Almost every time I go to the bathroom, it’s there. In the sinks, in the toilet, on the floor or in the trash can. Sometimes, I’ll see it while walking on campus; tied to a pole, rolling around with the breeze or clumped in the back of a classroom.

It may be a lesser-known pest at Grady, but it is an ever-present fiend lurking in the halls: weave.

If you know me, you might be wondering, “What’s this short, long-haired, ‘Oreo’ doing making judgements about weave?”

I know a lot about weave. Believe it or not, I’ve had it.

My mom didn’t want to deal with my hair for the summer, so she decided that my sister and I would go to the hairdresser to add two feet of expensive, Indian hair to our heads.

It was the longest, most painful experience I’ve ever endured.

My hairdresser, Daisy, meticulously braided my hair, adding pieces of weave in as she went. Two hours later, when she was almost done, I tried to lift my head to test out my new do and barely could. After summoning the strength in my neck to lift my head, I caught a glimpse of my new hairstyle.

I immediately thought of Medusa.

If having snakes on my head wasn’t horrible enough, Daisy took the tips of my hair into a boiling substance. Now, the braids were sealed and the weave wouldn’t come undone. It looked like she had wound hot glue around the bottoms of my hair.

Though I didn’t have to go through the annoying process of straightening my hair, I had a new problem to deal with. When I went swimming, my hair would curl around my neck, strangling me with its unforgiving hold.

I’ve never had weave since. Yet, I can barely go anywhere without someone asking:

“Is that your real hair?”

My mental reaction is always, “Why, is it because I’m black?”

But my spoken reply is always, “Yes.”

“You must be mixed with something,” they say.

Or, “Oh wow, you have such nice, thick hair.”

I feel like a unicorn or a strange animal in a zoo. A black girl with long hair!? Let me pet it!

God forbid I, or any other black girl with long hair, wants to cut their hair. There’ll be an uproar in the black community.

“Are you sure!? But it’s so long! And it’ll take so long to grow back!”

It’s just hair. Dead cells. Why do we value it so much?

I bet if we took all the weave at Grady and got someone to estimate its value, we could buy Grady a year’s worth of paper towels for the bathroom and copy paper for the teachers. Girls spend so much money to look good. Weave can cost upwards of $400.

My mom used to help sustain families in Nigeria for $40 per month through an organization called Women for Women International. The group provides job training to the mother of the household, pays for some bills and provides food for the family. What some girls pay for weave for a few weeks, could sustain a family for almost a year.

It’s not unusual for girls to spend outrageous amounts of money on ridiculous beauty products, but the cost of beauty is even more egregious than a dollar figure. The real cost is human—the ability to look in the mirror, stripped of cosmetic enhancements, and be happy with what you see. Make-up in moderation is ok. It’s when you can’t walk out of the house without your cosmetic treatment that the cost of beautification becomes too great. It’s not allowing those closest to you to see what you really look like. It’s accepting yourself for who you are and believing that the real you, and your real hair, is beautiful.  p