I am a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to black women's hair. Hair is hair - yet also about larger questions: self-acceptance, insecurity and what the world tells you is beautiful. For many black women, the idea of wearing their hair naturally is unbearable.
I adore my black skin and my kinky hair. The Negro hair is more educated than the white man's hair. Because with Negro hair, where you put it, it stays. It's obedient. The hair of the white, just give one quick movement, and it's out of place. It won't obey. If reincarnation exists I want to come back black.
As a black woman trying different products and figuring out what works best for me, the one thing that I realized is that hair brands lump us together as having 'black hair,' but all black hair is not alike.
In particular I want to talk about natural black hair, and how it's not just hair. I mean, I'm interested in hair in sort of a very aesthetic way, just the beauty of hair, but also in a political way: what it says, what it means.
I'm a black woman who loves hair. I enjoy changing my hair, having fun with it - just hair! I go from braids, to weaves, to wigs, to natural hair.
Black women are some of the most colorful women in the world. We come in all shadeshave so many hair textures..eye colors..body types. In this generation, it's sad to see so many black girls claiming ethnicities that they know nothing about in hopes of impressing a man or appearing 'exotic'. So many people act as if being black and beautiful is impossible. It's not. If we wanna get technical and look at our history, almost every black American is mixed. But we must stop implying that a woman's beauty comes from a part of her that is not black.
When I was in my early 20s, I had my hair permed. Bad idea! It turned into total frizz. My advice to women is, if you have nice hair already, don't get a perm, leave your hair alone!
When I was in my early 20s, I had my hair permed. Bad Idea! It turned into total frizz. My advice to women is: if you have nice hair already, don't get a perm, leave your hair alone.
black isn't beautiful and it isn't ugly - black is! It's not kinky hair and it's not straight hair - it just is.
Madame Walker was one of the four iconic women who really created what's now the modern hair-care and cosmetics industry, and we know about her in the black community because everybody gets their hair done.
I've hidden behind my hair more than clothes. Sometimes having long hair with a fringe is very useful when you don't want to look at people. I used to have very short hair, but long hair is my thing - a black nocturnal shield.
I do think that we have to be careful not to assume that getting a perm or wearing a blonde wig is a desire for whiteness. It may or may not be. Listen, I live in a poor black neighborhood where women wear blue hair, green hair, and all kinds of stuff. So, I simply see it as a different set of choices.
I think it's important to represent black women and our natural hair. Not wearing a weave is totally beautiful and acceptable.
The first rule about a black woman’s hair is you don’t talk about a black woman’s hair. And the second rule is you don’t ever touch a black woman’s hair without getting written permission first.
I think it's so important to represent beautiful, natural, healthy Black hair on television and in media, so the young women who feel pressured to look a certain way can see they are beautiful and their hair doesn't have to look a certain way to be professional.
Having Black hair is unique in that Black women change up styles a lot. You can walk down one street block in New York City and see 10 different hairstyles that Black women are wearing: straight curls, short cuts, braids - we really run the gamut.
I think that everyone wants sexy hair, and when they think of sexy hair they think of volume - they don't think about flat, limp, lifeless hair. But for some women, it's hard to achieve because we're constantly buying these volumizing shampoos [that] leave a residue in your hair.