About
Meet Tracey & Davina
Before We Become Extinct: How Do I Get the Confidence to Wear My Natural Woolly Hair? was written collaboratively by sisters Tracey and Davina. It draws on more than ten years of wearing their natural hair, conversations with black women and men, and their individual experiences and perspectives.
More than ten years ago, they both did the big chop.
Since then, they've worn their natural hair in loose TWAs—teeny weeny afros—or at around mid-length.
Over those years, they began to notice something interesting.
Natural hair seemed to provoke different reactions within their community.
As sisters who had chosen to wear their natural hair for more than a decade, they began to realise that many black women simply don't feel free to make the same choice they had made.
At one point, they were asked:
"How do you get the confidence to wear your hair like that?"
That question became the catalyst for writing Before We Become Extinct: How Do I Get the Confidence to Wear My Natural Woolly Hair?
As they began speaking to more black women and men, they realised that what they had observed wasn't simply their own experience.
They heard from black women who genuinely wanted to wear their natural hair but had convinced themselves that they didn't look pretty.
They heard concerns about attractiveness, acceptance, the workplace, family, social spaces and the pressure to make natural hair look polished and perfect.
They also heard from black men who had experienced their own conditioning around natural hair while growing up, being made to feel that their hair needed to be cut, controlled or covered.
The more people they spoke to, the more they realised that this wasn't simply about hairstyles.
It was about the beliefs we develop about ourselves, our beauty and our natural hair.
They began to see how experiences at home, at school, in the workplace, in relationships, in the media and throughout wider society can shape how black women see their natural hair—and ultimately, how they see themselves.
Tracey
Tracey is passionate about holistic health and wellbeing—spiritual, mental, emotional and physical—and believes that empowering others to embrace natural hair freedom is part of that wider journey.
She has spent years exploring the connection between naturopathy and true wellness.
A certified Living Foods practitioner and Cell Level Nutrition practitioner, she teaches how raw, live, organic plant foods can support the body's natural regeneration and healing.
For Tracey, conscious living isn't simply about what we put into our bodies. It's about developing a deeper respect for the body and making choices that support wellbeing from the inside out.
Tracey believes that real freedom—inside and out—comes from honouring the body as it was created and making conscious, clean living a daily priority.
Davina
Davina has been writing since the age of ten and writes fiction under different pen names.
Her lifelong relationship with writing has given her a deep appreciation of people, experiences and the stories we tell ourselves.
Davina's lifelong relationship with writing and Tracey's knowledge and passion for holistic health came together as they explored these experiences and worked collaboratively to find the words to tell the story.
Together, they brought their different perspectives, experiences and observations to the writing of Before We Become Extinct: How Do I Get the Confidence to Wear My Natural Woolly Hair?