How do you deal with friends with self deprecating opinions towards their type 4 hair?

Everyone in my friend group and family knows me as the “natural hair girl” which whatever. When I went natural, I did it mostly out of necessity because my hair was legit falling in chunks from the relaxer. It wasn’t intended to be a movement or statement, it was for my hair health. Ever since embracing my hair I’ve embraced the journey even though it’s been hard and I recognize that my hair is beautiful. Obviously I still struggle with my hair from time to time but I do love my hair overall. Although because of how I feel about my hair, many people seem to think that they can just like ask me some very strange questions or insinuate that I have advice on hair insecurity.

I was struggling with insecurity when I wore my hair out, not even because of my hair itself, I just wasn’t sure how I styled it suited me. Mind you I cut my hair near bald, and they all know this, and saw this when I did so. I had short hair for boarding school in Nigeria for 6 years so short hair was not new to me, even though i probably won’t cut my hair that short again unless I had to for the health of my hair or for a cause etc.

Here’s my issue, whenever I have a few friends who are struggling to wear their hair out I encourage them, and I’ve done so with a few friends. Now any issue they have regarding their hair, it’s me they reach out to, which would be fine if it wasn’t always negative.

A month ago 2 of them, had to get a lot of damage cut off their hair that’s not long because of lack of their prior lack of haircare. And they’ve been implying that this makes them look horrible and ugly etc. I’ve told them kindly, that short hair is just as beautiful. And tbh even if their hair was medium length or longer they have issues with a lot of the natural things our hair does and it’s just a lot to deal with. I have been encouraging them to keep exposing themselves to their hair, wear it out more often, learn to style and care for it at whatever length it is, etc. But yet, same old same old. They don’t and always wear braids whenever they feel like they can’t stand the sight of their hair.

Anyways, I’m tired of it and told them yesterday in the group chat that they both need to please stop and to really reflect on why they correlate their hair so much to their self worth and why they feel ugly with their hair. And I also told them that, whenever they talk about their hair in that manner, and compliment mine, it makes me think of them as dishonest because of how they truly feel about their type 4 hair. I also let them know that my hair didn’t get this long and big overnight, it took time. They’ve both apologized although one of them said that “I’ll never understand because I’m not insecure and I have nicer hair and looks.” Which I didn’t respond to yet because she made me mad by saying that. I did struggle, but I knew that it was up to ME to embrace my hair and love it without any outside validation. The compliments are nice, but I’ve told them they need to accept yourself with or without them.

Have you experienced this before? What do you guys do? I’m currently taking some space from them with this and tbh their obsession with their looks is just not healthy at all, and I can’t stand it.