The black natural hair movement encourages people with afro-textured hair to keep it in its natural state.
One day, as I looked at pictures of my parent’s generation in the 70s, I realised that every one of them was wearing their large afro with pride. So I came to wonder, “Why did people stop wearing their hair like that?”
Growing up, I associated the afro with the past. The striking visual of the afro was reminiscent of powerful civil rights activists in grainy films from the 1960s and 70s. The afro was a highly recognisable sign of the Black Panther Party members who marched against police brutality and other social injustices in the U.S. The image of Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver and Elaine Brown with their afros on proud display were emblazoned in my mind. In the face of oppression and discrimination, the afro became a symbol that African-Americans adopted to show they were in touch with their African roots and were not ashamed of who they were. And many other black people responded to this movement by wearing their hair in an afro to show their solidarity.
Black civil rights activists were monumentally important in leading to the end of racial segregation, creating laws making discrimination-based hiring illegal and ushered in a new age of social equality.
So, why did the original black natural hair movement end?
The American media depicted the afro as something rebellious, even threatening. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defence fought against the injustices Black Americans were facing. The former director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, called them “the greatest threat to internal security of the country” in 1969 in an official memo. All while the news on television and newspapers reported images of the afro. Alongside the suggestion that black activists posed a threat to the integrity of American values and order. This made the afro a symbol synonymous with danger.
The reliance that everyday people had on traditional media for their news meant that people outside of the black communities of the U.S. rarely received a rounded view of the issues affecting them. If we rely on one source for our news, the voice we hear is likely to avoid voicing the concerns of marginalised groups.
This might make some people wonder how the hair that grows out of a black person’s head could be considered political in itself. But afro-hair has a long history associated with oppression. Flattening and concealing an afro for some became a matter of survival rather than choice.
The danger of embracing natural hair
Many African-Americans were targeted by the police, assumed to be members of social activist groups for having afros alone. They faced the increased likelihood of being arrested by the police who were disturbed by the Black Panther’s influence on social change. The popularity of the afro diminished as the 80s came to an end. Relaxers became cheaper, more mainstream and easier to find. Often advertised as a ‘solution’ to bad hair, they would straighten curly and afro-textured hair.
In the 1700s Louisiana, black and creole women were subject to the Tignon Laws. This forced them to cover their hair in public with a tignon (headwrap) to avoid attracting the attention of Caucasian men. As the leaders of the state feared this would lead to black people’s upward mobility through marriage. Western history has a disdain for kinky hair engrained in it. This is more than just a preference for straight hair, it is a legacy of subjugation.
Black hair in popular culture
In the 90s, black icons like Aaliyah, Janet Jackson and Nia Long all wore their hair bone straight. This contributed to the trend that told women that straight hair was possible to achieve on textured hair. Straight hair in the black community became, to many, a status symbol signifier. Trends catch on, especially when celebrities show off a new look. The way that news outlets and magazine articles react to this new look often defines whether a trend lives on or dies. While it was expensive to maintain for some, the worst risk of vying for straight hair is the danger some straightening products pose.
After slavery was abolished in the United States, many black people tried to straighten their hair in order to fit into society’s standard of ‘good hair’. One of the few choices that existed was lye, which relaxed the convolutions in curly hair by destroying the hair’s protein. But as it needs to be applied on the scalp and the lengths of the hair to give an even appearance, it could lead to severe, permanent skin burning and lesions since lye is very corrosive.
As relaxers were developed, new ingredients in creams that straighten curly and afro-hair were experimented with. But lye was almost always still included. In later years, non-lye formulas became popular which alternatively used an ingredient called ammonium thioglycolate. There has been speculation since the 90s that relaxer users pose a 1.17 higher chance of developing uterine fibroids. However, this correlation was never proven definitively.
Trends that concealed deep-seated issues in our culture
Black men and women have spoken about the anxiety caused by wondering if their hair in its natural state will prevent them from getting jobs. Others simply regard their natural hair as unattractive and difficult to manage. There is pressure for black people to try and meet a Eurocentric beauty standard, especially if they are unknowingly sacrificing their health to reach it.
In 2012, a Nielsen report in the U.S found that black people “spend over nine times more on ethnic hair and beauty products than any other group”. In the West, products for afro-hair have historically been difficult to find or simply didn’t exist. This has led to many black people feeling compelled to experiment with products not made for them. It can be expensive to find something that works for them. This is what happens when the beauty industry ignores a sizeable portion of the population. When I was growing up, the only product made for ‘afro-hair’ in my town were hair relaxers. Which hammers in the idea when you’re still a child that afro-hair is something to be ‘cured’.
For some, it is just a preference to have relaxed hair, for others, it determines the ease of which they fit into their community. There is a double standard in our culture that often designates culturally black hairstyles as fashionable and edgy when worn on Caucasian women, and distracting and rebellious on a black woman.
The new black natural hair movement
My waist-length curly hair had broken until it was shoulder length due to years of relaxers. In afro-centric online forums, I found that hair loss was not a unique occurrence for long-time relaxer users. This is a primary reason many people are ‘going natural’ and embracing their natural texture.
