How Wig blindness Made You Feel Ugly | The Psychology behind it.

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]What's your views on like natural hair, like let say not any wigs or anything, just I I don't really have my natural hair out.

[00:00:06]Why?

[00:00:06]>> it's tough. It's like my hair's 4C, so that's like tough hair. It's annoying to deal with. It's stressful, and I don't think it suits my face, like I don't know how to explain it. Some girls like being natural and stuff and have your hair out. I'm not one of them. But why don't you try at least?

[00:00:22]Try? Yeah.

[00:00:23]Um I think I have tried when I was um secondary school, year seven and year eight. I wasn't allowed weaves, so I used to have my natural hair out. And obviously, my face is much slimmer now, but back in the day I was much bigger.

[00:00:35]Watching this video honestly made me think about something deeper than hair.

[00:00:38]Because when black women say natural hair looks ugly to them, it doesn't suit your face, or it feels stressful, sometimes what they are describing is unfamiliarity. And I think we need to talk about how constant wig wearing can slowly create facial dysmorphia towards your natural features. Wig blindness, it destroys how you perceive your own face, and this is what distorts familiarity in this case. Hi, I'm Essie, and you're welcome to my channel where the conversation is real, and Essie's got the tea. On this channel, I teach black women to love, grow, and embrace their natural hair, and we challenge the narrative that wigs and weaves, non-textured, are better than our natural hair, which is not true. Now, if you've worn wigs consistently for years, especially with a completely different texture, a wig with a different texture, density, length, something other than your real hair, or a texture that mimics your real hair, your brain starts attaching beauty to that version of you.

[00:01:36]In this case, she said her natural hair is tough, it's stressful, and it doesn't suit her face. Baby, you are black.

[00:01:43]Coily hair is part of our phenotypic trait. It's supposed to go with your face. However you were born, whatever hair that is on your head is supposed to go with your face. Maybe an entirely different style, okay, can frame your face perfectly. Now, this is the mental distortion I'm talking about. She said she wore her natural hair in school and she was like 7 or 8 years old. Like the only memory she has of herself wearing her natural hair was when she was a child.

[00:02:09]That's a long time ago. You've spent years staring at yourself in a 22-in straight wig that your actual face has become you know, a stranger to you. You only feel complete when a straight wig or texture frames your face. But the truth is, your face didn't change, your perception did.

[00:02:29]You've grown accustomed to wigs and it has led to facial dysmorphia. Constantly changing my hairstyles has given me facial dysmorphia is what I wrote for Grad Ball last week. Let's talk about it. Cuz guys, I can't lie.

[00:02:42]When I take off my wig, jump scare. I don't think my forehead is that big. It's the fact that like I don't feel like myself without a wig, which even sounds crazy to say because how can somebody else's hair feel like more you than your own? I feel like it's been ingrained in us from young like our hair always needs to be done. Like why does it always need to be done?

[00:03:04]And the fact that you never see your hair like if you're doing like protective styles from back to back, you're doing these back to back, you're not really seeing your hair or your full face like that. So then when you take it off, you're just like, "Ah, like who is this person?" I think it's crazy. Like it's actually crazy when you think about it. It's actually a lot. And even though this is a minuscule issue, bro, it's it's deeper. And a lot of this is to do with the perception theory.

[00:03:26][music] Basically, if you see yourself continuously in an altered state, you start to like disassociate from your actual self.

[00:03:33]>> Another thing I would love to talk about is the quote-unquote comfort trap of wigs. Wigs are often used as a safe space in quotes or used as a protection, but they become a a prison when you feel insecure leaving your house without them.

[00:03:48]If you if you start feeling insecure, you know, when you leave your house without wigs, that is becoming a problem that you need to really face.

[00:03:57]When you eventually wear your hair, your face looks off to you.

[00:04:02]Not because you're ugly.

[00:04:04]Not because you're ugly at all. Not because your hair is ugly, but because your brain has become more familiar, more accustomed with the altered version of yourself. And whether we like it or not, familiarity affects attraction more than people realize.

[00:04:22]When you get used to something, you just want to be there, and that is when the comfort trap comes in. Oh, I'm in my comfort zone. I don't want to do this.

[00:04:29]And this is why I always advise black women to wear their hair more than they wear wigs. Because when you wear your hair more than you wear wigs, you've grown accustomed to your hair. So, whatever thing you want to explore or experiment with is just just is just experimentation to you.

[00:04:46]But if you wear a straighter texture that doesn't grow out of your head more than your actual texture, the day you wear your actual texture, it feels strange. It feels off. That is when you start feeling unpretty. You feel ugly.

[00:04:58]Notice how coily hair is often spoken about like something we graduate from.

[00:05:03]Like it belongs to childhood and wigs symbolizes womanhood, growth, or beauty.

[00:05:08]Like I literally saw some comments of someone saying, "Oh, I wore my natural hair all through my secondary school. I wore my natural hair in when I" You See, most of us even we had relaxed hair then, but we called it natural hair.

[00:05:19]So, because you wore them when you were like 6, 7, 8, 13, so then you have to stop because our natural hair has an expiration date. Our hair doesn't have an expiration date. Well, of course, unless or until you expire, which is >> [laughter] >> which is normal. Oh, I've been wearing my hair since school. I've been doing this. I've been doing that.

[00:05:37]Does that mean as an adult you should stop? No, genuinely, because you've worn your hair all through middle school, secondary school, primary school, does that mean you should stop now that you're an adult that you're even supposed to show with more? Because back then, our parents we are mostly contributing to how we look to school.

[00:05:54]Now you're an adult that you're supposed to show yourself with your hair. You are you are telling us that your natural hair ends with your childhood or when you were a teenager.

