AFRICAN-AMERICAN women aren't the only ones who obsess about their hair.

After my Inquirer colleague Elizabeth Wellington and I weighed in last week on the topic of so-called good hair and the Chris Rock documentary of the same name, we heard back from women of all backgrounds about the challenges they have dealing with our hair and making peace with it as well. Here is a sampling:

Yes, all women have a love-hate relationship with their hair. Yet reading your articles about African-American women's hair issues is like reading about the other side of the moon. I envy your hair. It has presence - curl, body, and gorgeous color. I am a WASP with baby-fine, baby-thin hair. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I longed for long, thick, curly hair. As a 20something in the late '70s, I paid big bucks for a full curly perm. I augmented the perm with the daily use of hot rollers. After two weeks, my scalp rebelled and clumps of hair fell out. I looked like the elderly Amish ladies who lose their hair though decades of twisting their hair up under their white caps. After a month of wearing scarves, I went back to the salon. The stylist cut my hair chin length, which it has been ever since. I still envy my friends who have thick hair. I grit my teeth when they complain about taming the frizzies and needing hours to dry their manes. I try to believe them when they admire my flat, wispy hair. Is hair the last bastion of female control? Do we obsess over our hair because it can be changed in a matter of minutes, unlike our waistlines, health, families, or bank accounts?

- Hilary Eshelman, Glen Mills

On my 35th birthday, I let Kevin shave my head to a quarter-inch, tapered at the neck natural style and tint my hair a cinnamon brown. Kevin told me I looked great, and I lied and told him that I loved my hair . . . After a night of tossin' and turnin' in bed, I woke up the next day, stumbled into the bathroom, stared in the mirror and realized that my hair looked as pulled together as I did when I left the hair salon. I was a low-maintenance woman and it felt good. Strike that, it felt phenomenal. For the first time that I can remember since having a grease-ball jherri curl in the early '80s, I woke up without having slept on a mound of curlers or having to hot-curl my hair before I went to work. In fact, despite the comments of some men who felt the need to tell me that they weren't loving my short 'do, I kept my hair close-cropped for about eight years. The minute my hair became long enough to curl and needed combing, I would think about going back to hot combs, creamy crack (permanent hair straightener), and curling irons, and take myself back to Kevin to crop my hair . . . After years of prodding from my mom, I decided to lock my hair last year. Initially when I looked in the mirror, and even now when I get my locks/twists retightened I see a large fuzzy coconut with eyes and lips looking back. But just like my cropped 'do, I have come to love my low-maintenance hair and can't imagine returning to my press-n-curl, creamy-crack addiction. But anything is possible.

-Nancy Devard (aka
 
 

Raggedy Nancy),

Philadelphia

When I met my husband, he loved my natural short Afro. But I was a woman and we need variety. So I let it grow in and got a "curly perm." That was great. My hair grew like wild flowers! But, again, I needed variety and so I straightened it out again. Well one day while rushing to get ready for work, I decided that I needed to turn the curlers up a notch, because I was in a hurry. Well, I grabbed a section of hair and clamped down with the curlers. Pssssss! It was so loud that my husband sat up in bed and said, "What the heck was that?!" You guessed it. Still hanging from the curlers was a clump of my hair about 3 inches wide and 7 inches long! I was in shock. I stood there in the mirror for 10 minutes, curlers still in my hand, just staring at the hair still hanging there. Oh, the horror! To this day, I don't perm or relax my hair because I don't want to have to curl it with hot curlers. For variety, I go for wigs or braids. That's it. I have plenty of hair under the not-mine-but-paid-for hair, but it's much easier to take care of and there's never the possibility of getting burned or self-scalping. Every summer I go through the same tirade. "It's time to do something different with my hair." Yeah, right. My momma didn't raise no fools. Well, she did, but I'm not the one.

- Renee Collier, Philadelphia

I don't straighten my hair because I want to appear more European and I don't wear it curly because I am trying to express my blackness. I am proud to be an African-American but I am not compelled to prove how black I am to anyone. Perhaps Chris Rock used an issue that is very sensitive in the black community to his advantage. To me, there is nothing wrong with that. He has every right to be creative and pursue financial success. I just wish we weren't so easily manipulated by others when it comes to accepting and loving ourselves.

- Deirdre Ford, Northeast

Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.