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 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

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

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

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.

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'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

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.

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 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) RU-vid 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.

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!😊

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

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

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😭

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 RU-vid 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.

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.

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!

I'm so glad you're saying aloud how conflicted we can be about our hair. And how it's political even though none of us asked for it. I constantly go back and forth about whether to cut it off. 💜 Stay strong!

I am learning my hair everyday. As a black American because of our history I believe we as women were not able to cherish or prioritize our natural hair. So we are still learning while people criticize. I use to wear my hair straight, as I've gotten older I embrace my curly hair.

Quick hair story: I've always been natural, mostly because I have really soft hair, but my cousin, who is around the same age as me got her first relaxer at 3. All my aunties and even my mom would rave on about how she had beautiful long hair and I would never get any compliments. There's this rule in a lot of Nigerian primary (elementary) schools where your hair has to be in cornrows and you can't use extensions. All the girls around me had relaxed hair so my mom would get my hairdresser to sneak little bits of synthetic hair into my cornrows to make my hair look relaxed. One day I was at a family gathering at my aunt's house and I had my natural hair out. My aunt proceeded to ask why I cut my hair and say that it looked better before I went natural (she thought my hair was relaxed the whole time). I ended up practically begging for a relaxer but of course, my mom said no; having 'nappy' hair was better than being bald. I went to my cousin's hairdresser once to get my hair done with her and she assumed I was there for a relaxer. I, desperately wanting relaxed hair, didn't say anything until my aunt came in and said I couldn't get one without my mom's permission.

“If your hair wasn’t done it meant something is wrong” - for some reason this really resonated with me.

Our local newspaper ran an article for black history month about a couple, both escaped enslavement, who established themselves as a successful "fashionable barber" and "ladies' hair dresser". Turned I had lived around the corner from their home and had worked in the same building as their beauty parlor for years. A century later the closest "ladies' hair dresser" I could find at the time was more than an hour away and the story has been completely forgotten. Still not sure how I feel about it but I do love that their legacy includes their fashionable and stylish work which apparently drew clients from all over.

I broke down crying watching this video. It makes me so emotional. Our hair is so beautiful! Thank you so much for this showing so much representation for black hair. This video felt like coming home🩷

when i was in the fifth grade my sister who was 3 years younger than me rocked an afro since she was the only sibling my mom didn’t put a relaxer on and when wearing it to a family gathering she was confronted by a lighter skinned aunt who proceeded to tell her she look ugly and like my mom hadn’t combed her hair and berated her to the point of tears. This event leaded to me deciding to relax my hair and i went bald a year later from the breakage of the relaxer

The next time somebody say “It’s just hair”, I will send them this video. Thank you 🙏🏽

Ugh I didn't want this one to end! So many memories... The hot comb, perms, finger waves.. I remember burning my hair off trying to straighten it myself at my grandma's beauty salon. Remember those hot combs and curling irons that went into the metal plates? Well I forgot to let it cool off 😂🤣

I would love to see the evolution of black makeup

Growing up dominican with any hair texture besides straight was hard. Going to the salon in Washington Heights became like a monthly routine for me before I was ten years old. I spent pretty much ten years throughout my tweens and teens with my hair straightened, blow dried, rolled up etc. I didn't start wearing my natural curl pattern out regularly until I was 17, and was slowly teaching myself through youtube university how to style my hair with its natural texture. On a visit to my non black family in DR in 2020, I feared that they would give me grief if I went to go see them with my natural hair so I went to a salon in Santo Domingo to get my hair blow dried. Needless to say, the hair dresser chemically straightened my hair and caused me major damage and breaking. I was panicking because my curls were not reverting when I ran water over it and it smelt BURNT. I had to do the big chop and I was devastated. A month prior i was rocking box braids in the same fuchsia color and was feeling super good about my natural hair journey. Thankfully I was still stuck in the house when I was bald due to quarantine, but shaving my head was an experience that made me feel a range of emotions. Good news is that its been two years since the big chop and my hair is longer than it was when i first cut it again thanks to protective styles especially cornrows omgggg. Still struggling with accepting my hair when it doesn't fall into the super shiny defined curls that are so praised. My hair is frizzy, dry, and unruly, but im still working on loving it despite allll my traumatic hair history. Of course Lexual blessed my youtube feed with another STELLAR historical video!! Great work yet again!!

