Since the pandemic began, I’ve seen a dramatic attitude change in the natural hair community. I started to see both friends of mine and natural hair vloggers alike going back to relaxed hair in droves. Which led me to consider: is the natural hair movement well and truly over?
I like to stay up to date with products and styles for curly hair using natural hair vlogs and blogs. It formed the backbone of my education about my own curly hair when I gave up relaxers for good in 2013. Whether I’m on Instagram or TikTok, everywhere I look, I see more women foregoing natural hair for wigs, weaves and relaxers again. And I get the appeal. We all have places to be and people to see. And when washing our hair looks like an entire day dedicated to doing our hair, a lot of us have chosen to throw in the towel.
The lockdown blues
We’re over it. Working from home has made a lot of women realise how much time and money they’ve been spending on their hair. Busy mothers, uni students and working ladies have had enough of their time being taken away from them by their natural haircare needs. As it did with other aspects of our life, the pandemic has made us reassess our priorities. Some of us went braless. Others went makeup-free. And now straight hair has made a come-back in the natural hair community.
Despite curly girls trying to embrace their natural manes, we all still live in a world that sees curls as a deviation from the norm. A lot of women sighed a breath of relief when they were under lockdown for the sake of their hair. Finally, we had a break from feeling the constant pressure to always slick our edges down, wear buns to ‘control’ our day-four curls and hide the traction-alopecia caused by tying our hair in ponytails. Not to mention the price of conditioners, gels and oils all going up with the shipping delays caused by COVID-19.
The return to relaxed hair is widespread
Relaxed hair is straight. Because of this, it is less prone to tangles and requires fewer styling products which saves on time and money. But when relaxed; afro and curly hair can become brittle, fragile and prone to breakage. My memories of my waist-length hair at 12 getting shorter and shorter every year because of relaxers has been burned into my memory. The memory reminds me why I went natural in the first place when I get frustrated with the amount of detangling and arm strength long natural hair requires. A lot of us went natural in our teens or early twenties and now we have families, businesses and more responsibilities which make it harder for us to balance self-care with everyday life.
When I look at curly hair on YouTube, I notice the once excited attitude to natural hair has soured. The eagerness behind trying something new has worn off. Natural hair influencers are expressing how tired they are with their hair. The lustre is gone. As is the desire to keep persevering through the struggle. Did we not want to admit that the natural hair movement was just a trend? And with trends, they all eventually come to an end, replaced by some other fashion. So why is the natural hair movement going in reverse?
Why has relaxed hair become so appealing to women with curly hair after all this time?
I got a wake-up call at the end of January 2022 which reminded me why I stopped allowing other people to do my hair years ago. I booked a consultation at a salon specialising in curly hair right after Christmas. But the treatment I received while I was there completely shocked me. Previously, I trusted this salon with my hair on one occasion because their Instagram feed was full of women who had hair like mine – a rare feat even in multicultural London. I wanted to treat myself and although their price list was admittedly over-the-top, I had become tired of doing my hair all on my own.
Before my second visit, I gradually noticed a change to the models and clients this curly hair salon posted on their Instagram feed. A slow but sure change in which the women who looked like me: with kinky-coily hair and tanned skin had become almost non-existent. Replaced with white women with loose waves and curls. The representation for mixed and black curly-haired women, the aspect of the salon that originally made me give them a chance, was almost entirely gone. But I booked my appointment anyway, hoping that if I saw my previous stylist, all would be well. From the moment I arrived, I did not feel welcome like the last time. When I was inside the store, I noticed immediately that the white clients were being lavished with attention while I was being ignored. Along with the only other black client in the store. Who was sitting on her own, waiting for someone to notice she was still there.
My pre-appointment consolation was a disaster. The stylist grimaced at my hair even though my hair was in the best state it had been in for years. Better even than it had been during my previous appointment. The stylist commented that my hair was too thick. Too long. Too textured. She makes it clear through her body language that she doesn’t want me there. She’s ushering me to give up. Every service I ask for she denies is possible, with me, specifically.
While she talks to me, I start to get the blinding impression that she’s making excuses not to do my hair under any circumstance. When I pressed forwards for an appointment, she behaves as though she would be doing me a big favour to accept. Eventually, she says she will go ahead with my appointment but she will have to charge me extra. More than the other customers. My hair is too textured, too thick, too troublesome – she reminds me. I was shocked. My previous stylist, a black man who was nothing but lovely to me, is nowhere to be found. I look around the salon, seeing only loose waves and blonde hair in the room and got the message loud and clear: I’m not welcome anymore.
