“My sister has good hair. Mine is bad, really bad,” says my close friend, Milena.

I hate to call her out like that, but she and I constantly get into fights over her usage of the term, “bad hair.”

Having coarse, kinky, curly, wavy, frizzy hair does not equate having bad hair. Having straight hair that is over colored, over permed, under cut, rarely conditioned, does not equate “good hair.”

Why are we all so eager to use derogatory descriptions, with regards to our hair? I used to go to this salon near Yeshiva University. It was a Dominican salon and it was not a shock to see some of the white, jewish students coming in to get their hair done.

Oh no! I don’t mean just a wash and roller set. They were getting the deluxe job: Relax to the max – make it straight. But I never heard them say that they had bad hair. They would admit that they might have kinky hair, but they never call their hair bad.

It irks me. It’s a pet peeve to hear us refer to hair as bad based on it’s curl pattern. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of.  Now, don’t get me wrong. If you haven’t had your ends trimmed in a few and your motto is, “I ain’t paying $49 !@$#^ dollars for a !@$#^ bottle of conditioner!” then chances are, you do have bad hair, but not because you have some curl.

La Negra