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UPDATE February 11, 10:24 a.m.
Courtesy of brand/Getty Images/Illustration by Clara Hendler
ET:Tessica Brown’s hair is officially unstuck.
Los Angeles plastic surgeon Michael Obeng and his team did the procedure (for free!)
to dissolve the glue.
Obeng, who has a background in chemistry, said it was all a matter of simple science.
“I looked up the compound.
The main active ingredient in Gorilla Glue is polyurethane,” he toldTMZ.
A few hours under light anesthesia, and Brown could run her fingers through her hair.
At that point, Brown says she’d washed her hair 15 times and it absolutely wouldn’t budge.
Her carefully sculpted swoops were frozen in time, an unpleasant reminder of the mistake she had made.
It’s clear that she is a woman who invests in her appearance.
“Stiff where?”
she asks,invoking that now-viral internet memeof a young girl playing in a bob wig.
“My hair,” she responds, her voice swelling with matter-of-fact exasperation.
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“You wipe it off and nothing happens.
Her anxiety is palpable and was certainly felt by folks watching on the internet.
“The stress that this is causing ME,” a comment below her second video reads.
“I hope she recovers well.”
So she went back to her house with a silo of acetone and sterile water.
I had flashbacks of my days getting relaxers, feeling that more-intense-than-usual burn of its chemicals on my scalp.
The kind of burn you know will leave a crumbly scab later.
She wipes her tearing eyes with a corner of her charcoal-gray zip-up hoodie.
She said she was feeling “a little better.”
She spoke a bit about what her hair felt like when the glue started to set.
“My ponytail kept getting tighter and tighter.”
But the clowning has since largely turned into concern.
Brown isn’t even able to shave her hair off.
“you might’t even get a razor under there.”
Not that she wants to.
She expressed that she still hopes she can get her hair unstuck without having to buzz it.
It’s the preliminary studies thatsuggest the chemicals in relaxerscould affect Black women’s physical health.
All this in the name of fitting a beauty standard that was not made with us in mind.
Laid edges, at this point, are pretty much a tried-and-true art form of Black hair.
It’s a testament to the creative prowess of our community.
It is also one that can come at a cost.
of the Black women who revealed their “glam” looks didn’t wear their natural hair.
They were clinging to stick-straight wigs or ones with looser textures than the kinks that were underneath.
The price we have to pay is all too high.
Do our baby hairs need to be finessed when we pull them into a puff or topknot?
Why don’t we see more people embracing the fluffy texture at the base of a high puff?
It is painful to see that manifest itself in such a heartbreaking way as it has with Ms. Brown.
Sending you, my dear Tessica, love and light.
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