Yes girl, you too can rock a bald cut like Lupita

And dye it blonde, and your eyebrows too

Jun 03, 2024

Hey y’all,

Last week, I was in San Diego turning up for a bachelorette party full of thirty-something women gone mild, while today I’m reporting to you live from the lush, creature-filled jungles of Costa Rica!

My partner and I are on our first-ever international baecation (#milestones), and while a trip of such high stakes would usually be make or break for new and new-ish couples, it’s been going extremely well. We’ve been having the best time doing adventure activities like whitewater rafting (except for when he almost fell out of the boat), staying in the most aesthetic hotels (while fighting for our lives against bugs the size of my kitchen pots), and being one with nature (in torrential downpours of rain that occur on & off every 4 hours). Ok, so it hasn’t been perfect, LOL, but we’ve been laughing and making light of the foolery together, which has made the trip even more fun.

Costa Ricans have this beautiful saying: “Pura vida.” Every Costa Rican we’ve crossed paths with has said it to us, and we’ve naturally started saying it back. Literally translated, it means “pure life.” I take it to symbolize the general gratitude and happiness Costa Ricans have towards their people, their land, their natural ecosystem, and to us—the people who choose to visit and respect their home country. Not even the worst McScrooge can resist saying, “Pura Vida!” when a bright-eyed, smiley Costa Rican happily says it to them. My partner and I have been living the “pura vida” mantra this trip, and it has made all the difference. Because even when things might not be going our way, we still get to be here and we gotta be grateful for this one pure life.

This Week’s Story

We have a new hair diary! It’s been a minute, and this week we’re tuning into ATL-based writer Sophia Ebank’s essay on how her hair trauma started with an ill-fated silk press and ended with a bald cut. How is she faring now with her locks? Read on for her story!

Take care,

Anayo Awuzie
EIC of Carefree Media

Hair Diaries: How I Overcame My Hair Trauma To Reach New Lengths

by Sophia Ebanks

From December to March comes the brutal, blistering cold of winter that I have always dreaded as a Black Caribbean girl from New York. But this time of year seems to have one upside that many black girls love to excitedly indulge in: silk press season.

At the ripe old age of 27, I have never had a silk press. I have always had natural hair. The silk press seemed like a rite of passage that I have willingly and humbly bypassed because I came to understand from a young age that heat and tension were my hair’s sworn enemies.

From my mom’s retelling, we took a trip to the hair salon for box braids when I was six years old in preparation for my aunt’s wedding. She selected one of the various African braiding shops in the neighborhood to do the style. The visit was a painful one, as lots of screaming and crying ensued. By the time my cries were responded to, it was too late. Between the heat from the blow dryer and the wrestling of my strands into tight box braids, I left with a bald spot on the back of my head. That’s the first instance I can remember of the mishandling, damage, and trauma that surrounded my hair. At that time, it seemed that every hair appointment was an attempt at taming my natural hair’s unruliness that I didn’t understand. As a tender-headed 4c coily-haired girl, it felt like regularly scheduled torture.

Teenage Redemption

My family eventually found a Caribbean hair salon that specialized in natural hair care. We became regular customers right through my high school years. Though still tiresome, this was when beautification rituals became apparent to me. My hairstylist, Ms. L, was an at least six-foot-tall, dark-skinned Black woman whose hair would change on every occasion, from long, thick locs to short platinum blonde buzz cuts. She wore each style confidently. It was one of the first timesI felt that I saw beauty that looked like what I saw in the mirror.

Yet still, the hair drama and trauma that I grew up experiencing had been cemented into my mind. Hair maintenance seemed to be something that required an unnecessary amount of attention and restraint in order to maintain and give off appearances. Hours on end spent at the hair salon felt like more fuss than I found to be necessary. As a rambunctious and active kid, I prioritized having fun more than anything. I remember vividly my sisters and my mother exasperatedly remarking at the end of many summer days that my hair was a mess only after having gone to the salon a day or so before. But I took pride in those rebellious moments, freeing myself of the restrictions that I was accustomed to.

It wasn’t until my teenage years that I started to see those weekends spent at the salon around communities of black mothers and daughters as a beautification ritual. Beauty became less elusive and I even started to find my own groove in those visits. This time, luckily, also coalesced with the emergence of Curly Nikki, a prominent online blog during the blogging era where women with natural hair shared their personal stories and well-researched hairstyling tips, techniques, and advice. From time to time, I would sit in Ms. L’s chair showing her images of the hairstyles I wanted her to try for the week. It also helped me start to feel a lot more confident in trying new styles on myself. I added flat twists, braid outs, and updos to my hair arsenal. I started to feel real fly.