[00:06:04]It doesn't make sense.

[00:06:06]Our curly hair is not a phase of a Our curly hair is not a phase. It's not a phase before the better hair comes in.

[00:06:14]Our hair is not unfinished. And I think a lot of black women don't hate their hair. I think many of them are just disconnected from it because unfamiliar feels uncomfortable. Now, think about it like this. If you've never worked out in your life and you go to the gym today, you'll feel sore all over your body.

[00:06:33]Even when you work out at home without going to the gym, you'll feel sore because your muscles are not used to it.

[00:06:38]Now, it's up to you to not work out the next day and allow the soreness to take over your body. Or you can just get up and do some light movements and let your body, you know, adjust. And the thing about working out that I love is pro- progression. You might struggle to do 10 squats today, but if you show up consistently, 10 becomes easy and you progress to 20, 30, and beyond. There was a time when I couldn't do up to 30 seconds um plank.

[00:07:05]I did 5 seconds and I was all over like I just melted into the ground.

[00:07:10]It was so hard. And then with time, I progressed to 15 seconds and then 30 seconds because I was showing up consistently. So, same thing applies to your hair and exposure therapy. It allows you to face your fear and reduce the anxiety of facing that fear.

[00:07:28]So, of course, your hair feels, you know, foreign now. It feels hard. It feels ugly and hard and hard to manage.

[00:07:35]It feels like it takes time. That is why exposure therapy helps.

[00:07:39]You have to adjust your mind. You have to adjust your eyes, and you have to work on your identity. When you adjust your mind, you start learning exposure therapy, you adjust your eyes, when you look in the mirror, you're looking at yourself and you're like, "Oh, I like this new me."

[00:07:54]But when you look in the mirror and all you see is synthetic wig or a human HD lace front wig all the time without wearing your hair, it feels weird. So you have to adjust these things. Some wigs can soften your features, some can slim your face, some can hide your forehead proportion, you know, like this fringe. So when it comes off, there is a facial shock because you've you've become attached to the framed version. And that slowly creates insecurity towards your real features.

[00:08:24]And to me, that is actually sad because as black women, we we deserve to feel beautiful in the form we naturally exist in. And I think we've also grown too comfortable with using um society as an excuse. Again, yes, the society is a real system that made it very hard for us to to exist naturally without feeling like we're walking on eggshells. But I think we've now become so laid-back and we now use society as an excuse for every and anything we do.

[00:08:56]I don't know who needs to hear this, but you are black.

[00:08:59]And you have black hair.

[00:09:01]Okay? And your black hair is going to do what your black hair wants to do.

[00:09:06]Because it's black hair.

[00:09:07]Okay? So you can't make your black hair um perform like anybody else's hair because you are black and you have black hair.

[00:09:16]Um learn to embrace your black hair and learn how to do and take care of your black hair and learn how to not criticize your black hair because you're black.

[00:09:25]And so is your hair. So your hair is going to, you know, behave accordingly because it's black. It's black hair on a black scalp on a black head on a black body.

[00:09:35]All right?

[00:09:37]Okay.

[00:09:38]Okay. So, our hair is not like a phase.

[00:09:42]You know, just like the optionally chopped, you know, people were doing optionally chopped and their before phase, the ugly them is when they are wearing their natural hair and the beautiful good-looking them is when they have a wig on. It's not supposed to be like that.

[00:09:58]So, if you actually want to reconnect with yourself, you have to allow yourself to become familiar again with your hair or any part of you that you you lack confidence in.

[00:10:11]Wear your hair more. Wear your natural hair often. Take pictures in it. Go outside in your hair. Style it in ways you genuinely like.

[00:10:20]Stop comparing your curly hair to laid wigs or to relaxed hair or to straighten hair. Stop expecting your natural hair to behave like straight hair.

[00:10:29]When you are trying to make styles you genuinely like, make sure that you're not forcing or not you're not trying to force your hair to do things that it's not supposed to do.

[00:10:38]Work with what you have. If you have short hair, find short natural hairstyles. If you have short hair, stop hiding it and you're waiting until you you get to your the length you you wish for because most people hide their hair till their hair grows. That is when they feel comfortable. No, it's not supposed to be like that. When you start wearing your hair now that it's short, you you grow accustomed to it. You and your hair, you're literally growing together. You fall more in love with your hair because you started from when it's short. Yes, it's not going to be easy, especially if you're someone who is used to wigs.

[00:11:11]But, you need to try, honey. You need to try.

[00:11:14]And most importantly, stop treating your hair or your real features like the before version of beauty. Just like I said, the optionally chopped, you know, challenge. Your real features should not be a before, you know, version of beauty.

[00:11:30]So, because the more consistently you see yourself naturally, the more your brain is rewired to stop seeing it as something strange. And one day you realize that there is nothing wrong with your face.

[00:11:43]You are just disconnected from it, and that created a mental distortion of how you actually look like. Wear your hair outside if you're not used to wearing your natural hair all the time is like exposure therapy. The more you do it, the more you'll get exposed to how you feel and how the world treats you and how the world responds to you. You honestly don't know how the world responds to you. I wear my hair the way I want to wear my hair, and I feel like it exposes so much about yourself that you never knew you could learn.

[00:12:10]>> You need to start from somewhere.

[00:12:12]Start from somewhere. All right, so that is it for today's video, guys. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section. Let me know if you want me to make a more better video on how to fall in love with your natural hair, like practical ways to fall in love with your natural hair. All right, so do not forget to like, comment, share, subscribe if you haven't, and I'm going to see you in my next video. Bye-bye.