Mane Chic Donnette

According to Merriam Webster’s  definition, a mane is long and heavy hair on a person’s head. Personally, I don’t think it has to be long and heavy.  If you have hair growing from your head, then I consider this to be your mane.  Chic (pronounced sheek) is defined as smart elegance and sophistication.  With that being said, let's welcome my first locked Mane Chic personality!

Meet Mane Chic Donnette!

How long have you been natural?

I have been natural for over 20 years—really since I got rid of my terrible, 2-month-old  jheri curl when I went away to college in 1985!  I have done everything from the box fade with side parts, the “Grace Jones”; the ‘wave neouveau’ (?) and an ‘S’ Curl.  

What is your goal for your natural hair?

I had been wearing my hair in a low afro for years and I loved it and had no intentions of ever changing it! But about 4 years ago, a friend of mine made the decision to loc her hair and she challenged me to let mine grow instead of cutting it each month.  Well. I have never been one to back down from a challenge so….for the first time in 20+years,  I now have hair that is longer than 2-3 inches—my locs are shoulder length and I have been growing them for 3 years.  Now, I simply want it to get to the stage where I can have some real fun with it—like creating ‘up-do’ hair styles like French rolls, and twists, etc.   Who knows how long I will keep them (since I consider myself to have “hair ADD”) but this is the longest I have had any one style.  Whatever happens, though, I will never go back to a chemically processed hair style.

     

How does your natural hair make you feel about yourself?

I have always loved my natural hair.  It fits my fashion style and my life style.  I love the ease of it and the fact that I do not have to spend hours a day “doing” my hair. I love how my hair makes me feel about myself—fierce and confident.   I am very ‘low maintenance’—whatever that means— and I will always choose sleep over primping.  My natural hair allows me to look my best in very little time.  I am a tennis player and I sweat a lot so, not having to worry about a fresh perm being ‘sweated out’, is a plus…I just wash and go!  Hair to me is just like any other fashion accessory and therefore you should be able to change it at a moment’s notice.  My natural hairstyle allows me to do just that.

If you could go back and change anything about your natural hair journey, what would it be and why? 

Nothing…I would not change a thing.  I made the change out of necessity when I went away to college and it was a wonderful decision.  College was a time of self discovery but even prior to then, I was not a person who was overly concerned about hair.  I have always been fairly impatient though, and when the new sensation the ‘jheri curl’ came out in the mid 80s, I just had to have one!  At the time I still had a perm and I knew that you should not get a curl on top of a perm but…I wanted one.  So off to the local beauty school I went to get one.  Naturally, it did exactly as promised…my hair began to break off!  That was when the decision was made for me to cut it all off and go natural.   With the exception of my dad, everyone has enjoyed the different metamorphoses my hair has taken over the years.  My dad has always said, “When are you going to let your hair grow back?”  My response?  “When I don’t have to worry about keeping it curled all day or worry about sleeping in hair rollers, I will.”  Well, that time is now.  It has grown back but now I do not have to worry about any of those traditional hair grooming ideas!   Incidentally, my father is the only man that has ever said that to me—every other man in my life has LOVED my hair—no matter how I wore it!

If you were to go on a hair product diet for 6 months (summer through fall) by not using more than 5 products on your hair, what products would be in your stash?

 Everyone would be surprised because I do not think I have as much as five products that I use on my hair!  Let me see…I would have to have olive oil…just the regular old run of the mill supermarket brand of olive oil..  I use it as a moisturizer for my hair and scalp; I would also have witch hazel—I use it as an astringent to rinse my scalp, especially after a tennis match.  I mix the witch hazel with water—about 50/50 –place it in a spray bottle and use the solution to saturate my scalp and hair.  Then I rub it in vigorously to invigorate and cleanse my scalp; 3.  I would also have to have any Creme of Nature detangling conditioning shampoo.  I love the way it smells and the fact that I do not have to do a two-step process of washing and then conditioning—one shot does it all;  4.  Fragrance/essential oils—you know, the kind you buy from the ‘oil man’ at the mall—I have a fella who makes me a special oil blend which I put into my olive oil before using it in my hair.  I won’t tell all of my fragrances here because it is a special blend—but I will say that the base oil is patchouli!  5.  I would have to say my 5^th product is my bonnet dryer!  Does that qualify as a product?  I LOVE my new bonnet dryer because before I bought it, it took so long to dry my hair and I hate sitting under the dryer.   The bonnet dryer is perfect.  It gets very hot and it allows me to have some mobility while my hair is drying—besides, it is so secure on my head that the heat does not escape and burn my neck!

What is your staple style?  Give a quick tutorial on your staple style.  If you have a picture your staple style, include it as well.