But it wasn’t easy by any means. I remember at a high school dance, Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair” played over the stereo. I sang along, “I whip my hair back and forth,” and one of my classmates looked at me and jokingly replied, “What hair?” I was dumbfounded and told her to shut up, as that’s all I could muster. My hair was relatively short and sprang up to the sky, as our natural hair does. Hair envy at times became a natural feeling as I also grew up around lighter-skinned women who seemed to have a much easier time with growing their hair and retaining length, some of whom believed and were told that they had “good hair”. But I did my best not to care if a twistout didn't come out as curly as I would like and faked it as much as I could in those moments.

Edge of Glory: College Years

By the time I was 18, I felt that I had reached a new level of oneness with my hair, until I ran into another mishap. That summer, I decided to go to a popular self-taught hair stylist for a set of purple and gray faux locs. The hairstyle made me feel like a bomb version of Storm from X-Men. Two days after installing, however, the faux locs lining my edges had started to lift, leaving signs of a bald spot. I was frustrated not only that the same incident could happen twice in my life, but more so that I had to let go of such a cute style. But I remembered mentioning to my mother that I’d like to see what Halle Berry's low cut hairstyle would look like on me one day and thoughts of Ms. L’s low cut also spurred me on. At that moment, I saw an opportunity.

Within the next hour, I was seated in the barber’s chair as every faux loc fell to the floor. I left the shop feeling ecstatic as a new breeze hit my scalp that I had never felt before.

I immediately began to relish in the joy of easy mornings where wash day lasted only 2 seconds and could happen multiple times a week if I chose. For once, hair felt so easy and all it took was the resolution not to have any. It felt like the self-conscious thoughts instantly melted away. And in a time where Academy Award winner Lupita N’yongo was getting so much praise, it felt like the stars aligned so that I could have the hair cut of the moment. Wearing a bald cut and still looking fierce felt like purchasing beauty for a lesser cost. It seemed to most people that I could read as authentic, real, and bold – and the quicker I could communicate that through my appearance, the better. It eliminated the struggle of having to pick the style that could portray that and the hours of time it would take to attain it. For the next six years, less felt like more, and beauty effortlessly merged with fun. I dyed my hair for the first time in every color from platinum to violet. Eventually, I let the bald cut morph into a fade (think: Grace Jones) that felt equally as bad ass.

Post-Pandemic Transformation

Those styles lasted me until the pandemic hit. Thoughts of it’s really now or never cropped up. There’s no better time or more valid reason to hide away from society during the awkward growth stage than that time. Less started to feel like a bore. And the ease of hair maintenance over those six years gave me the boost of confidence that I needed to delude myself into growing out my hair for the next 4 years.

This year, I find that my hair is the healthiest, longest, and strongest that it has ever been, sitting exactly at my shoulders. To celebrate this feat, I felt that it was finally time for me to indulge. I had spent all of my life at one end of the spectrum, completely natural. I wanted to see the elation that straight hair seems to elicit the girlies during the colder months. So, I took the leap and got my first silk press ever in February. My vixen curls did not disappoint… for all of 30 minutes. That’s how long it took for my hair to fall flat at my shoulders, giving what I called the Sunday morning church lady hairstyle (a step up from the James Brown curl bump).

Too Close to the Sun

I resorted to wearing my hair in a bun for the week that I kept the press until Valentine’s Day, when I decided to put a 400-degree flat iron to my hair to revive the curls. I was even more obsessed than before. I truly understood why they were called vixen curls because I felt just like that. It unlocked a level of sultriness that I didn’t expect.

Unfortunately, I do have some heat damage now from my own mishandling - the first time it’s happened at my own hands. After several near panic attacks over what I had done, I’m told it’s as bad as it could be and I’m working to restore my hair back to full health because the urge to shave my hair completely bald has passed. It was truly an era of its own, one that coincided with one of the most carefree times of my life, as it is for most people. But am I any less carefree now? Possibly. Adulting has something to do with that for sure. As bills and responsibilities start to take up more room in my life, I have a lot more priorities that outrank my hairstyle. I’m glad that I have never lost the playfulness to try new styles. That’s what I think is the most beautiful part of hair care and styling.

I have learned that hair is more resilient than I could imagine. I remember when that bald spot I had on the back of my head as a kid finally started to grow a few strands of hair a few years later and the excitement I felt. I remember shrugging off those comments about my hair, as much as they irritated me, yet refusing to hide those sometimes messy, experimental styles. In effect, caring for my hair has also made me more resilient. Because so far, it has always proven that it grows back, changes, whether in length or shape, and is always a canvas ready to be molded to whatever expression I feel fit to bestow on it.

And in this latest phase, I’ve learned of the power of one of my hair’s companions. Heat has become less of an enemy and more of a casual friend, one that I am still very much learning to vibe with. And that it is fun to have tried and know that nothing is permanent, not even our ideas of beauty.