Are having natural hair inspirations bad?

When motivational becomes harmful.


The Motivation:
I've seen some ladies who look at others' hair and just strive harder to achieve whatever it is that they are admiring, whether it be a style, length, thickness, etc. A lot of the time these natural inspirations really do help to remind us naturals to keep up with our hair care, assure us that our hard work is not in vain, and remind us that our hair can reach great lengths and health. However, there's a flip side to this as well. Looking at too many pictures of wonderful gorgeous hair and comparing yours to theirs could be harmful.


Part of the problem:


My own experience: When I was merely transitioning to natural hair, I was searching through all sorts of fotkis, blogs, and hair inspiration threads on forums all over the internet. The pictures definitely gave me more will to achieve what I wanted. 


However, after I BCed and my true curl pattern presented itself, I began to notice something. My 4a/4b hair was nothing like MOST of the pictures I frequently ran into while searching for large, lovely, professional images of natural hair. I mean of course there were some ladies with my texture but the majority were not. My hair did not look and could not do some of the things in the images that had been readily available to me. I became aware of this and was perfectly fine with it after certain style failures lol. However, many ladies might not be able to be "fine" with this fact and so they end up going back to the box... box of relaxer that is. 


This is a sad occurrence. No woman should have to feel like her hair is too coarse or even too silky for that matter. There shouldn't be any preferences in photos or images in the media but of course me writing this wont change anything any faster. Although the media does seem to be getting better at presenting all types of textures, I can't watch TV without seeing a natural in a commercial lol, there still seems to be an unequal presentation of curl patterns. Those with 3c and below types are shown far more often than those with 4 textures. This is why I believe any person planning on going natural should really learn to love their hair before they chop so they wont be deterred by what ever coils/curls/ or kinks that show themselves later.


The Answer to the Question:
So basically the answer to the question: "Are having natural hair inspirations bad?" is yes and no. It is yes if you're inspiring to have the exact hair of another person because every head of hair is different just like every person is different and you will probably end up disappointed. However, the answer is no if you're only using them for outside motivation and to remind yourself that natural hair is beautiful in all its different varieties.


I , while I have no problem with looser textures what-so-ever, find myself having inspirations of those with hair types similar to my own. It's just better motivation for me to see hair similar to mine being long, luxurious, and healthy.


I'll leave off by showing my ultimate hair inspiration at the moment, Mahogony Boisseau. Beautiful girl with beautiful natural hair:

That's all for now

Ms. Larutan