 Mostly, I wear my locs down and framing my face but sometimes it gets in the way—especially now that it is getting longer.  Other times, to give my hair more body, I will twist it into Nubian knots while it is wet and then sit under the dryer until it is dry.  In the morning when I take the knots out, I have the most beautiful spiral curls which will last for about a week!  I even swoop it up into a loose chignon while it is spiraled and that is a lovely and sexy look also.  One word to the wise—invest in some extra long, heavy duty hair pins—you can get a pack of about 100 for about $3 at any beauty supply store (I thank my sister, Lyan, for that tip!).  And also buy lots of scrungees—I go through those like water—my hair demolishes cheap scrungees but still I get mine at the Dollar Store—I stock up on them whenever I am there.  I keep both scrungees and hair pins in my bathroom, my purse, my car and in my desk at work—you never know when you will need to do a ‘quick change’ in the middle or at the end of the day!

What is one product that you have found to have more than one use and you used it on your hair?  For example, you look at the ingredients of your favorite body lotion and decide that it can be used as a great moisturizer for your hair.

 That has to be my olive oil!  I use it on everything and everywhere—hair, face, body, hands, feet etc.   For about $5 you can get a 16 – 20 oz bottle which usually lasts me about 1 ½ months and that is pretty good since I use it several times a day and on my hair and body.  Plus, I do mix it with fragranced oils and use different combinations on my hair and body.  Tip:  purchase an applicator bottle—like the ones used to apply hair color.  Put the oil in the applicator bottle and the pointed tip will help you apply the oil directly to your scalp daily. The applicator bottle also controls the flow of the oil so you will not overdo it,  Olive oil is very light and does not build up like some other oils.   It will not clog your pores or cause you to sweat (I should know because not only do I play tennis several times a week but  I go out dancing A LOT!).  It dissolves into the skin very quickly and if you use it on your skin while your body is still wet from the shower, you will get a lovely sheen (not a shine) which will last the entire day.  

What tips/advice do you have to share about natural hair?

FIRST:  Don’t fool with your hair.  Just leave it alone!  My grandfather had some of the most beautiful, curly, jet black hair I had ever seen in my life, and for years I thought that it must have skipped a generation or two because I didn’t see evidence of it in any of my siblings or family members.  But to my surprise, now that I have not been using a comb or too many chemical-filled products in my hair, when I look in the mirror, I see my grandfather’s hair at the root of my own hair!  When I discovered that for the first time, I was almost moved to tears.  To think that all this time, I did have my grandfather’s hair but because I had been fooling with my hair, I could not see it!  For years I spent a fortune trying to get that jet black, curly look, when all the time, all I had to do was do nothing.

 

FINALLY:  This for the men, fathers, brothers, lovers:  Please stop demanding that the women, wives, daughters, sisters and  lovers in your lives wear their hair in chemical styles because that is what YOU like and what YOU consider to be beautiful!  Natural hair does not mean unkempt hair.  Natural hair does not mean ugly hair, nappy hair, or dirty hair.  Natural hair IS beautiful—Natural hair is HEALTHY hair---Truth be told, chemically treated hair is the real unhealthy hair. 

If the women in your lives choose to take the step to go natural, encourage them and do not let them feel ‘less than’ because of their decision.  We do such damage to each other’s self-worth and self-esteem by making each other have to stick to some misplaced sense of what is beautiful…it is sad, really. 

If you had to choose one word to describe your mane, what would it be and why? 

That word would be STRONGBEAUTIFULANDHEALTHY!  What do you mean that is not one word?  Well, how about SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICESPIALIDOCIOUS?  Either way, they both mean the same thing.  I choose either of these words because my hair really is all that and from the compliments I receive everyday from young and old (my students, colleagues, friends and strangers on the street!)—I am not the only person who thinks so!  My hair makes me feel good, and as all women know, when you feel good about your hair, all is right with the world—then you can’t help but exude confidence!

In closing, I want to thank my niece, Cierra, who was your ‘Mane Chic’ feature story on September 24^th, for getting me hip to this blog-site!  She text me before she sent in her post and when I read it, it was lovely—like she is—I am so happy she has decided to go all natural!.  I definitely was impressed and immediately wanted to send my own story in.  After I told her what I wanted to do, she told me how she went about doing it but made me promise to give her a “shout-out”!  So, here goes….Hey Cierra…What’s up!  I also want to send a shout-out to my niece Zhané, who at 16, is struggling to make her own transition to the natural side…hang in there Né— you can do it, just a little while longer!  

Thanks Donnette for showing us your Mane Chicness!


Have a wonderful weekend!
Indulgenceiskey