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.

Do You Have A Hijab-Clad Mane? 

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. 

Faced with this institutionalised othering, it comes as little surprise that most hijabis choose to zag in the opposite direction. The first few months of my transition into a hijabi lifestyle saw my hair care routine descending into neglect. Having spent the better part of my younger years, nursing singed fingers after flat-ironing my unruly hair into submission, there was a gratifying sense of liberation in tossing everything into a messy bun and cloaking it with the blessed anonymity of a head scarf before rolling out the door.

Freed from the need to agonise over every errant flyaway, I found myself observing the toll that this arbitrary standard of silken perfection had exacted on my self-esteem. How had I allowed the hair iron—a mundane everyday styling tool—to morph into an indispensable crutch for propping up my self-confidence? Now, having unceremoniously relegated said tool to the back of the wardrobe, my strands cruised along on a justified sense of abandon—for a while, at least.

It wasn’t long before my hair started rebelling. Frizziness came calling first, followed by excessive breakage. The latter has been recognised as hijab alopecia or hair loss caused due to the friction against the fabric of a tight head scarf. Receding hairlines are another frequent visitor for hijabis, courtesy of having their hair pulled back all day.

Refusing to be crippled by the lack of a proven script to follow, I start course-correcting by developing a blueprint of my own. Harsh hair ties were swapped for silk scrunchies that minimise friction and, consequently, breakage. The luxury of air-drying quickly became a relic of the past—my hair instead tossed into a moisture-wicking towel turban fresh out of the shower and then blasted with a travel-sized hair dryer to avoid having a wet scalp sitting under the hijab during the day. Hair masks and smoothing serums eventually snuck their way back into my routine, but their job description has been dramatically altered. Instead of guaranteeing flyaway-free hair for hours, I now look forward to the whispery caress of silky-smooth tresses when I unwrap my hijab at the end of a long day.

Bit by bit, my hair care routine realigned itself to suit the needs of my hijab-clad mane, and en route, I found myself reclaiming autonomy over my own hair. After two decades of being instructed on how to curl, perm and straighten my hair into submission as per the trends du jour, I now luxuriate in the knowledge that my choice for hair care is for the benefit of no one other than my own self. It is a transformative journey that has been long overdue and one that would—in a fitting stroke of irony—only begin the day I decided to cover up my hair from the world.

Hijabi Haircare Must-Haves 

• K18 Professional Molecular Repair Hair Mask, INR 5,625
• Sephora Collection Hair Sleeping Mask Coconut, INR 850
• Redken One United All-In-One Multi-Benefit Treatment, INR 1,800
• Esmé Luxury Pink Skinny Silk Scrunchies, INR 899
• Nykaa Naturals Advanced Hair Growth Hair Mask With Rosemary, INR 599

Words: Hasina Jeelani; Model: Dr. Sena Rafique; Photographer: Prarthana Shetty; Makeup: Shahana Sajjad 

Read the full story on ELLE India’s new issue, or download your digital copy via Magzter.