As a non black woman who teaches in a school where many of my students are black, I compliment them everytime they Switch their style, crochet, braids, afros... They honestly always look good and I think it is important to build their confidence, academically and as individuals

This is superior content. This could be running on PBS, Netflix, Prime, Hulu, you are talented, thorough yet engaging. I didn’t even realize an hour had passed. My hair trauma mainly was middle and high school. So frizzy. I was regularly called Tina Turner (which now that I am grown I realize should have been taken as a compliment). I stopped relaxing my hair while in college around 1994. I chopped it off. I rocked finger waves. I would do a side part and just slick it down. I would wear it wet and curly. I would rock a fro. Eventually I got into color doing red, platinum blonde and then on to pink, blue and purple. I am just about ready to go with my natural grey hair.

India Arie visited my college and there was a Q&A. I didn’t have a question, I told her that her song, “I am not my hair” really helped when doing the big chop in middle school (2011-2012). I cried and everything. Now, I am the most confident with a low cut.

Same story here with the Bantu Knots. It was 5th grade I felt so cool ! Sure enough I was made fun of . I took them out a day later and had cute curls then two girls from my class came up to me and asked why I took them out and they liked them. Yeah, childhood 🙃

I always had mid-back length hair until I got a fresh perm and got in a chlorine pool, and ignorantly didn’t wash it out. ALLLLLLL my hair fell out. It was traumatizing. I didn’t achieve that length again until 8 years later when I went fully natural at age 19. I’ve never looked back. My hair has never felt, looked, or been as healthy as it is now. It was astonishing how quickly and fully my hair grew back.

My defining hair moment: My third grade teacher (who was white and extremely racist)sent a letter home with me about my box braids. She wrote that my hair was preventing me from learning because a few braids kept falling in my eyes. I remember going through a phase of wearing headbands until my mom eventually took them down.This was also my first hand experience with racism , performative politics, and microagressions. There were other incidents where she targeted me. I.e being forced to pull a conduct bear without any explanation to even once being laughed at for overdoing an assignment. I was the only student who completed the assignment over Thanksgiving break.The principal escorted me to class several times due to complaints and me not wanting to go to class. Eventually, she was removed from her position before the school year ended.

I am 74 yrs old and I wear my hair natural. I have gotten a lot of compliments because it’s turned white. I remember those days with that straightening comb. Lawdy that was a time. I’m glad I watched this video because I didn’t know Carol’s daughter is now a new owner. It amazes me how as black women we are turned down jobs because of our hair. But you see a lot of “others” wearing the styles back women wear with no issues on their jobs. Braids, dread locks etc…They don’t lose their jobs. It’s sad to say but we can’t seem to have anything that’s ours. This was a great video!

As someone who has never been to America, this still affected us. Growing up as a black daughter of a white mother who didn't know how to 'dea' with my hair was not a smooth journey. My mother started using 'Just for me' relaxers on my hair when I was 6. She was happy with the results that to her I was finally beautiful and accepted among her family members, but it was all short lived when my hair started to break off. As a narcissist too, she often blamed and shamed me for my hair looking like that and she never asked any of our black relatives for help or advice when it came to managing my hair. Lucky for me she gave up on my hair by the time I was 12 and left me to deal with it. I continued to use a mild relaxer and heat up until I was 16 but the damage was already done. I permanently lost hair from both sides of my head. And since I was a Muslim I found liberation in covering my hair for good, yet she would constantly tell me that no one would marry a bald girl!! After 16 years old I decided to stop using heat and relaxers and learned how to braid my hair myself. As someone who went to an African school, most of the kids around me had braids so I tried to mimic them. Over time I got really good at doing 'Mushat' or cornrows as Americans call them and that helped me maintain and grow my hair. At the age of 18 I went to my home country and that was where my hair was celebrated for the first time in my life. My cousin gave me some box braids and that was my pivotal moment. I never stopped getting braids ever since. I also learned how to do them myself so I could section and style them however I wanted. Since my hair was still dead and damaged, and it never passed my neck length for as far as I remember, I decided to battle my fears and end my trauma and shave it all off. I stayed bald for 3 years and finally decided to grow it back at the age of 28. In just a year and half my hair grew back to the length that I had before shaving it but it was a thousand times more healthy and full and luscious. I'm rocking faux locs while keeping my hair protected to grow. I also take biotin and keratin supplements since I started growing it and I never added a drop of product on it since, yet it's as beautiful as it has ever been. I'm now 29 and I am continuing to grow my hair. I don't cover it anymore but celebrating it's every strand. I still have no sides but it doesn't bother me at all to go out in public with them, yet I'll still get them inplanted. I have a loving Portuguese fiancé who get excited with my hairstyles more than me. I am healed from the hair trauma that was not even my own, but enforced in me by my mother and her community.

