Search Results: Kerline Astre

By Kerline Astre · Published June 1, 2009

My-Cherie

Now that I have straight hair, my sister in-law has traded places with me and opted for the au natural mane. It’s kinda funny to me because she’s not the au natural type of girl, or at least that’s what I thought. I remember when my hair was natural. Chrissy was always very curious about my hair, but never gave me any indication that she was thinking about trying it. Last week I gave her a jingle, because now I was curious about how it felt to be on the other side of the fence.

Chrissy is a professor at the University of Houston and must maintain a certain polished look. Growing your hair out while teaching at a university is not exactly fun or easy. She told me she’s been wearing it pulled back in a pony for about a year now, but wants to try something different. When I teased her about cutting her hair off and wearing a short fro, she promptly responded with, “never the low fro.” That’s too bad, because Chrissy could rock a low fro.

Chrissy’s inspiration to grow her hair out didn’t come from me, it came from her sister who has been natural for three years. The first couple of years Chrissy was really skeptical about her sister’s hair, because she felt it didn’t quite look right. Now after the third year of growing it out, it looks great, so Chrissy decided to try it herself.

Now she’s loving it. Chrissy says, “I love my little waves!” She’s happy to be natural and says that now her hair has texture and volume, which is something she missed when her hair was relaxed. She also doesn’t have to worry about a curling iron or a blow dryer. She can just condition, pull it back and go.

I must admit, as I was listening to Chrissy go on and on about how much she loved being natural, I was a little jealous — in a good way, though. I thought to myself, “Ah man, I miss my fro.” I mean, I’m pretty happy with my hair being straight and I enjoy having the luxury of combing through it, but still nothing trumps the joy of seeing my thick and well-rounded afro in the mirror. It is such an empowering feeling.

Chrissy has been maintaining her waves with Wen Cleansing Conditioner. She says, “If you are natural, it’s the best product in the world.” That’s cool to know, although Chrissy did make that statement before she had a chance to check out the thousands of products at NaturallyCurly.com. I also recommended Mixed Chicks leave-in conditioner, since it worked so well for my man’s mane and they have similar hair textures.

We ended our conversation on a positive note, with Chrissy’s curl-power words, “There’s no turning back. I have to see this thing through.” Wow! I still can’t believe we’ve traded places. Who knows what’s next? Maybe I’ll convince her to wear a low fro and maybe she’ll inspire me to go back natural.

Email your questions/comments to My-Cherie.

By Kerline Astre · Published December 31, 2008

My-Cherie

Now that President-elect Barack Obama will be taking over the White House, we have a new fashion plate in America — Michelle Obama. Many top designers vie for her attention, especially for the inaugural balls on January 20, 2009.

Women’s Wear Daily commissioned top designers to “dress” Michelle Obama in her role as First Lady. Many of these top designers created beautiful dresses for her, but I think they forgot that she was black and weighed a little more than 100 lbs. Surprised? I’m not. I can get over the fact that many designers sketched her extremely paper thin, but I can’t get over them not adding color to her skin. I mean she is black, right? I know it’s hard for many to believe that we will actually have an African-American family in the White House in less than one month, but it’s a fact. So why would top designers like Marc Jacobs and Rodarte spend all this time sketching elaborate designs for our future First Lady, but not take into consideration the color of her skin? What were they thinking? Hello! She is dark brown, not albino.

The clothes that you wear should be based on the color of your skin and your body type. You are not going to wear something that doesn’t look right on your skin tone. Your skin color, make-up, body and hairdo can make or break an outfit. Everyone in the fashion industry knows that. You don’t even have to be in fashion to know. It’s common sense.

Debra Dickerson of Mother Jones magazine boldly comments on the drawings: “I get that these drawings are stylizations, but to design for someone individually sorta requires you to deal with their skin tone, right? Would they drape a ‘winter’ in ‘summer’ colors? Are these artists ‘helping’ her by making her whiter (and thus ‘capable’ of beauty”> or are they so squeamish in imagining a sister in couture that they have to whitewash her to make her ‘worthy’ of high fashion?”

These are truly legitimate questions that have yet to be answered. The fashion industry is practically my life right now, but sometimes I have no idea why people do the things that they do. I do know one thing. The last time I checked, black was beautiful, and that was about 10 seconds ago when I looked in the mirror.

Honestly, I can’t be mad.

Tickets to the inauguration were a birthday present from my man to me that I will be grateful for eternally. This is a historical landmark of my generation in our nation, and I get to be a part of it. What better way to kick off the New Year than celebrating the inauguration of our first black president!

P.S: I can’t wait to see what Michelle will wear to the Inaugural Ball. I hope she goes with Christian Lacroix or Betsey Johnson, since they were about the only designers that got it right. Yes, Michelle Obama is Black.