My hair is the longest it has been for 10 years. In fact, the summer of 1994 was when I first shaved the lot off. My hair was a good five inches past my shoulders, and though I was ridiculously proud of it, I was sick of spending half my life and pretty much all my money looking after it.

More often than not I'd wear it in a ponytail, largely because wearing it down meant using a tonne of products, and even then it would frizz up as soon as I walked into a moderately warm room. Everyone else seemed to love my hair more than I did. Whenever I wore it tied back, for instance, I'd get people begging me to wear it loose, but when I did so I felt weighed down: it was an albatross rather than a hairstyle. It had become a burden and I wanted rid.

But what to do instead? I'd done the braids thing, and had had a variety of shorter styles when I was growing up, most notably a very dodgy Grace Jones homage. I'd begun to notice a smattering of black women with shaved heads and started to become a bit fixated with the idea.

And then, during the break between my second and third year at university, I realised that if I didn't do it then, I probably never would - my thinking being that once I was in the real world (ie, had a job), I'd never have the guts to do something as drastic as shave my head. And so I called a friend who owned a pair of clippers and told her to bring them over. A couple of hours later, I stood there with my hair at my feet, feeling lighter and somehow taller.

Responses varied. Most women, black and white, said they loved it, while black men stopped asking me out and white men suddenly started. I carried on shaving for five years, until something inside me changed, and suddenly I wanted my hair back. Nowadays, when I see a black woman with her head shaved I want to rush up and tell her that, yes, I know it feels great, but making friends with your hair feels even better.