Today, I was greeted in the street by a gentlemanly Rasta with the customary headnod and “bless up empress” that I have been accustomed to receiving since my inception into the knotty community. This time, unlike the many others that I have been greeted this way by Rastas over the 13 years that I’ve chosen to wear my hair like this, I sensed a particular adoration. He added, “YOUR hair is so very beautiful”. There was an emphasis on “your” that I hadn’t heard before. I replied with my usual thanks and went on about my business.
I imagine the new faux loc craze is what drove such passion in his intonation. If you have been paying any attention, you have noticed that faux locs are a thing. Faux locs — the two words together sound like an oxymoron, but here we are now in the time when fake dreds are abound. I don’t quite yet know how to feel about them. Sure, faux locs are not a new thing. Erykah Badu has worn them.
Lauryn Hill has been called out for wearing fake dreds during the Miseducation era.
The permanence of the style makes it a difficult one to take on along with the social and cultural implications that come in tandem with donning locs. Having had dreds for over 13 years, I can tell you, locs are not an easy hairstyle to have.
When I first told my family that I was going natural — they were stunned. When I then let it out of the bag that I was going natural to put dreds in, I was met with disdainful reproach. My grandmother straight out told me, “you not getting in my car with them shitty thangs in yo hair, unh unh.” This was the early 2000s, before Carol’s Daughter had gone global. We didn’t have that full aisle of ethnic hair products in Duane Reade yet. UPS employees were filing lawsuits against the company for having been let go for having dredlocs. My aunt came to me solemnly. She sat me down in Oprah Winfrey “Soul Sunday” fashion, met me in my eyes and placed her hands on my thighs. She told me that she supported my decision, but that it may be difficult for me to secure employment with “that kind of hair”. The fear about having locs was a real thing. Having locs as long as I have means you have heard it all.
You have been automatically deemed a pothead or as Guiliana Rancic famously put it in her attack on Zendaya’s faux loc exhibition, one who wreaks of “…patchouli oil. Or weed.”
I have had people randomly grab at my hair in the street — white and Black. I have been asked if I wash my hair — due to the fact that is assumed dredlocs are matted, dirty clumps of hair held together by dust-bunnies. I have had preachers on the pulpit accost me for wanting to imitate a lion and told that my hair was unChristian like, citing random and obscure Bible verses from the old testament as sisters in weaves and other fakery sat among me in the same pew. It has been a trial and a tribulation this hair, is what I am trying to tell you! I love my hair though. I love that I am natural — save for a little color throughout the years, which I have also been condemned for by folks on the other side of this spectrum that feel locs can only be a certain way. These are the same folks that get mad when you color your locs, cut them (cuz you’re secretly supposed to have them forever) or don them when you are not a Rasta. I have been called a fashion dred by these types. I find this particularly offensive because first, Rastarianism has popularized dredlocs, not created it, and two, like chill out and be happy I gave up the creamy crack of my infancy. They also will turn a key in your behind when you call locs dreds exclaiming in shrill tones that “there is nothing dreadful about their hair”. Rastas call ’em dreds. I’ma call them dreds. It’s not that deep to me. With all that said, should fake dreds be a trend?
Is it better than having a weave? Weaves, which often exemplify all that is wrong with the white standards of beauty perpetuated by media, fashion and the world-at-large, are hugely popular in the Black community. Should I be glad then, that Black women are now donning hair, albeit false, that seeks to glorify a traditionally Black image and form of beauty?
Let’s fast-forward to now: EVERYBODY and they mama got dreds. Men have them. Women have them. Real ones. Fake ones. Clean, put-together ones. Colored ones. Knotty ones. Dirty ones. Unkempt ones.
They’re all over the place. The fake ones still don’t sit right with me all the way though. Committing to make such a dramatic change to your hair as a person of color comes with a certain rite of passage that is desecrated by just throwing in fake, lengthy locs. It’s offensive to the process. The “ugly” stage when the locs are growing in show the true sacrifice one makes when making the decision to convert. It’s more than just a style — it is a spiritual experience. This is why touching them is the equivalent to talking about my mama. This is why when you cut them, it is customary to save them. It is believed by many that locked hair has a particular energy to it. I agree. The transformation can most certainly be compared to that of the caterpillar and the butterfly.
Although, I never subscribed to the idea that someone with dreds is more “conscious” or “woke” than someone without them, I will say that the decision to grow them says something about you in that you are making the choice to be seen in a particular way by the world around you. Now, these fake ones running all around makes them lesser somehow. There are fundamental issues with faux locs and for the trouble they’re worth putting in, one could just wear box braids. The jury is still out on them for me officially on where I stand, but I will say that the trend is a bit unsettling. I also notice that women are getting the type of fake dreds that look like “good hair” — you know more Damian Marley than say, his brother Stephen. I wonder what Bob would say.