I got in early on the natural hair movement back in 2006~2007 when I was in college. I didn't even know about the movement at first. I went natural because I went to a very white college and didn't have any black friends to help me. My whole life my mother did my hair or forced me to go to the Dominican salon and get my hair relaxed/blown out. So, in college all my relaxer started to grow out and I just let it. I started putting my hair in curlers to hide the texture and the few black people in my school would actually make fun of me. I still remember passing by a student council office where a group of black girls were hanging out. When I went out of view to the next office they thought I had left but I overheard them saying that I my hair looked like their grandmothers. I was so embarrassed I quickly left but after the whole natural hair movement started up I felt vindicated. Sometimes I like to pretend I had started the trend from those girls seeing me lol.

Can we get some bonus sections on the double standards and hypocrisy from men and religion? I do love the focus on black women perspective, but I remember my father questioning my support for liberated hair ,"bald headed" in this case, in the women I date. Telling me he'd divorce my mom even though they've been married 20+ years for such "behavior". Going on to quote the Bible about how men and women should present themselves. This man literally called out a child in church while leading prayer

I was natural my entire life until I became a sophomore in college in summer of 2006. My mom like so many in the 80s and 90s had relaxers but didn’t want me to grow up with low self esteem for having natural hair. So she grew her relaxer out and wore her hair natural from that point. I didn’t like sitting to get my hair braided for it to be flat under my hijab so at the tender age of 8 yrs old looking up to Lauryn Hill I asked my mother if I could loc my hair. So all throughout our middle and high school under my hijab I wore my hair in locs. When I became a freshman in college I got tired of never really exploring what my hair can do so I combed out my locs and got box braids with weave. Then I got a relaxer. It wasn’t the worse decision ever as far as my hair health because I took extra care of my hair during that time but I was spiritually and ethically conflicted because I was natural so long. So I grew the relaxer out and big chopped in 2013. Now at 35 I’m returning back to locs. Black women have such a love hate relationship with their hair. But it’s apart of our journey.

Learning that the girls on the Just For Me boxes by and large had their hair just pressed, not relaxed makes me weep for the 5 year old me who thought my hair would finally look like theirs with each application

My mom straightened my hair when I was too young to understand, and not knowing what was happening, I picked some of the product from my hair and swiped on my brother's head. He was a newborn at the time and got a burn so severe that 36 years later he can't grow any hair in that area. This is one of my earliest memories. Took me 30+ years to stop with the chemicals and go natural

I live in Japan and have for several years. My defining hair moment was, several years ago, going all the way to a military base to get a relaxer (which was done by a Japanese woman) and having all my edges break off. I remember taking a photo of myself with my damaged hair, then I went into the bathroom and did the big chop. I've been natural ever since, and that was over a decade ago. I mostly wear buzzcut, especially come summertime, but I have let my hair grow out several times. I don't often do braids, and I never do weave. I did wear wigs for a time years ago, but it wasn't a constant thing, and I was always switching the style up.

My hair is currently in faux locs after i shaved all my hair off last year and now its long enough to cornrow My boyfriend has a mohawk, so its so cute seeing black kids see this black man w a mohawk and be so fascinated by how big and tall it is (hes a punk) Black folks hair, especially black women is truly beautiful and versatile. Im finally gonna go on my actual loc journey after May (Momocon in ATL is happening and im wearing wigs for cosplay ofc) This video was informative and great as always ❤

Hairstyle hero: Donna Summer. I thought her long, wavy hair was natural and not a wig or extensions and I begged and begged my Mom to let me go natural. I have thick 4c hair so she would let me. I went natural at 18 and haven't looked back.

