Your journey to embracing your natural hair goes far beyond beauty - it's about honoring your ancestors' resilience, understanding your hair's unique scientific properties, surrounding yourself with positive representation and supportive people, protecting your rights in professional spaces, and most importantly, rejecting impossible beauty standards to celebrate your authentic self. Through these five elements, you can reclaim your crown not just as a symbol of beauty, but as a powerful emblem of your heritage, identity, and self-acceptance.
1. Deny the Beauty Standard
The beauty standard is an intentionally unattainable moving target designed to keep everyone, even those with Eurocentric features, perpetually chasing it. Your body and hair are not meant for others' judgment or pleasure, but rather are the sacred vessel of your soul and ancestral memories. To break free from these standards, consistently question your hair care choices to ensure they come from self-acceptance rather than others' approval, and invest in styles and products that prioritize your hair's health and natural beauty.
2. Spend Time With Your Hair
Your hair is unique and deserves to be understood beyond its texture, requiring consistent care and attention to truly know how it moves and responds. Natural hair carries immense power and beauty that has historically been both admired and suppressed, making it essential to reclaim and celebrate it on your own terms. Understanding your hair's scientific properties and DNA, rather than just its appearance, allows you to care for it properly while embracing its inherent beauty.
3. Surround Yourself with Those Who Celebrate You
Media powerfully shapes beauty standards, so it's crucial to surround yourself with content and people that genuinely celebrate natural hair, while being critical of false or harmful representations. Creating positive change means distancing yourself from those who make you feel insecure about your natural hair, as you need support, not additional obstacles, in embracing your authentic self.
4. Know Your Rights
While Canada doesn't have a specific CROWN Act like some U.S. states, discrimination based on natural hair is illegal under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and victims have successfully won cases for such discrimination. If you experience workplace discrimination related to your natural hair, document any incidents, as you are legally protected and should never face professional penalties for wearing your natural hair.
5. Be Courageous
You are descended from strong, resilient people who faced immense adversity to survive, and you embody their wildest dreams. By embracing and accepting yourself authentically in the face of difficulty, you not only honor their legacy but also empower future generations to stand taller and do the same.
Are you ready to take the first step to reclaiming your crown?
Join Claim Your Inhairitance Today
An educational and community-driven program designed to help you embrace and care for your natural curls.