I did my research. There were two options for me to take. Cut off all the damaged hair on my head, known as a ‘big chop’. Or I could learn how to style my natural hair texture slowly through growing the relaxer out, known as ‘transitioning’. I picked the latter. During this time, videos on natural hair and how to start your natural hair journey were beginning to thrive on YouTube. Ordinary people would share the techniques that best worked for their natural hair in videos.
People such as Whitney White, Shawnta and Annisa LiMara gathered huge followings of trusting fans as they reviewed hair products and methods of styling. Many of these people became celebrities for their honesty and willingness to display and demonstrate their haircare failures and successes with their audience.
Some of the black women who pioneered this movement cultivated their own natural haircare brands. And others became ambassador of these brands, liaising with the company and their audiences on an intimate and direct basis. Soon, these new natural haircare alternatives began to reach store shelves.
Mintel reported that between 2012 and 2017, relaxer sales dropped 38%. They estimated that relaxers would make up a smaller portion of black haircare sales by 2020.
How black hair brands have responded to the movement
Many companies began to realise that afro-textured hair has different requirements in ingredients than most stores provide. Most stores provide ingredients suited towards Caucasian hair. When looked at under a microscope, the cross-section of Caucasian hair is oval but the cross-section of afro-textured hair is finer, flatter and elliptical in shape, making it more fragile and easily prone to breakage. Therefore, the lack of haircare options in supermarkets, drug-stores and salons for afro-textured hair puts consumers at a loss of what to use.
Brands like ‘Dark and Lovely’ who traditionally made products for relaxed hair began to offer a wider range of products after responding to the online push of the black natural hair movement, with a particular focus on less harsh ingredients for fragile afro-hair. Many new companies began to take off like ‘Mielle Organics’ and ‘Camille Rose’ as new forerunners of organic, vegan and health-conscious products.
As my hair recovered from years of relaxer usage I relied on sites like ‘Black Girl, Long Hair’; ‘Curly Nikki’ and ‘Naturally Curly’ for information. There I could find stores near me that provided the products I needed. The owners of these pages reported that a significant rise in traffic to their websites showed that the black natural hair movement was alive. This natural hair community fostered a plethora of topics for people to discuss the ingredients that made their curls thrive. It became commonplace for women on these boards to discuss learning about their hair texture for the first time.
The rise of consumer awareness
Pinterest and Tumblr’s image-based sites provided another boost to the movement. It provides people with a quick way to observe new hairstyles and products. The black natural hair movement helped to promote the growing awareness consumers have for the ingredients used in their products. Particularly concerning cruelty-free alternatives, awareness of endocrine-disrupting ingredients, and drying and damaging ingredients such as SLS.
Some of these companies also reached into the archives of ancient African haircare inspiration. Ingredients including shea butter, flaxseed gel, aloe vera gel, bentonite clay and coconut oil became popular fixtures of ingredients lists for afro-hair.
Reviving culture through hairstyling
The black natural hair movement is analogous to the not wearing makeup movement in many ways. Women are making an informed choice about what they do with their health and appearance with social media’s help.
Social media has aided the movement in reviving ancient African haircare practices, which became lost to African-Americans during slavery. During slavery, practices like braiding, locking and coiling hair went adrift because slaves were not permitted to style their hair in the way they were accustomed to. But the movement has seen a resurgence in African stylists sharing this information around the world. This has boosted the popularity of styles such as bantu knots and Fulani braids.
In African and Caribbean cultures, mothers and daughters often bonded through styling each other’s hair. This is how haircare methods was primary passed down. A new appreciation for natural hairstyles is demonstrating to young girls and boys around the world what black beauty is. That black girls, in particular, don’t have to sacrifice their health to be beautiful. And with celebrities such as Solange and Beyoncé Knowles, Erykah Badu, Lupita Nyong’o and Zendaya each embracing their natural hair on red carpets and award ceremonies, it has become even clearer that the movement has the potential to spread even further with their influence. With the different hair types of each demonstrating the versatility of afro-hair.
What the movement is still fighting for
However, the movement still has a lot to achieve. Men and women with natural hair still face the prospect of discrimination in the work-place with their afro-textured hair still considered ‘unprofessional’ in many spheres. Many people feel pressured to put on a ‘show’ during job interviews by straightening and ultimately damaging their natural hair.
Progress is slow but it is happening. California recently became the first state in the U.S to make discrimination based on natural hair illegal. Black people should not have to straighten their hair to get a job and risk damaging it to fit in.
Black people have a right to wear their hair in its natural state without fear of persecution. Discrimination based on hair texture is still happening today. In 2018, Brittany Noble, a news anchor in Mississippi was fired for wearing her hair in its natural state at work. Similarly, schoolboy Chikayzea Flanders was told he would be suspended from school if he did not cut his locked hair. His mother argued that his hair was a reflection of the family’s religious beliefs as Rastafarians. Many parents across the UK complain that school uniform requirements disproportionately target afro-hairstyles. These requirements often label braids and locs as ‘extreme’ hairstyles that students can be suspended over. It’s because of social media that stories like these can be transported around the world as quickly as they can.
The black natural hair movement is a message of self-love and self-acceptance. Our hair isn’t just a political statement or a passing trend. It’s something we should be free to wear in public at our choosing. It’s about having the choice to wear the hair that comes out of your head without fear of persecution and celebrate its unique beauty.
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Written by Chanté-Marie Young
Illustrated by Francesca Mariama
