Redefining The Beauty of African Hair - #SMWLagos 2019

Hello :),

Happy New Year still sounds appropriate even though we are already in the second half of January, 2019. 2018 was a very interesting year, fortunately with more memorable ups than downs. I wouldn't want to bore you with the usual new year tradition of resolutions and reviews as I believe social media does a good job of telling that story in real time. One quick glance at our Instagram feed and you should be up to date. 

In the spirit of looking upwards and moving onwards; I am elated to announce that Locitude will host a session at this years Social Media Week Lagos 2019.

Our talk is themed Redefining the Beauty of African Hair. Having been fortunate enough to found and run Locitude for the past 3 and a half years I have come to realize  that one too many Nigerians disregard their natural hair, it is simply not enough. Not neat enough, not professional enough, not long enough, not just enough as it is. Everyday an African woman on the planet covers her head with someone else's hair of any other race but hers either in shame that their hair is not enough or with the mindset that African hair is unmanageable. In the same vein, a man who chooses to keep his hair in an uncombed fro is deemed irresponsible and has to work extra hard to proof himself to society. This has lead me to ponder why African natural hair is of so much contest.

Interestingly there are obvious and traceable reasons why this happens, colonialism, racism, effects from past slavery; similar subconscious traits associated with skin bleaching. This reasons are in our not so distant past and need to be addressed and reconciled. Quoting  Soren Kierkegaard “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”; we believe that we owe it to ourselves to  redefine the standard of what is deemed as beautiful hair on an African.

So at SMWLagos 2019, the Locitude team will be asking questions to help us understand the past so we can live freely in our own hair.  

- Why do we feel this way about our natural hair? 
- Why are we the only race that wakes up on a daily basis worrying about the world's perception of how we choose to wear our hair? 

- Who set the standards on what is perceived as acceptable hair on an African? 

- Why are we afraid of the kink in our roots? 

- How do we redefine the standard of Beautiful African hair? 

In recognizing who we are, we able to respect and improve ourselves as individuals; in turn our immediate environment and the world. This conversation will is the first step to understanding our self worth as Africans and having no shame in our looks, starting with our crowns. In the famous words of Lucille Ball "Love yourself first and then everything else falls into line".

We do hope you can join us.  Please click here to register for our session. 

If you managed to get all the way to the end of this blog post, you stand a chance to qualify for a free pass. Please send an email to info@loc-itude.com and we contact you accordingly.

Do take care and live 2019 with no limitations.

One love.

Your Loc Head
Ade.