In a world where only about 4 percent of women consider themselves beautiful, it’s no wonder so many feel awful about their tresses. Between embarrassing hair pat-downs in airports, men making insensitive comments about natural hair, ads insinuating a certain hair type’s inferiority and top-notch stylists urging women with kinky hair to chemically-alter their natural texture, it is clear why many women regardless of age, skin color, financial status, education level or hair type are struggling to embrace their hair.
A recent survey released by the well-known beauty and skincare company, Dove, revealed a shocking and depressing sentiment among women about their hair: they don’t like it.
Sad State of Hair-Esteem
Out of the 1,000 women surveyed, only a mere 7 percent of them reported that they love their hair. In fact, the survey showed that Black women were more likely to report satisfaction with their hair than any other race – at a whooping 14 percent. Still not as high as Dove would have wanted.
The Make Friends With Your Hair project was a bit of a social self-esteem mission. And although the Dove.com site is complete with cute games, quizzes, tool kits and advice on how to be the best you, their survey definitely let the cat out of the bag on how women truly feel.
Other finds in the survey also show that women value taking care of their hair more than feeding themselves, putting on makeup or sleeping in for a few extra minutes in the morning. According to the survey, one in five women have skipped a planned social event because of unpredictable hair!
Live Above the Fray
Did you know that the average woman changes her hair 104 times in her lifetime? With the female life expectancy in the United States at about 80, that means that women in the U.S. change their hair at least once a year, or about every 280 days! Ladies, we have got to embrace our hair’s natural beauty!
If you can relate to the whopping 93 percent of those 1,000 women surveyed that can’t find the beauty in their hair – natural or otherwise – take a step back from the haters and find a community that values the diversity of beauty. It’s important not to be discouraged by the information presented by polls like the one Dove conducted.
Challenge yourself and others to resist stifling beauty standards by not letting your tastes be dictated by narrow-minded people. You’re fine – and we mean, FIIINE, and so is your hair.
Want More?
Learn how the creator of MopTop learned to overcome the curly hair bashing she received as a child, and moved on to create a curly hair empire – all about embracing and being empowered by your curls!
Final Thoughts
Curlies, let’s get to the bottom of this! Do you love your hair? Why or why not?