Queen Latifah was my hair icon. Every time she got a new hairstyle, I’d find the magazine article with it and show my hair dresser

I work in the german version of Child Protective Service , we had a girl that was a product from a one night stand of an drug addicted mother and a dad from Camerun. Managing her hair without it looking like she licked an power outlet or tried recreating a nuclear blast was a major issue. Especially since we could take her to a nearby hairdresser but not to the even closer Afro shops. In the end a french friend let me do her hair for a few weeks and gave me an unbelivable amount of tips. Her father moved here , she lives with him now and yesterday he came to our group and asked us hairdressing tips which was a surreal expience but everyone is happier now .

i would love a video on black women in STEM and their progression through science/tech based careers. think “hidden figures.” one of my favorite movies as an astronautical engineering student myself. many of my black female friends have spoken to me about their crushed desires to pursue higher education and occupations in STEM due to their fear of being “out of place” or not being recognized for the effort they put in. all too often black women have to RUN to keep pace with white women at a leisure strut in the world of career. white women latch on to misogyny and inequity in workplaces; while it may still be an issue, we do not experience a fraction of such that black women do from ALL parties- not just white men, but white women, black men, etc. we as white women have largely finished our fight for equity. it’s our job to utilize our privilege to raise all other women up to the standard we’ve set for our own treatment. it breaks my heart that so many intelligent, competent, and dedicated black women are pushed away from higher education and STEM fields because they are deemed unable to suffice.

Elexus this video was amazing. I loved seeing all your pictures 😍I, like you and so many other Black women, have struggled with my hair all my life. My mom relaxed my hair when I was young and I stayed with it until a few years ago when I was just done with the hassle of having to her new growth touched up. I wear my natural hair now, but there are days when I don’t like it. I think the most tragic part are the beliefs that get planted within us about what we “should” look like and what’s “professional, appropriate” etc. These days, at 38 almost 39 years of age, even though I have off days with my hair, I refuse to internalize my hair texture as being difficult or ugly or undesirable. It grows out of my head this way, and that can’t be wrong. I do enjoy my hair vacations though (braids, wigs, hair pieces) 😉. I wrote a children’s book called A Book for Black Girls and made sure the illustrator showed all variations of Black hair on the little girls. 🥰

I honestly love your video essays focused on black culture history and issues! I love this discussion, and it’s unfortunate that there is still texturism and issues with black hairstyles in professional areas.

Just finished watching, I'm 51 and grew up with a terrible time with my hair, my mother didn't know how to do my hair so went to so many beauticians trying to grow my short hair, I got Jheri curls from like 5th grade until high school when I got my first relaxer. Went natural in 2010, grow out to BSL , lost it all in 2019...now it's almost as long as it was 4 yrs ago...I can remember in the 90s taking tracks and setting them with rollers in the microwave so many stories

“Before you fix your well meaning fingers to offer suggestions of what I should do…I’m not asking for them.” Period lol.

I never comment but this was SOOO good. That hot comb...OMG..lol... Do you remember getting told to let the relaxer BURN so you knew it was working? So crazy. I'm natural now and fine with how it is, love playing with braids, wigs, twists, and whatever might be on trend. So much love! Please keep doing what you're doing!

Friend this was such an amazing video. I’m from Mexico and moved to the States two years ago; everything I know about black history is because of you (they don’t teach us that in my country) Your videos are always so well organized and enriching. Thanks for another great one!

I have quite literally shaved my head twice during the pandemic, so I FEEL you. My inspiration for going natural was seeing a picture of my mom in the 70s with a fro. I stopped getting relaxers at 14, and people at school called me Macy Gray. I decided to get locs after spending all of college with natural hair, and I loved them. Shaved my head in 2019, but am starting to grow them back now. Great video!

I didn't know the "big chop" was a normal part of hair journeys 100 years ago... and we still haven't accepted it. I remember thinking my wife was so brave when she cut out her relaxed hair in high school, ignorant of the struggles most girls learned to expect

I was so mad at Carol's Daughter & Shea Moisture for selling out so quickly

This video was so needed... we as Black women have so many deep rooted issues with our OWN hair because we've been PROGRAMMED to think this way. As a millennial, I'm soooo grateful I grew up with shows like That's So Raven, Moesha, Sister Sister, etc. and it felt good to see other Black girls with different hairstyles. Now little girls today, have a BLACK LITTLE MERMAID WITH LOCS!!!

