration of chemical warfare and cried out for mercy. My carefree days of natural nappiness came to an abrupt end when I saw a fashion spread that seemed to centre on the wondrously long tresses of Beverley Johnson. As an unwitting black girl, I was dumbfounded. I soon became determined to get my own unmanageable locks to look like they could appear on the cover of a trashy romance novel, spilling past my shoulders and blowing in the wind for all to admire.

Lye took my hair from tight corkscrew curls to straighterthan- a-white-girl’s hair. A curling iron created big, springy curls that would hit my face each time I shook my head, and I just soaked it in, giddy and thrilled that my hair could actually move.

Years later, after being burned, coloured and apologizingly deep-conditioned, my hair forced me to wave a white flag and surrender my chemical dependency. Today, I am happy and nappy, with a head full of frizzy, red curls; all that’s left of my style-challenged days are pictures of a greasy me, striking poses to mark my what-was-I-thinking phase.

As I get older, my appreciation for what grows out of my head deepens, and though I’m not completely chemical- free, I have made a promise to ban everything that makes my scalp burn, flake and itch by 2012.

And though my hair could have done without the entire uninspired mess, I do have to be thankful for one fact: not once did I ever, ever sport a Jheri curl.

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