How old were you when...

[Daughter]

...you had your hair chemically treated with a curly perm or relaxer (if ever)?

With all the discussions about relaxing lately, I've been fascinated to read of posters who've had relaxed hair since they were very young. When I was growing up in London, most West Indian girls that I knew didn't have chemically treated hair until 11 or older; my mother never had my hair pressed and my big sister relaxed my hair when I was 14 or 15. Nowadays I do see much younger girls with relaxed hair and even dyed hair... so how old were you when you first had straightened or curly permed hair?

 

[yaya24]

I got a jherri curl for my 6th bday. :bday5:

 

[Gracie]

10 years old I think

 

[ladylibra]

I was six, I believe.

It's funny, because my grandma didn't have her hair relaxed until she was in high school. And my mom didn't get a relaxer until she was a teenager. Every generation it seems, the age limit gets lower and lower. I'm guessing that it's because the less time you spend knowing your own natural hair, the less time you wanna spend getting to know/doing your kids' natural hair.

I don't think it's right, but I can see why the little 3-year-old girls at DS's daycare have relaxers. Their mothers are in my age range, and probably had relaxers in 1st grade like I did. What do they know about caring for natural hair? 'Tis sad.

 

[Sunrise]

Relaxer at 13 years old.

 

[ladybug71]

Got my first jheri curl at 13. Before that, was pressed and curled by mom.

 

[FluffyRed]

13 - and only because I asked for it.

My fam was some pro-nappy, anti-good-hair crusaders

 

[Letta]

5 or 6 I got my 1st relaxer. I just talked to my mom the other day about it and she kind of had this disappointed look on her face like she wished she never did it. It did make it easier for her to manage my hair. I had like waist length hair then and I never wanted to sit still.

 

[wild curls raquelle]

I got my first perm at 16 when I went away for college. I remember I called my mother the week before asking her what to do with my hair after I washed it and she laughed. I spent the next week with a hat on my head covering up knotted hair. I went home and I took off that hat and my mother was mortified with the thing called my hair. She immediately sent me to the salon and told me to come back home in 2 weeks because I was getting a perm. Not knowing I scratched and scratched and was burned obviously. But after getting the perm I still didn't know what to do and was still walking around campus at a all black school (it was hard walking next to a friend with her hair done) with a hat and mush hair under it.

 

[BlackMasterPiece]

My mom NEVER wanted me to get a relaxer and told me your hair is beautiful all on its own and she really would try to establish healthy self-image in me. Then she'd proceed to make me cry every sunday by combing my coily 4a/ non-silky hair while dry so I subliminally internalized that my hair must be bad because all the other kids in school told me so and I have hair that hurts to comb. So I got a relaxer at like 15 by begging my mom and my aunt.

I liked it at first and had brief periods where it was pretty long but it eventually began to thin and break and I started to feel disturbed by the very process of relaxing in general. I finally began to believe my mom when I turned 19 and embraced my hair in all its glory.....I haven't looked back since

 

[naturalmanenyc]

My mom had my hair relaxed when I was 10 years old. I didn't ask for it but she wanted my hair to be more "manageable" - whatever that means.

I am almost back to 100% natural hair after growing out my last relaxer (texlax) from 2007.

 

[JayAnn0513]

4 yrs old....yep, I was that young. All the girls in my family where relaxed before 6.

 

[Poranges]

I was 16, my mum was against it. It was my choice.

 

[brianna-alyssa]

At about 9.

 

[lbellin]

I was 8 years old.

 

[Stacy TheLady]

At 8 i had my first relaxer. Grew it out a year after until i was 16. grew it out a year after that and i've been natural ever since

 

[~Hair~Fetish~]

I got a jheri curl when I was 14, then decided to grow it out after a year. After a lot of shedding and breakage, my hair grew back to thick healthy APL. Stayed natural until I was 18, and only relaxed then because I had just moved to San Antonio, TX and the humidity was crazy. I would walk out the house with nice pressed hair... and then POOF... it quickly became a fro. That's when I decided to relax.

ETA: Growing up, I never wanted a perm like most girls did because everyone that I saw with a perm had chewed up hair.

 

[ceebee3]

13 - and only because I asked for it.

My fam was some pro-nappy, anti-good-hair crusaders

LMAO!

So was my family. NO ONE was relaxed, they all looked at me crazy when I begged for one at 13, that's when I was trying to keep up with all the girls at my new Junior High School.

My father/mother/ husband hate the fact that I have relaxed hair.

 

[BeautifulESQ]

I was 14 when I got my first relaxer (it was more texlax than relaxed). I begged my mom for it because all my friends had straight hair. At the time I was too lazy to learn how to take care of my natural hair but I soon learned that having relaxed hair was not as easy as I thought it would be.

 

[Mizz Diamonds]

I was maybe 11,12 going on 13 and my mother kept asking me "are you sure?" and when it was done it was more of a texlaxed kind of thing going on

 

[MochaEyeCandy]

I was 11-12ish.

 

[rosalindb]

I was 12 years old. I only know one woman of West Indian parentage that relaxed her daughter's age at a young age. She said that her family were really upset that she did that to her but she feels that as she is a hairdresser, she knows what she is doing. I was shocked when she told me that she had relaxed her hair when she was just 5 years old.

I see a lot of very young girls with relaxed hair but they are not of West Indian parentage. I saw one a couple of weeks ago that was only 3 years old I saw a baby who was no older than 18 months old a few years ago with bone straight hair

 

[laurend]

22yrs jerri curl

 

[locabouthair]

11 or 12........

 

[locabouthair]

I was 12 years old. I only know one woman of West Indian parentage that relaxed her daughter's age at a young age. She said that her family were really upset that she did that to her but she feels that as she is a hairdresser, she knows what she is doing. I was shocked when she told me that she had relaxed her hair when she was just 5 years old.

I see a lot of very young girls with relaxed hair but they are not of West Indian parentage. I saw one a couple of weeks ago that was only 3 years old I saw a baby who was no older than 18 months old a few years ago with bone straight hair

I never thought about that before. My family is West Indian (well kind of we're guyanese lol) and my mom refused to get me a perm at a very young age. I got one at 11 or 12 but everyone was telling her to perm my hair years before that and she was against it.

 

[MochaEyeCandy]

I was 12 years old. I only know one woman of West Indian parentage that relaxed her daughter's age at a young age. She said that her family were really upset that she did that to her but she feels that as she is a hairdresser, she knows what she is doing. I was shocked when she told me that she had relaxed her hair when she was just 5 years old.

I see a lot of very young girls with relaxed hair but they are not of West Indian parentage. I saw one a couple of weeks ago that was only 3 years old I saw a baby who was no older than 18 months old a few years ago with bone straight hair

Now that's a g*ddamn shame Has a child's soft spot even closed up at that age???

 

[Chromia]

I had a Jheri curl when I was about 7, then again at age 10. My first relaxer was at age 12.

 

[BlkOnyx488]

Jeri curl at 4, ALL my HAIR fell out.
I found out years later it was because My mother NEVER BOUGHT CURL ACTIVATOR.

 

[BlackMasterPiece]

Four!!!.... Lawd

A little bitty 4yr old?!?!?! *sighs*

 

[carib_n_curly]

omg 18 month old baby
hair care or no care hair skills that's just plain cruel but i bet they would kick up a fuss if you suggested a hair dye(that's also wrong) just keep chemicals away from little children they have no business in it.

never for me