'My natural hair often triggers all the casual racist stereotypes that go along with it' -

This week as I whizzed around my local supermarket doing the weekly shop, I was super proud and excited to see Lupita Nyong’o's Grazia UK cover. She looked powerful, regal and strong and it made me smile. I personally love writing and reading Grazia because they tackle and talk about diversity. However, this week Lupita has come out on twitter claiming, “Disappointed that @GraziaUK edited out & smoothed my hair to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like”.

Her comments do raise interesting points about the way we view natural textured hair. I went natural with my hair two years ago at the age of 37, the first time since I was 8 and had lost my hair virginity to the 'creamy crack' or relaxer / hair straightening and it was a scary and humbling experience. Many women with similar textured hair came up to me in the streets to tell me they thought I was brave. It does seem bizarre to be called brave to wear the hair you were born with, in its natural state but I do understand what they meant. 

It meant having an eye of suspicion cast upon me when I walked into posh shops, being followed by security guards, having sales assistant tell me articles of clothes were very expensive ‘Pretty Woman’ style. It meant people asking me if I was driving my boss’ car when parking up in Notting Hill and baristas’ skipping past me in queues and serving the blonde yoga bunnies behind me. Why? Because for some, having natural textured hair revealed my “blackness”, that I wasn't playing ball by making myself look 'eurocentric' with a blow dry, extensions or chemically straightened hair.

My natural hair often triggers all the casual racist stereotypes that go along with it, such as the fear of me being an “angry black woman” not in control of myself, being 'uneducated and from a deprived background', 'thief' and someone to be marginalised. I am none of these things and until we see more positive images of men and women with textured hair these stereotypes are hard to erase. 

I’m a twin mother to six year-old girls. They are the light of my life, delicious and are of mixed heritage. I’m half Nigerian and Trinidadian and my husband is white British with blonde hair and blue eyes. From the age of four, I saw my girls struggling with the fact they had curly hair. In their words “chocolate girls weren't the boss but the maid”, they weren't queens but funny, funky side kicks and they wanted to be queens like Elsa from “Frozen” with yellow hair and a long side braid.

At four, their analysis of how their curls and ethnicity was portrayed in the media was spot on and correct. I couldn't disagree, which is why I created Jeweltonesbeauty.com to create a luxurious and aspirational space to discuss beauty for darker skin tones and textured hair. 

I think the more we see undoctored images, which haven’t been sanitised and homogenised, the more it will send a message to my girls and people globally that you can be a scientist, doctor, lawyer, architect, educated, affluent and have textured hair and not just be pigeon holed into being 'funky', politicised or part of a fleeting fashion look or trend. This issue has much wider implications and makes me think of Simone Welgemoed, a deaf ballerina who has hit out against Virgin Archive, for Photo-shopping out her hearing implant. She said, “I was shockingly surprised and it felt like somebody just dropped a bucket of water on me… you just edited out a part of who I am”.

With the launch of British Vogue under the new editorship of Edward Enninful OBE who has promised to put diversity at the forefront, I am hopeful for the future, as there seems to be a wind of change and acceptance happening. The industry has a way to go but the future is hopeful. 

Ateh Jewel is a freelance beauty writer and founder of Jeweltonesbeauty.com. @atehjewel.