Just hearing the word hot comb in the Garret Morgan section made me flinch. So glad I'm done with that mess, great work as always!

I don't usually comment personal stuff on RU-vid, but since you prompted us to at the end, I figured I'd give it a shot. This video hit very close to home for me. My mother used relaxers her whole life up until around 2020, and when she was pregnant with me in 2007, I've been told she would often cry out in pain or need to be rushed to the hospital because of her fibroids. It disgusts me that relaxers causing cancer hadn't come to light until recently, and I can't wait to show this video to my mom, since she loves your channel.💖The hair moments that defined me most growing up, were 1) Not knowing how to take care of my natural curls AT ALL as a biracial girl growing up with a white father, and a mom who grew up straightening her hair. I had to endure years of pain, breakage, frizziness and embarrassment until I finally found RU-vid tutorials in 2020. 2) Finally convincing my mom to quit relaxers after 40+ years, which is one of my proudest achievements.

we went natural at the same time

My defining hair moment was me begging my stylist to cut my hair shorter into a bob for months when I was about 14. My mother would take me to get silk presses like every 2-3 weeks, and my hair was relativity long (like right passed my shoulders) because it just always grew fast. She wouldn't do it, and I had a very hard time speaking up for myself back them especially with authority figures. At one point I cut it myself with regular scissors and I remember texting my friend after, crying for like hours after the rash decision. It was fine though, because since I messed it up, she HAD to cut it how I like. Eventually shaved the bottom half of it off when I turned 16, and then the whole thing when I was around a freshman in college. As a college student, I didn't have the money to maintain the hair cuts after my brother stopped clipping it for me lol, and I started to grow it out since then and wear it natural. Now its longer than its ever been. A lot of people place more value on my hair then I do, and I only grow it out because it is cheaper to do so. I wish my womanhood would be recognized no matter what length my hair is. Though I loved the short hair, the harassment I got from everyone because I was not fitting a women's beauty standard was ridiculous.

Mom's hairdresser did her hair until Mom passed away several years ago. Their friendship was in place my entire life, and Miss Sadie came to school events and funerals, we knew her kids and her siblings. Really important relationship. I have a really complicated relationship with my hair, but can relate to so many of the things in your video. The most important thing I did was to cut it all off, which was a huge deal in the 1980s. All of a sudden, I had a bunch of confrontations from all sides, about sexuality and gender.

I didn’t think I would make it there full hour but it was no sweat! I loved everything and related to your hair story so much. Growing up in the 80’s I had a Gerry curl that had to be cut off making me look like a boy for a while. Then I wanted to be the girl on the Pink Moisturizer ads. I’ve done everything including quick weave with the invisible part. Lol. I finally had an said RIP to the weave after my hair fell out. I’ve been natural for ten years now and my hair is past my shoulders. I still have all my edges and thick hair. A couple grey hairs are starting to come in and I’m so happy to embrace my new journey. Thank you so much for this video! Excellent presentation!

For me, im not even black, but seeing the curly hair movement mainly lead by black women has been revolutionary for me. Cause parts of my family had always put me down for my curly hair bcs while im mixed, im the kid with the most curly hair. So learning to style it and to love its curls has been a recent thing brought on by you women. Love all of yall

I really love this. My mom permed my hair at a young age which broke it off bad so for a while I thought my hair wasn't good and then I eventually cut it off and it grew back and I was so happy. I wore it naturally, and occasionally, I would wear a wig. I love my natural hair, and I love wigs, and I really love color. I never hated my natural hair. I just liked changing my styles and having the freedom to.

Loved this video! Really shows how hair care for black women is much deeper than people think. I tried all kinds of things and was not happy with my hair or how I maintained it for a really long time.

I love seeing videos about black hair history and culture. I have straight/wavy hair, but my daughter, who's part black, has very curly hair. Learning how to care for her hair is a process and I often have so many questions about how to style it. But also trying to reinforce that she is beautiful and valued with her hair fixed and with her hair undone. Thank you for an informative video. I need to do some more research on black/curly/coily hair care products. Im always trying to do the best for my kids. And this video gave me some much needed cultural context.

