A Black Women's History of Hair

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"Some beauty salon owners complained that afros would ruin their business, while others rushed to accommodate patrons desiring the style." History stays repeating itself.

I was told by my black female boss that my hair was too "urban" and needed to be changed. This was crazy having another black person say this too me.

Can we talk about how hard it is to get a perfectly round fro! Some actually think it’s an easy hairstyle

i went natural in the 10th grade and my longtime white friend saw me in a sew-in i wore for senior prom. she said she liked it and i looked so "feminine" with straight hair. i didn't tell her at the moment but that hurt my feelings because that confirmed she didn't see me as feminine with my natural hair

Girl this could’ve been 3 hrs long and I would’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

I wish we as black women could learn to just let everyone have their hair however they want. Especially each other.

I'm a white, cis male irish immigrant. I'm marrying a black american woman soon. I'm trying to educate myself. This is fucking heart breaking. This shit sucks

i wish more non-black people knew how much we go through with our hair. we've spent decades hiding it so i think they should know what we've felt pressured to do! two stand-out moments for me: - i was once almost suspended from school for wearing braids bc it "wasn't fair to the other [white] girls" until my dad threatened to sue - i forgot my wig on the way to my third round of interviews for a job and was almost convinced they wouldn't hire me because of it (thankfully, i did get the job, but i dont think i was their first choice lmao). that's the first and only time i've been hired without straightening my hair or hiding it under a wig the first time i went without a wig and stopped straightening my hair in public, i was terrified. it's sad. why can't i walk outside with my hair the way white people do?

I remember regrettably shaming my sisters for going natural in 2014. I would tell them they looked unkept and thought they legit were going crazy. 😵‍💫 Instead of fighting against European beauty standards, I was one of those that bowed to them. Thanks for this deep dive.. helps me self reflect.

I went natural in 2013 also omg. It saddened me how we criticized gabby Douglas and blue ivy hair. I remember watching gabby and being so inspired. I didn’t think about her hair at all. Racism has definitely done a number on us.

My hairstyle hero is my mothers lifelong friend names "Seven". She literally would hype me up about my natural hair in a time where it was frowned upon by my own family. She proudly wore her hair and eventually would rock natural dreads around our white peers and not flinch when someone insulted her. Set such a good example for me and was my inspiration for the big chop in middle school. I was severely bullied for it but you cant tell me anything about my hair today.

In the UK, little boys and girls are sent home or excluded from school because of locs and braids, it's sickening. This doc was amazing🎉 as usual

I don't have a hair style hero but sometime after college, wearing anything that doesn't look like my natural hair felt really wrong. I also believe that a lot of the blBlk Women Empowerment (BWE) YouTube channels on here have pushed blk women into looking at themselves in the mirror and accepting ourselves for who we truly are. Embracing our natural everything is hand in hand with blk women feeling empowered and that nothing is wrong with our natural state.

Having thick 4C hair wasn’t celebrated in my black family. I was often criticized for it, whether it was too thick, too nappy, or told I have black hair, even though we’re black. My family didn’t know how to take care of my hair because of its thickness and didn’t share any hair care, regiment, or routines. I often had my family members, straighten my hair with a hot comb or curl it with the curly iron. Through my natural journey with my hair. I went through relaxers, perms, Jheri curl, weaves 1 wig, and now I’ve been natural for several years thank god! Now that I’m older, and I know how to take care of my hair through trial and error (having friends to teach me along with YouTube videos) My family loves it. They particularly love it when it’s in a certain style (when you can see the curls) and they often touch it (without permission) and ask when am I going to straighten it. I do get ask at times when am I going to do my hair when is already styled 😩 Even though several years has passed There’s still so many stigma about 4C hair and textureism. My hair texture and type is often excluded from many natural hair conversations.

