Eyes Are Beauty Not Hair

Eve Esin, Nigerian actress. Photo Credit: online pic.

Alopecia, a fancy name for hair loss is not a death sentence. It doesn’t deserve the digital ink used to cry about it, because it’s just nature doing the rounds. Trees don’t complain when they lose leaves, their tenants.

Men lose hair with age, so do women. Animals too. Snakes shed their skins. There’s a smooth patch on the grass where people sit all the time.

Women’s beauty has always been the eyes. In certain countries, religion demands the body must be covered from head to toe in public, but women do their eyes with kohl and other eye make-up before they leave home. In Africa, beauty is both the eyes and the waist.

Hollywood shifted beauty from eyes to hair.

1. Women’s hair blew in the wind while they sat next to boyfriends driving red convertibles.

2. Women woke up with luxuriant hair spread on the pillow.

3. Her hair was like a curtain when they made love.

4. He found it sexy when she tossed her hair.

That was Hollywood. The internet has given the hair myth a boost. Hair must be long, must be brushed and must cover the face so that it can be touched every minute.

That is why women who live for the camera dread hair loss. Women who live the real life farming, balancing meagre budgets, home and work, go through it without a glance because it’s part of nature.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.