Get To Know: Lola Jaye

British-Nigerian* author Lola Jaye joined the heated discussion on the very short/ bald head trend hitting Hollywood in a interview with Essence. Fashionistas like Solange Knowles, Amber Rose, Nia Long and Rihanna are all into this trendy hair look  and Lola talked about her own hair experience to the urban publication earlier today.

I like ‘em fro’ed, relaxed, weaved, braided, wavy, straight, curly… Yes, I happen to be one of those women who just loves being able to switch up hairstyles whenever the mood grabs. Even as I write this article, I’m enjoying the shadow my current ‘Afro’ is making on my wall, whilst my mind is brimming with the possibility of yet another new style.

So waking up one day and shaving off my hair is unthinkable. Yet it was exactly what I decided to do one misty morning a few years back.

What led me to this, perhaps had less to do with temporary insanity and more to do with high costs both in time and money. Besides, after years of ‘pulling’ and ’sowing’, my head was crying out for a break – so the hair had to go.

I enlisted the help of The Hunk who after a false start and me squeaking; ‘I’m not ready yet!!’ placed the shears at the starting point before calmly shaving the lot off. To this day, all I recall is The Hunk placing a mirror in front of me as my eyes chose to focus on the sorry sight of my hair gathered roughly on the floor beside me. It took a while to pluck up enough courage to take a peep into the mirror and what I felt surprised me, this feeling of utter freedom.
Having my hair taken off was cathartic and amazing!

I was grabbing back control. No more arduous trips to the hairdressers, no more emergency overdrafts to pay the hair bill… I was bald! Ready to face the new world that was now a bigger and brighter place. This was the new me, the old me, whatever! But another peep into the mirror started to breed insecurities as I began to notice just how BIG my head was. I mean it was HUGE! (I was clearly no Solange or Erykah) – I resembled an alien. Instead of ‘take me to your leader’ it was more a case of ‘take me to your dealer (of wigs!)’.

As quickly as the tresses had disappeared, so had my new found ‘hair confidence’.
So what to do? I grabbed The hunk’s cap and found myself as if by magic, inside a nice warm hair shop with a very reasonably priced wig department… Exhale, exhale, exhale.

Chris Rock may have a film out called ‘Good Hair’ – but for a few short liberating moments, I had NO HAIR and it felt great! ESSENCE

My two cents: Sitting under a hair dryer for a hour just for deep conditioning treatments every two weeks can be tiresome to a single girl’s wallet. Sitting for three to four hours to get box braids can be numbing. However nothing beats rocking your own hair like Michelle Obama, Estelle, Alek Wek, and India.Arie surely beats having to decide what to do with y0ur hair first thing in the morning.

Quick Facts on Lola Jaye

• Born and raised in London but lived in Nigeria
• Author of three novels http://lolajaye.com/books.html While You Were Dreaming, By The Time You Read This, and Reaching for the Stars – How to make your Dreams Come True
• Obtained a BSC Degree in Psychology from The University of East London
• Has a Masters in Psychotherapy and Counseling from Regents College
• Has a twitter page http://www.twitter.com/lolajaye
• Has a blog http://www.lolajaye.com/blog/

*Lola is a common nickname for Funmilola which is Yoruba in Nigeria. So is she Nigerian??

photos: zimbio///lola jaye//amazon//getty