The natural hair movement hasn’t cured the world of texture discrimination in the beauty world
As I walked home, dejected and disappointed, I realised I was still in the real world – where texture discrimination and racism exist. The self-love journey I had gone through when I went natural wasn’t going to be shared by strangers who view my hair as a ‘problem’ that needs to be fixed. Somewhere along the way, I lost my love for my own hair and had almost put it in the hands of someone who clearly thought of it as weird, other and ugly.
Much like when I wrote about the history of the black natural hair movement before, it was a celebration of afro and curly hair in its natural state. There has been a long-standing issue in cosmetology in which curly hair is treated as an aberration, an after-thought in training. Or it is completely annexed from haircare education altogether. Most hairstylists in the UK will go their whole careers without dealing with curly hair. Leaving curly-haired women to deal with their hair exclusively on their own or fall to the pressure of relaxing it to get a stylist willing to see them. This was a major reason many of my friends and I initially went natural. They didn’t want to be shamed by their stylists anymore for having thick curly hair. They couldn’t afford to be overcharged for basic services anymore. Or continue to leave salons with less than professional results from their stylists’ lack of education.
Why natural hair is the ultimate ‘do-it-yourself’
Hairstylists in the UK were not required to learn how to style curly hair until very recently. There has been much discussion about these rules changing to include curly and afro hair as the norm in hairdressing schools. But is it too late for change? The average hairstylist in the UK is still not equipped with training to manage curly hair and when they are, they often feel like they’re doing you a favour to style your ‘unruly hair’. Typically, salons that use words like ‘natural’ and ‘curly’ in their advertising do it to draw in customers but hairstyling horror stories from everyday customers proves that the change is often in name only. And often used as an excuse to charge higher prices. How long will it be before we see actual change manifest in salons across the nation?
I’ve never needed anyone else to do my hair for me since I went natural and embraced my curls. But as it did for others, the pandemic made me tired of not having a helping hand. Somewhere along this ‘natural hair’ journey, we’ve lost the love for our hair. It seems that when we went natural, we didn’t think about how we would manage to stay natural.
Extortionate salon prices for curly and afro hair is one of the reasons my peers are going back to extensions and straightened hair. Curly hair salons are also rarer than salons that cater to straight hair. I decided to compare the prices of my closest salon for women to my nearest natural hair salon. While the prices for straight hair services were comparable at both places, anything that required hair to be in its naturally curly state for styling at the latter salon was significantly more expensive. The most expensive hair colouring service for straight hair at my local salon was £65. At my closest natural hair salon, the price of a full head of colour was just under £300. The reasons behind women returning to straight hair are not just political and social, but economical.
Have natural hair brands lost our trust?
Other than hairstylists and their problematic relationship with natural hair, there have been a variety of controversies in the natural hair community that has put women off staying natural. For years I heard of rumours, both online and in-person, that companies were putting relaxing agents into products for curly hair. Which at first might smooth the hair and over time, lead to irreversible hair and scalp damage. Those of us who spent years trying to get our hair back to healthy and curly after years of relaxers were worried about the potential of a relaxer getting anywhere near our hair again. And small rumours came and went about specific products or specific brands that were untrustworthy to our community. There was the scandal about formaldehyde-releasing ingredients products by brands like Macadamia Naturals, which caused a temporary boycott. Or the hair-loss accusations levelled at the Wen company which ended in a loss of popularity and a lawsuit. Then the DevaCurl scandal broke and many of us lost trust in natural hair companies altogether.
The brand DevaCurl has been accused of causing severe curl damage and hair loss to customers. DevaCurl managed a very popular empire for years based on their claim of salon-quality products, their own DevaCurl salons and the famed ‘DevaCut’ haircut meant to flatter all-curl types. From as far back as 2016, some of their ‘die-hard’ fans began to complain that their hair had been damaged by their products. Even ambassadors of their company, like influencer Ayesha Malik, parted ways with the company over damage to her hair which she blamed on DevaCurl. DevaCurl was accused of trying to cover up these complaints. At first, this was by not addressing the rumours and hoping they would cease. Then the company was caught erasing buyers’ purchase histories on their website, making it more difficult for customers to prove what they had purchased from the company. After that, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the company by customers claiming that their hair had been temporarily or permanently destroyed by DevaCurl.
After trying their products a few times before the scandal broke, I was lucky enough to get away with thinking that DevaCurl was just overpriced for what it was but not damaging. But so many other women who used their products consecutively were not so lucky.
The reputation of natural hair care brands has taken a huge hit in recent years, which doesn’t end with DevaCurl’s scandal.
Is deceptive marketing towards the natural hair community going to end the movement?
