Chrisette Michele on Cutting Off All of Her Hair: “It’s Just Hair”

Did you know that singer Chrisette Michele recently cut ALL of her hair off? If you didn’t, now you do! And Chrisette has a message for you if you disagree with or question her decision to go completely natural. Read on for her recent blog entry to Vibe.com:

The turning point for me to shave my head was when I was out on tour. I had some pieces glued into my head because I didn’t want to dye my own hair, and the glued on piece would not come out of my head so I said I’m shaving my head because this is ridiculous. This does not make me Black. This does not make me a great singer; this makes me have a piece of hair stuck to my head and I was like, “I’m done, I can’t do this anymore.” So I decided I wanted to find beauty in a different way without doing something that was so damaging to something that was precious to me, which is my hair. I could have gotten it out but I said, “No, I’m just gonna shave it off.” And by going all the way back natural it was a much easier route and it was a lot less damaging.

My stylist once put a lace-front on me for a show that I did. I wanted to try it out. They take adhesive and put it around the edges of your hair and then they lay stocking material on top of that adhesive and then the rest of the stocking has hair attached to it and then this stocking material blends into your face and then they take makeup and put it on top of that stocking material and blend that into your face. I’m not sure if that’s healthy. I think you might get pimples and I don’t like pimples. I knew girls who shaved around their hairlines so that their lace fronts would lay better. I don’t know about that.

One thing that’s really humbling is, most of the time when I’m performing there will be a row of women in the front and most of them will have whatever hair cut I’m rocking at the time whether that’s the Epiphany cut or back in the day if it was it’s the flippy waves that were longer. It’s an incredible moment because even though it’s not that serious and it’s just hair, it’s also the way that I choose to express myself and for someone to agree with me and kind of touch my hand and say, “I’m down for who you are and who you decided to be.” It’s their way?to me?of saying thank you

This is not serious. No one’s doing surgery. No one got fed because I shaved my head. I just felt like changing my hair. My advice to women all around the country is to keep it simple. Don’t make everything such a big deal and don’t be so judgmental as to why other people do things. Jst enjoy them. Nobody knows why a rose is growing out of the ground or why it’s red. They just go and smell it then go on about their day. Sometimes I wish, especially in African American community, that Black women would just calm down and have a little bit more fun.