White dude here -- all the trauma and discrimination for your hair, especially the personal stories in the video and comments, breaks my heart. I never had to deal with any shit like that. I never even once got teased or bullied for my hair, let alone been denied a job or fired. You all are strong, that's all I gotta say. Thanks for the amazing video

On 9/11, I was in the barbershop getting my hair cut off. I was scheduled to leave for Navy boot camp the following week. I kept a fade for the better of 18 years because I didn't want to put chemicals in my hair. Over the last few years, the Navy tossed out the ban on locs. I've had them since 2020. Best choice I ever made.

Wow! Thank you so much for putting this video together. Your research, storytelling, and visuals are top tier! 💐💐💐

I didn't even realize how much I needed you to do this topic till I saw the video title. I've tried so hard for years to think of my hair as 'just hair', but honestly it's _never_ """just hair""" 😅🙃 So excited to sit back, relax and be educated. 🤓

I stopped using relaxers back in 2013 and did my big chop in 2014. When I use to use relaxers, my hair wouldn’t grow past my shoulders and it would constantly break off. My mom put a relaxer in my hair when I was 4 but once I got to high school I started doing my own hair and at 17 I decided to start transitioning before I did the big chop. Now I have long mid back length natural hair. I love how versatile natural hair is and how I can go from curly to straight if I wanted to without a relaxer. I’m NEVER using a relaxer again.

Shoutout to Ms. JoAnn for doing my relaxers during my childhood and preforming my big chop back in 2012! She is one of my grandmother's childhood friends, had her own beauty salon (licensed) attached to her house. I cherish those moments of my hair evolution. I hated sitting under the dryer pre-smart phone days but loved to flip through the black hair magazines she had. This video essay was a eye-opening and informative trip down memory lane. I loved seeing your hair journey during this video as well, Elexus! I appreciate all your hard work!

I actually knew most of this but it was a great video. I remember at age 16, watching an episode of the Tyra Banks show, the show was about black women and natural hair. At that time. Natural hair was a new concept to me. Every black woman I knew had perms or weaves and I myself got my hair pressed every two weeks ever since I was a little girl. My hair could never take perms. Anyway. I remember saying after that show that I wanted to try to go natural. My dad told me "Amelia. You don't have the right kind of hair for that." Other people told me I'm already light skinned so why would I want to go natural and look black. Yes. People. I got comments like that. Still. I never knew what my natural hair looked like. So. I cut it off and went natural. At first I didn't like my 4a/b or just coily hair. But that hate didn't last long. Soon. I saw how my afro framed my face and how my hair got use to a certain routine. And now going on 30. I've been natural ever since and all of my sisters and my mother are now natural. And we all have big from. And now I get praise. I get called Angela Davis or Chaka Khan often. ❤

Worth every minute of watching! I don't know how more of us aren't supporting your platform. I've been tuned in for years. Hope more people get to learn from your work.

your videos are always soooo well put together it's insane. thank you for all your hard work!!

When you brought up the good hair/bad hair bias I realized how much of my want for wavy hair over my 4a kinky hair was so tied to colorism and racism. For years as a light mixed person, I wished I could have this pretty wavy hair that many of my classmates had/have. I would wash it often and put so much product on my hair to try and make it wavy or at least curly. I even remember having it flat ironed and then curling it to "look prettier". This went on for a while until in my Freshman year of high school I just shaved my head clean and realized how beautiful my hair looked growing back naturally. I realized how beautiful my hair is and how much I love my hair. I love natural styles when I get tired of doing my hair all the time (braids and locs). And even every now and then (a couple years) I shave it because I just want a restart. But before watching this there was always a weird want for this wavy 3a-3b hair and thinking I'd look somehow "better" with it not realizing until now how bad of a mindset that is. We need so much more love on 4a-4c hair because it is so beautiful and gorgeous!

I’m glad that you are informing us, as a white girl that grew out in a town in south south América where black people started to arrive in the from ~2015 and the only black representation I saw growing up was in Disney channel (when Raven, Monique Coleman, Zendaya and most of black actresses had straight hair or wigs) I never knew all of the struggles that you may have to endure for your natural hair, since it wasn’t even shown in the media back then, and the few black immigrants that arrived to my town had braided hair, I usted to think that was a stylistic choice, but thanks to a black youtubers that I followed I got informed in my 18-19s about that besides being discriminated for your skin color, the hair is also another discrimination factor in some countries. In my country isn’t that weird to have “white” people (everyone is mixed with indigenous and colonizers, no one is truly white, most of us brown) with curly hair in different degrees, so although straighter hair is popular in the high class 🙄 it isn’t a big o a deal for common people and is usually complemented. The point is that thanks for sharing information and your experiences, so we can learn more about you and learn what can be offensive or racist to say to you and take us out of our ignorance. Also the animated series Moon girl and devil dinasour episode Hair today gone tomorrow, tackles the theme or her black hair and how she tried to straighten it due to bullying/ social pressure but finally after talking with her mom and grandma she embraces her curly hair.