Again and again, natural hair companies are being accused of deceptive business practices and abandoning their core demographic when they go mainstream. The price of up-keeping for black hair is expensive. And just because companies can make lucrative sales from us, doesn’t mean they respect us. There have been repeated but unsubstantiated accusations against EcoStyle for racism in the workplace. Their owners, a white family, have been accused of openly mocking their black buyers to their employees, in addition to not paying their employees a fair wage, and using cheap, dangerous ingredients in their products. Numerous companies that market to curly and afro hair have been accused of ‘masking’ by refusing to put the words ‘curly’ or ‘afro’ on their products, despite black buyers being their main demographic.
Mielle Organics has been embroiled in numerous controversies since 2020. From dropping the ‘Organics’ in their name as customers began to complain that there were barely any organic ingredients in their products anymore to the owners of the company starting feuds with YouTubers over negative reviews. The latter of which has heavily tarnished their company’s respectability within the community.
Another brand that was popular with curly girls was Organix, now called OGX. Like Mielle, their name promoted the idea that they used organic ingredients. Like Mielle, at first, they did and slowly over time they started using cheaper ingredients but continued promoting the word ‘organic’ on their products despite it being deceptive. They’ve managed to cover this up a lot in recent years, but I remember using their products when I first transitioned – being lured in by the name ‘Organix’ and the claim of healthier ingredients. OGX is an example of how this issue of deceptive marketing in haircare marketing is common and not exclusive to products made for and by the natural hair community.
Problems in the natural hair community are pushing women to relax their hair again
People are becoming wiser about what is in their products. Especially if they are health-conscious. More businesses are getting caught out being dishonest to their customer base or disrespecting their audience, and this is reflected in the number of women abandoning their natural hair.
One often mentioned issue with the natural hair community that appears to go under the radar is the erasure of black women from the natural hair movement. It is routine to see that black women receive fewer sponsorships for natural hair content on social media than their white counterparts. Black women often receive fewer views on social media when they advertise and use the same natural hair products as their white counterparts.
Curly girls vs curly-hair brands: can we recover this relationship?
The hurt and shock of loyal Shea Moisture fans were palpable during their 2017 advertisement scandal. Loyal fans of the company were the reason Shea Moisture was able to go from a small family-owned business to a mainstream company. Their fans spread positive reviews through word of mouth, forum chatter and YouTube reviews for years until the company was sold to Unilever. Only for the company to completely sell out and project an image of their fan base that excluded their main demographic. The company was made by and for black women, originally. Their advert about stopping hair discrimination featured three white women and one racially ambiguous black woman in their new ad campaign.
For a lot of natural hair companies, going mainstream means trying to appeal to white audiences and gain their sales. Sometimes this takes the form of turning product formulas geared towards tightly coiled and kinky hair to products that are made as a ‘one-size’ fits all product – which no longer works on the people who made the company successful through loyal purchasing. This is something Shea Moisture, in addition to other companies, has been accused of countless times.
There have been changes, however, that the natural hair movement ushered in that look like they are here to stay.
The often forgotten accomplishments of the natural hair community
It used to be routine for black hair companies to advertise their products with images of women with impossibly sleek hair which were often wigs. Today, companies like Dark and Lovely and Creme of Nature are advertising their products with images of women whose hair more accurately represents the variety of curls, coils, kinks and waves in the natural hair community. There is also more diversity of skin colour and facial features too in their advertising. This allows women of all shapes and sizes to feel seen and heard by the companies they love and trust.
Camille Rose recently let black artists design special-edition bottles and tubs of their products for Black History Month. These artists helped to promote joyful, beautiful images of afros and curls and gave a platform to young talented black artists to show off their work at the same time.
Can the natural hair movement survive the pandemic?
Depending on your porosity, curl pattern, hair length and texture; all curly, wavy, coily and kinky hair has different needs. Part of the natural hair movement originally promoted self-love and acceptance. Acceptance for what naturally grows out of your head. And if women feel that natural hair is for them, there is increasing depths of information we can use to care for our hair. But today, more than ever, women have information that gives them informed choices about whether to go natural or go relaxed. Overall, whether you have natural or relaxed hair, in terms of the variety of products in stores and hair tutorials online, we’re all in a better position now than we were just a decade ago.
The natural hair movement isn’t over. It’s left a lasting legacy of education, self-love and choice for all of us to embrace our hair, our identity and beauty. Even though I get tired of my natural hair sometimes, I choose to remain natural for my overall health and because it works for me, more often than not. But I understand why straight hair in the natural community has become so alluring once again. People want simplicity. Not to spend hours on ‘wash-day’ detangling and washing their hair. Not knowing which new product on the market will work for them when old favourites are always being discontinued. Will we see a reckoning where women who relax their hair this year will go back to curly hair again in the future? Only time will tell.
What I’m certain of is that whatever the hick-ups in the road through my own natural hair journey, I’m going to keep trying to persevere. Keep learning and sharing with all my loved ones too.
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Written by Chanté-Marie Young
Illustrated by Francesca Mariama
