HIJABI HAIR, DON'T CARE

TLC for the mane, especially when it isn't visible to the world, transmutes it into an act of self-love for Hasina Jeelani

- Hasina Jeelani

Curly hair? Check. Bouncy corkscrews and springy spirals ricochet merrily on hair care billboards. Short hair? A less frequent visitor but yet manages to pull in the occasional cameo when fashioned into asymmetrical pixie cuts and choppy bobs. Long hair, undoubtedly, serves as the mistress of this manor-cascading down in lustrous blankets of glossy lacquer for hair care campaigns.

What about hijabi hair? Representation for women whose strands are sipping on a potent cocktail of friction, frizz and dehydration every day? The question played on an incessant loop in my mind the first day my fumbling fingers pinned a hijab into place. As I attempted to make peace with being the only hijabi at work events, my eyes would dart pleadingly at the billboards in town, imploring at least one outlier to acquiesce my urge for visual affirmation that I wasn't alone. Maybe, just maybe, if I looked up to find one hijabi model insouciantly tossing a smile from a sky-high billboard, I could seek solace in a sense of community and belonging.

In a country that plays host to the third largest population of Muslims in the world, my search would, confoundingly, turn up empty. Tight buns, breakage and friction are known to mercilessly ravage our tresses and yet, no marketing mastermind appears to have ever thought of capitalising on our woes.