Yet, when we’d visit ‘back home’, we were free to run around with abandon once just a squeeze of SPF was rubbed in. As kids, we weren't allowed step out of the house looking ashy. It was the infrequent washing of our hair because the hard water made it dry, it was the basting of our bodies in cocoa butter because our skin was dry from the cold and our scalps with Blue Magic for the same reason. But it’s something that impacted the way they taught my mum to groom herself and therefore me and my sisters. They of course weren’t thinking about the British lifestyle’s potential crushing of the Black 'beauty' regimen. With the promise of a new life on a different island, I’m certain they didn’t think about anything that wasn’t directly to do with how much they thought they’d improve the lives of their kids and future grandchildren. When my grandparents emigrated from Jamaica to Britain in the 50s as a part of the Windrush generation, they came for the opportunity to fill the labour shortages in the UK caused by the war. Why can’t my beauty routine always be this simple back in the U.K.? Generational habits When I look in the mirror before bedtime my skin is clear and warmly tanned. Yet, when I shower off the day and then sit on the edge of my bed in my AC’d room as I dry, I don’t need to moisturise immediately, and my coils look juicy and defined despite not having a lick of leave-in conditioner coating them.
My diet right now consists of rich, spicy Jamaican food and my veins are literally pure overproof white rum. I darted back and forth from the sea to my sunlounger throughout the day taking decent swigs of frozen daiquiris to, you know, rehydrate. I submerged myself from head to toe, not worrying about the way my coils will spring up as they meet the moisture. It started with a morning dip in the warm, salty ocean. I’ve been out in the Caribbean sunshine all day.
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