Not long at all. Actually, I did grow up around an incredibly racially diverse community populated by people of all stripes, including White people. The majority of White people I knew did nothing to their hair except cut and color. The ones that did were usually the rich ones who could afford the fancy perms, or the Orthodox Jewish women who wore wigs for religious reasons. They were not the majority. The overwhelming majority of the Black women I knew and know did (and do) radically alter their hair from an early age, if they wore their own hair at all. In an office I once worked at where I was one of 7 Black women on the staff, only three of us wore our own hair--and two of us were relaxed, while one woman had beautiful, waist-length locs.
You are right about White women having tried all of the things I had mentioned above, but the difference here is that
their hair could take it on a regular basis, while ours cannot. Heck some of those things, like BKT and Japanese straightening,
was developed specifically for their type of hair, which is why it is still big in the Hispanic community. You cannot justify doing something that you know is bad for your hair because someone else (who has different hair) can get away with it.
And speaking of adopting new ways of caring for hair, did you not notice that the method you described that is picking up traction among White women and benefitting them
actually simplifies their regimen, rather than makes it more complicated, time-consuming and expensive? Is that the message that we want to send out (because it is, whether we like it or not), that our hair is such a hassle that we have to spend days and buckets of time, product and money just to make it look "presentable?" Even the Black concept of a "wash and go" is misleading and a farce to most other women; it is not a wash and go, it is a process called "shingling" that produces the
effect of a wash and go on loose curly hair.
I guess I'm at the stage in life where I'm all about simplifying; if I have to actually complicate my life for an effect that is supposedly not important to me in the name of achieving something I can through much simpler means, than I call bull on what the real motivating factor is, and you should be woman enough to admit it.
I wore relaxer for years because I liked the way I looked in long, straight hair. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I would still be relaxed if my scalp would let me get away with it, because my natural hair has a 70% shrinkage rate, which is the only thing I hate about it, and I am honest enough to admit that.
If you want popping curls and a tangle-free do, then by all means go for it, but don't lie and say you are putting caustic chemicals in your hair (ACV is a mild acid, BS is sodium-based, like lye), to achieve something "good" for it that is called "maximum hydration." You're just insulting people's intelligence, and you are potentially misinforming people into trying something that could be very harmful to their hair. Be honest and informed, and don't drink the euphemistic Kool-Aid (remember how that was a fad too?).
95% of the problems I've observed re: 4c hair are caused by dryness. Again, what on earth could be wrong with moisturized hair? Dry hair is not healthy hair, I don't care what lies people have been telling themselves. If my hair is dry, my number one priority is to moisturize it. Everything else, curl pattern, growing down instead of out, etc, is all extra.
) hair hangs and has a defined curl pattern is solely because it gets moisturized easier? And NOT because 'it has a curl pattern and 4c just doesn't'.
In which case, yes, moisturizing ANY non-straight texture will result in some kinda coil/ curl whether you wanted it or not.
