What's TWA mean to you? A blog entry on subjectivity - June 9, 2013

After stalking a few natural hair Instagram pages for the past month, I've come to realize that I'm really confused about the term: TWA. From my understanding, a TWA is a Teeny Weeny Afro. What was your understanding of a TWA?? But then, I saw a picture of a girl whose Afro was defying gravity, in other words MASSIVE, and the caption screamed "TWA". I thought, there's nothing TEENY OR TINY about that Afro! I wouldn't even describe my hair as a TWA and my hair wasn't nearly half of her height. So what's a TWA? I began to ponder why this term could be subjective. Here are my conclusions:

TWA could be relative to the length someone had before their big chop or their goal length. If someone had hair my length and was aiming for waist-length curls, then yes sure they could consider their hair a TWA. I also thought it could just be the term used when someone got a big chop and the varying length of people's hair when they are finally all natural. Then I stopped pondering this phenomenon and just accepted that I truly do believe that anything relating to curls is subjective! Curl type, curl length, curl colour, hairstyles etc. I describe my curls as a super-tight spiral kinky-curly hair texture but others have argued that my hair is not kinky-curly because my curls are very defined and have a nice spiral shape. Another example is that I still think my hair is pretty short but others think my hair is long compared to when I first started out and compared to some girls with natural hair. All subjective!

 

I'd like to pose some questions for you readers! Feel free to add your (positive and appropriate) comment and questions as well.

1. What's your unique description for your hair texture?
2. What does the word "Afro" mean to you?
3. What does the word "kinky" mean to you?
4. What's something you dislike about your hair that others like?
5. What do you love most about your hair?
6. What's your process for trying to achieve a certain length?
7. If you could take a pill that would speed up the process of hair growth, would you do it and why?

My answers to these questions are below:

1. I describe my hair as kinky-curly frizzy tight spiral curls
2. Afro means alot of things to me but I guess it's just a short form for Afro-Aemerican, African or African/Caribbean descent. Afro = black to me. That may change though, as I become more educated.
3. Kinky means "really, really tightly bound" curls. Simple.
4. I can't really say I dislike much about my hair but I dislike the shrinkage factor and how tight my curls are. People seem to think it's cool that my hair is like a spring though. Sigh!
5. The thing I love most about my hair is its curl pattern and thickness.
6. My process for achieving a certain length is to simply follow the essential curly hair regime and practice patience.
7. I would mosr definitely not take a pill to speed up the growth process of my hair. That's cheating!!!