How Ebonee Davis Reclaimed Her Power By Embracing Her Hair
Texture Diaries is a space for Black women across industries to reflect on their journeys to self-love, and how accepting their hair, in all its glory, played a pivotal role in this process. Each week, these women share their favorite hair rituals, products, and the biggest lessons they’ve learned when it comes to affirming their beauty and owning their unique hair texture.
Model-activist Ebonee Davis has a contagious, lit-from-within energy that permeates everything she touches, whether she’s starring in campaigns for the likes of Barragán, Calvin Klein, and Prada; glowing alongside Solange in the “When I get Home” video; presenting a chill-inducing TedTalk, or reciting spoken word poetry on the New York subway. Her hair and self-care routine are a natural extension of her ability to shape-shift, as well as evolve in owning and reclaiming her power. “I think as Black women, we’ve been taught to put ourselves last for every circumstance and care for everyone first,” Davis says. “Part of the resistance is reprogramming the colonial mindset, which tells us that pleasure for Black women is not in alignment for us, that it’s not in the stars for us. Part of fighting the establishment is actually taking the time to care for ourselves and put ourselves first.”
But this strong sense of self took time to find. “I definitely did not always love my hair. I have memories of walking into a beauty supply store with my grandmother and seeing perm boxes and feeling like I wanted to look like the girls on the boxes,” Davis says. “I thought it was superior. I thought that my curly-kinky hair was inferior to straight hair. It’s crazy to think back to being so young and yet so programmed to think my hair was inadequate.”
Davis, who decided to go natural and challenge her own personal beliefs about herself in 2015, still dealt with the psychological warfare that comes with self-love. “You can go natural and still look in the mirror and feel ugly. I had to do the work to repogram my mind.” She now recognizes the negative impact that feeling inadequate can have on a person’s psyche and relationships. “If I believe I’m not good enough, then I’m going to allow people into my space who treat me like I’m not good enough. We have to recognize that there are psychological repercussions to something that people may look at as trivial, such as hair. It is a much deeper discussion,” Davis says. “The more I’ve unpacked a colonial mindset, the more I recognized my infinite potential, sovereignty and my ability as a creator.”
For these reasons, hair rituals are of vast importance to Davis. Lately, she’s been keeping her hair in twists underneath a scarf “to help retain moisture because, when it’s picked out, it has a tendency to get dry quicker.” She’s also been using her favoriting Mielle moisturizer and sealing it in with black castor oil. “I’ve really enjoyed this time [in quarantine] of not styling my hair constantly,” she notes. (Giving the hair a rest and time to “recuperate” is important, especially when you have nine years of modeling, and therefore hair manipulation, under your belt.) “It’s nice to experience complete autonomy, which is a step outside of the norm for me, and I think a further step into my authentic self-expression.”
Not only does her routine protect the strands from getting dry, but she views her practice as a way to protect her emotional energy, especially during a time when “a lot of things are being brought to the surface about our system and the way things have been functioning in the country.” As a highly intuitive and energy-sensitive individual, having her hair protected gives her a sense of relief. “Our hair is very much an antennae. It’s a receptor,” Davis says. “The whole world works in vibration and frequency. When you hear a song that you love, every hair on your body stands up and you get goosebumps.”
For those thinking about going natural, Davis’s advice is to be patient. “Be patient with yourself, with your process, and be patient with your hair, because it’s really a journey back to self-love. And that’s not easy by any means.” She recognizes that her own reluctance to wear her hair curly was a result of rarely seeing anyone with her hair texture in the media. “The system has represented us terribly over 400 years,” Davis says, which is why “it’s very important that we create our own narratives, create our own representation, and tell our own story because it literally has the power to change people’s lives.”
1/10At home in LA.
2/10Some laughter is good for the soul.