Black hair sure has come a long way since the early civilizations of Africa, but we have a long way to go with experimentation in the 21st century & beyond. Reading “Hair Story” was a connecting & enlightening insight on Black hair in the context of African societal identity to the Middle Passage to slavery/Reconstruction/early 20th century & beyond. Thank you for this deep dive! 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

I thought it'd be cool to also share my hair story! I actually asked to get a relaxer as a kid because my working mother dreaded doing my hair as often as it needed to be done. I got one starting at 8 I think and kept getting them until my freshman year of high school. There I met a girl on my track team whose hair was always laid and when I asked how she always kept it that way she said she just pressed it out with a flat iron from the root. I was astounded and eventually became a "straight natural". I didn't call myself a natural back then though because I wasn't wearing my natural texture. I eventually big chopped the summer after my sophomore year when the textural difference between my relaxed ends and natural roots got to be embarrasing. I still got my hair pressed out by my stylist every 2 weeks to a month until I went away for college and couldn't see her as often. I got really good at styling my natural hair during the pandemic when I had time to watch natural hair styling tutorials 😊

to be fair, I would have watched a ten hour video on the history of black women's hair written by you. But a one hour video is more than enough to brighten my week. great work as usual! I'm not a black woman, but even if I can't identify culturally with this, personally, I feel for the struggle. I've got a thick mass of unruly hair on my head, and I've got my fair share of anecdotes around hairdressers and running under the table every time my mom approached me with a comb (and her burning my scalp and ears trying to straighten it--she wasn't a very delicate hair stylist). I definitely get why hair is such a big part of self-expression and bodily autonomy affirmation for black women.

Alllll of this!!!!! As soon as I stopped using weave glue and relaxer, there was no more dandruff or irritation! This natural journey has been an adventure, because I'm still learning even after 10 years!

This was the video I didn’t know I needed!! My mom had a very dedicated stylist she went to monthly for decades! We went back to our hometown to visit him and he of course remembered her instantly, good stylists were forever friends. Thank you for these amazing videos, Lexual does it again!

What a fantastic video. I can't wait to see you cover the 90's, and I agree with a few other commenters that a history of makeup and beauty trends would be a great complement to this. Also sorry in advance for when this comment turns into an essay- there was just so much good thought provoking content. I appreciate that you always double down to remind viewers that hair has never been "just hair" for Black men and women because it's inseparable from being racialized. That white people (and white legal/media institutions) have the luxury of developing cultural amnesia really comes through in moments like the American Airlines court decision. And on that note... Seeing the chronology laid out really opened my eyes to the parallel timeline of how white hair trends were lifted wholesale from Black women's. Like I suddenly remembered all those TV ads in 2000's that were marketing clip-on extensions and hair beading to little white girls. Something clicked now that I had the context to see how this evolved into the same classmates getting cornrows done on cruises, and into white influencers aiming to recreate dreads, babyhairs, and just "trying to look ethnic" You really did a great job of laying out the way globalized consumerism and historical whitewashing reinforce each other, and how that lets white people mentally separate "black hair" from "blackness" and thus argue that it's "just a business decision" or "personal choice" for white people to profit from / emulate Black hair... as if those decisions didn't have a political context or effect. While you didn't get into blackfishing in much detail, it both reminded me of those discussions and hammered home how much there's this "consumption" of Black women's appearance by the wider public. Where just select individual features get rebranded as desirable/respectable, and get marketed to everyone under the sun or just credited to white women, and treated as just aesthetic "pieces" of blackness that can be packaged and sold.

I gotta say, I just clicked this video because I thought it would be shorter, but your content kept me engaged and I didn't realized it was an hour long! I live in Mexico, but your content has made me interested and has shaded new light on issues and culture of Afro-america.

