Sundays were salon days when I was young. From the age of 10, my mother would plait or relax my hair for school.
She spent three hours on each of her three daughters' heads. My middle sister has a sensitive scalp and was the first to rush for the wash basin. She'd be crying funeral tears by the time she was done.
The chemical sodium hydroxide is put on the hair to break down its protein causing it to become straight. This can be a painful process that sometimes leaves you with a burnt scalp.

Although African hair is versatile, with endless hairstyles to choose from, Africa has been flooded with relaxers to smooth that stubborn kink. But people are starting to turn away from relaxers.

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has touched on some of the restrictions it brings.
"Relaxing your hair is like being in prison," she wrote.
"You're caged in. Your hair rules you."
"You're always battling to make your hair do what it
wasn't meant to do."

Natural hair supporters go one step further - to say natural hair is a nod to being a real African. South African hair blogger Milisuthando Bongela says black hair has been treated with disdain for years because black people have been made to be a problem.

For centuries black women around the world were discriminated against because of their skin, hair and culture. White attributes - including straight hair - were seen as superior. There are still remnants of that to this day.

When a black woman graces our screens she is usually wearing either a weave or has bone-straight, relaxed hair.

But believing that all women who relax their hair or
wear weaves do so because they are trying to be
white would be simplistic. It doesn't take into consideration the social pressures.
Until recently many South African schools and work places favoured relaxed hair because other styles weren't seen as the "professional look". EyewitnessNews reported in 2014 that a 16-year- old girl from Cape Town was sent home from school for wearing thick braids.

Later in life, some women worry that they will be passed over for promotions and relationships if they keep their hair natural.

That's because there is still a stigma around natural hair. Its harshest critics consider it to be unkempt. Even the Kenyan Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o told the BBC that when she decided to stop relaxing her hair and cut it all off, what grew back "wasn't that bad after all".
I don't ever recall my mother saying long straight hair made us prettier or making any of us feel our bushy natural hair was unsightly. For her, relaxing it meant less time getting us ready in the mornings. It was simply convenient. It takes time and effort to look after natural hair.
Ms Adichie also points out that many people choose to relax their hair because they don't know how to care for natural hair.