Any natural hair journey takes a lot of time, commitment, experimentation, and money. It is at the same time rewarding and very frustrating. Congrats on finding something that works for you. Good luck on your natural hair journey Elexus!😊

My defining hair moment: I was around 7 or 8 yrs old and I decided to take down my box braids by myself when no one was paying attention. I quickly got impatient by how long it was taking and got the idea that if I just cut at the root it will be faster😩. Not realizing I was cutting my own hair lmaooo. My mom was sooo upset. Not angry just sad lol. And I ended up getting a shaved side and braids on the other side and I loved it😭

What a fascinating topic: Black women in hair, I have had it all, Jheri Curl, press n Curl, relaxer, Virgrol relaxer, lost hair to chemo treatment, now growing my hair back been natural 13yrs now

I remember when I was a kid and my some girls where perming their hair. I asked my mum for a perm and she said “no, your hair’s long and healthy, you’ll just damage it”. ‘Long’ these days was that your hair was at neck length. My mum would always complement my dark type 4 hair. Saying i looked cute, and that ‘i would thank her later for it’. Relatives often complimented it too, and my mum would always do her best with the limited information she had in the mid 2000’s to style and protect my fragile strands in ways i see them being done on TV! As the natural hair movement became more popular, i was becoming more exposed to hair that looked like mine, and I can’t lie. I fell in LOVE with my hair. I’ve always liked it before, but these times I was really starting to appreciate it for what it is! I would definitely say my natural hair icon was Zurie from Jessie on Disney channel. I’ve always wanted my hair to look as full, long and bouncy as her’s! I still remember in secondary school when waiting for my bus in the morning these blonde white girls in a red car, roof down shades on and everything literally stopped in front of me and marvelled and expressed how ‘pretty’ i looked with my afro hair in space puffs. That amongst many other compliments definitely did influence my positive view on my hair! I’ll admit, i’ve had a lot of good experiences around my natural hair. And my mum has always been a pillar of encouragement of my appreciating it as it is. Plus my dad never made any remarks to it, which I know affected some young girl’s view on afro-textured hair not being ‘feminine’ growing up. Maybe if I had more negative experiences it could have been different. But i’m so blessed to have been surrounded by my family’s encouragement and appreciation of my natural. Looking back at it, my mum always complained how she wished her mum never permed her hair, because it was so damaged. I guess she wanted me to love what was unfortunately taken away from her. She still deals with the damage of all those perms she had to this day! Her scalp is burnt, and she also deals with benign-growths in her uterus (which i suppose now with the research done may have been a result of the relaxers). While at 19 years old its safe to say that I’ve gained a lot more knowledge on natural hair than my mum, if it wasn’t for her, i may have not become as curious and loving to my hair as she was to it! So, I guess she was right, thanks mum!

Three defining hair moments for me: 1) I was young, maybe 5, not old enough for relaxers yet, and my mom, trying to detangle my hair to hot comb it, full on BROKE A HAIRBRUSH off in my hair. It was probably just a cheap brush, but I felt embarrassed at the time and didn't know why. Like my hair was a problem. 2) A hairdresser left relaxer in too long when I was 11. It burned through my skin and I had scabs and bleeding for weeks and damaged scalp for years. I knew I wanted to stop then, but felt like I didn't have any other choices except braids, which took 4-8 HOURS and because I'm tender-headed, could be excruciatingly painful. 3) Getting locs at 19. My mom had gotten them a year or two earlier and encouraged me to try it, but I was afraid of not liking them and having to cut them off and have- GASP: short hair. A fate worse than death, I know, but I was young and still under the influence of the "good hair" thing. But in the end, I got the locs and when I say I almost cried, I am SERIOUS y'all. Realizing that THIS is what my hair had been trying to do my entire life and that hair I pursued with braids and perms ("straight," lays flat, and the unreachable INEXPENSIVE and EASY TO MANAGE) was what my hair already was all along, it blew my mind. I still have those locs today, never cut them except to trim and shave one side, and I love that my hair feels very personal to me now. I'm the one who washes it, twists it, and styles it. When it gets rough, I go to a loctician, but that has been rare. I still think people should do what feels right for them, straight, natural, however, as long as you feel good about the relationship you have with your hair and enjoy and appreciate how it makes you feel.