That message from 1904 is still a issue here in 2023. That’s crazy how things have not changed.

Girl…. What do you think about doing a segment on black women in rock music, black women fans of rock music?

Video of all time. Sent this to my boyfriend so he Knows..... I would love to see you speak about black women in punk and goth communities!

Omg! Raven Symone was a hair icon and I also connect with the Bantu knots hairstyle from Scary Spice. I wore that the first day of school maybe in 5th or 6th grade. I had a baseball tee dress and a choker - I thought I was really doing something

i am not black, so this isnt about me, rather other people in my life. ive always had horrible mental health and was hospitalized several times through high school. while i was there one time there were several black techs and one of them brought some hair care products from home and did a couple of the patients hair. its interesting to me how hair and mental health are linked with one another since hair is one of the first things thats super noticeable youre not taking care of when you have shit going on. that or youre altering it in some way a la the "i bleached/dyed/cut my hair again during a manic episode" joke that ive frequently seen thrown around and done at my super low points. love your videos, always really interesting to hear about black history and culture

Thank you for all the work you do. As someone who is white, and grew up in a severely white small town, these history videos fill in so many gaps for me, and contextualize things that make me better understand the "why" of the politics of hair.

This was such an interesting watch and it got me emotional. I'm white, but from a mixed Brazilian family (most of us live here in Brazil). I understood the struggles of people with curly hair going from my mom (biracial married to a white man) and every other women in her family who was born with either curly or kinky hair (especially the dark skin women, that struggle was so fucking bad and sad, I watched most of my dark skin aunties hiding their hair in one way or another). It was very evident something was weird when even my white aunties straightened it out and bleached their hair blonde to look whiter. I also was shocked when I let my own hair grow and it was called "bad hair" or "it doesn't fit you" as in it doesn't fit the color of my skin because it's curly and a bit kinkier, that happened for most of my teen years even though I'm clearly white as fuck. It was traumatizing and I remember pursuing ways to make it straight so I could fit the white stereotype until I got educated on how wrong that was. It got me emotional to hear the stories of how these things happened all over the US and it reminded me of how important it is to support black people with any choice of hairstyle they pick and what it means to them, especially black women.

I'm a young black girl who has just learnt the importance of my black hair and its history .it took me a long time understand how my hair is not just hair and is really important part of being black. I used to always fight myself and straighten my hair and beat myself up for having my 4c hair but I never truly took time to learn how to really nurture it. This is also because I didn't know how to. I didn''t take this time because I was always told by everyone around me how badly my hair looked or how it looked shit... although as a kid you may not realise how this can really impact the person. I think children should be taught about other cultures and why certain things carry importance so they are not as ignorant. Its difficult to get out of that mindset of hating your hair but it truly is a wonderful experience now of doing my hair. I had a friend who was Jamaican and she wasn't as dark as me but she was the only person who was my friend of the time who had the closest hair type to me .whenever she would wear her hair out she would be able to just go around school find people even compliment her hair. But when I would wear my hair I realised that people would just degrade me. This was in year 4 by the way so we will still very young yet we had learnt how to hate eachother so impactfully. I now realise that this was just a result of colourism as she was lighter than me and had looser hair type than me. As I grew older I still don't know until look after my hair and I would constantly straighten it in order to look like a "white person's hair". of course my Hair cannot never be as straight as a natural straight head of hair so it looks horrible, even my mum told me. RU-vid is the only place I really learnt how to learn to do my hair and then tiktok came about and I learnt even more. Social media has truly taught me how to love my hair. So much representation is on there and I've now gotten to a stage where I can where my hair out without fearing of other people. Ofc ppl still make comments but I've learnt gow to handle them better. I even love my natural hair more than braids and I miss it when it's in them. I've come so far and I'm thankful to every black women who has made content 🙌 🙏

29:30. My dad got a chemically induced afro. It changed his hair texture permanently on 95% of his head. He was very happy with the result. He had wavy loose curl hair prior ~

My mama lost her job back in the 90s for having braids. I'll never forget that as long as i live

Yet another incredible video by Lexi. 🤲🏽❤️

Phenomenal amount of research as usual. this video really resonated with me, I remember getting my hair relaxed from 15-17 years old to going natural at 18 til now 💪🏽